Marking its 40th anniversary, T:>Works presents DnA Fest. Conceived and directed by T:>Works Artistic Director Ong Keng Sen, DnA Fest cracks open Henry Purcell’s 1688 Dido and Aeneas, reinterpreting the baroque opera through a dialogue between opera, nightlife, cabaret, documentary film, and a live DJ score.
Unfolding across two weekends, 16–19 and 23–26 July, DnA Fest is a thrilling triptych of
- Film: The House of Janus
A quiet and deeply personal love letter that premiered at the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF 2024). - Show: Dido & The Belindas
First created as a work-in-progress for SIFA 2024, it further evolved at Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting in Japan, December 2024, and now returns to Singapore in a bold, reimagined version with performers from both Singapore and Japan, including the glamorous voguer, Icon Overall Mother of House of Mizrahi, Koppi Mizrahi, and the electric Father Japan Chapter of House of Oricci, Showta Oricci. - Nightlife: The Afterparty, bursting with drag queens and voguers.
DnA Fest also marks the launch of a new initiative The AGEncy Fund. Recognising the poignant themes of age, place, and a sense of abandonment explored in The House of Janus, T:>Works launches The AGEncy Fund at a fundraiser screening on 10 July. With the 40th anniversary, T:>Works deepens its ethos of care begun with T:>Care, its fundraising platform established in 2020 to nurture the Singapore ecosystem and reflects T:>Works’ commitment to the transformative power of performance.
Funds raised will be ring-fenced to empower creators aged 60 and above with resources to develop their work, culminating in a future AGEncy Festival.
The House of Janus (2024). Frame enlargement.
DIDO AND AENEAS (2024) at 72-13, Singapore. Photo by Debbie Y.
The very name, DnA Fest, cleverly embodies T:>Works’ 40-year artistic DNA: Transcultural, Transdisciplinary, Transformative, even as it hints at the inspiration of Dido and Aeneas. This generative ethos permeates the programme – Film, Show and Nightlife – as they unpack the opera’s core themes of Love, Abandonment, and Transformation, offering a powerful subversion of its tragic conclusion. While Purcell’s Dido succumbs to death after her abandonment by Aeneas, Ong reimagines ‘abandonment’ as a potent force of care, liberation, and agency.
This reimagining takes a reflective form in Film: The House of Janus. Marking Ong Keng Sen’s return to cinema since 1996’s blockbuster Army Daze, this deeply personal and visually striking “love letter” offers an intimate glimpse into Ong’s life in Europe with his nonagenarian partner, Adriaan van der Staay. The film meditates on enduring love, ageing and impermanence through a compelling hybrid of cinema verité, documentary, and operatic fantasy set within their Italian hillside home in Bettona. Shifting perspectives between the house itself and its creator, the film subtly explores Adriaan’s coming to terms with the inevitable abandonment of all he has built and cherished. The opera Dido and Aeneas, the first opera the partners listened to together in this house 16 years ago and a recurring summer tradition, serves as a poignant leitmotif. Its themes of loss and farewell echo Adriaan’s own quiet reckonings that he, like Aeneas, has to leave his life behind when destiny beckons. Evoking the two-faced Roman god Janus, the film reflects on the transience of life, the residue of personal actions, and the elusive nature of permanence as Adriaan enters his golden years, facing the inevitable departure from his beloved House of Janus with grace.
The House of Janus (2024). Frame enlargement.
Juxtaposing the cinematic reimagining is Show: Dido & The Belindas, where Ong harnesses the energy of drag artistry and ballroom vogue culture, particularly in the rousing “Tribe of the Abandoned”. This Tribe, or The Belindas, together with Becca D’Bus as host and Dido personified, reframes societal marginalisation by transforming wit, glamour, and performativity into powerful tools of resistance and survival. In doing so, the show celebrates the thriving queer communities forged outside the mainstream. The show is also a visual feast with sets and props intricately hand-made by award winning visual artist Khairullah Rahim. This reimagining underscores T:>Works’ enduring commitment to challenging conventional narratives and amplifying the politics of marginalised voices and their narratives through boundary-pushing performance. It also marks a return to T:>Works’ long-standing inter-Asia collaborations, which began with Japan in 1992. Indeed, DnA Fest features long-time Japanese collaborator, composer and DJ artist Toru Yamanaka (Flying Circus Project 2000, Global Soul 2003, Chinoiserie 2004, Geisha 2006, Diaspora 2009, Lear Dreaming 2012, Sandaime Richard 2016, A Thousand Stages, Yet I Have Never Quite Lived 2021). Joining him are new collaborators of T:>Works such as Koppi Mizrahi, Showta Oricci, Momo Adachi, Acyd Rayne, Amir Haziq, Kak Nina Boo, Vignesh Kumar Singh, Vivihoe, and celebrated lyric tenor Thomas Michael Allen.
DIDO AND AENEAS (2024) at Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting 2024, Japan. Photo by Hideto Maezawa.
Concluding the Friday nights of July 18 and 25 is Nightlife: The Afterparty. These two specially curated parties, each with distinct DJ styles and performances, promise a high-octane culmination to the overall experience. Ensconced within the former rice godown at 72-13, now a vibrant hub of contemporary culture, expect an exhilarating fusion of voguing, drag, and pulsating beats – the perfect celebratory capstone to 40 years of T:>Works’ artistic vibrancy.
Join T:>Works in celebrating 40 years of fearless creativity with the DnA Fest.
DIDO AND AENEAS (2024) at 72-13, Singapore. Photo by Debbie Y.
