Singapore | A Game of Numbers - NUS Arts and Mathematics Festival

Singapore’s first Mathematics-themed Arts Festival will be held at National University of Singapore in March 2019. Over 2 weekends, NUS Centre For the Arts (CFA) will present A Game of Numbers, a festival of dance, music, theatre and film with the theme of mathematics, believed to be the first ever mathematics-themed arts festival in Singapore.

This is also the first time that a Singapore group has obtained the rights to stage Complicité UK’s award-winning work, A Disappearing Number. More than 250 local and international arts practitioners, student artists and faculty members will present a unique spectrum of events which focus on the aesthetics of mathematics and the shared values between the arts and mathematics.

A Game of Numbers is inspired by the writings of G.H. Hardy, an eminent mathematician who wrote “A mathematician, like a painter or a poet is a maker of patterns.” and frequently alluded to the parallels between Mathematics and the Arts.

The Festival is a collaboration between NUS Centre For the Arts and the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Science. Some of the Mathematics faculty with a deep personal interest in the arts will be giving short talks to the artists to clarify concepts in the work they are developing for the festival.”

Said Ms Sharon Tan, Director for CFA, “This collaboration between the Department of Mathematics is a continuation of CFA’s efforts to integrate the arts into different aspects of learning and University life. The Festival gives us the opportunity to expose the students in our arts groups who come from various schools to areas of study they would otherwise not have access to and this broadens their minds through creative thinking. We are grateful to the Department of Mathematics for their keen involvement in the Festival through consultations with the students and artistic directors and as moderators of the panel discussions. We look forward to seeing the fruits of this collaboration.”

The Festival will open with Complicité UK’s A Disappearing Number, directed by highly acclaimed theatre director Edith Podesta. This is the first time that a Singapore group has obtained the rights to stage Complicité’s work, a world-renowned theatre company known for its innovation. Winner of the 2008 Olivier Award for Best New Play, A Disappearing Number will tell the true story of the extraordinary collaboration between Cambridge professor G.H. Hardy and self-taught mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who made some of the most significant mathematical discoveries of the 20th century. The extraordinary work of visual and physical theatre will feature professional actors Remesh Panicker (The Merchant of Venice), Koh Wan Ching (Mortal Sole) and Pavan J Singh (Chinatown Crossings) alongside the creative talents of Brian Gothong Tan, Steve Kwek and Teo Wee Boon with students from NUS Stage.

See website for other programme events, including theatre, dance and music performances, film and conversations.