Celebrating 15 years of Muara Festival
Muara Festival is the flagship annual event of Era Dance Theatre, celebrating the richness and evolution of Malay dance. Rooted in tradition yet open to contemporary expression, the festival serves as a vital platform for cultural exchange, artistic exploration, and intergenerational dialogue. Showcasing a dynamic mix of performances, workshops, talks, and community engagements, Muara brings together artists, practitioners, and audiences from Singapore and the wider region. It is a space where heritage flows into new creative currents - where the past meets the present to shape the future of Malay dance.
Muara Festival 2025 marks 15 years of the festival with a grander-than-ever celebration. Expect more dance showcases, conversations with local and regional choreographers, masterclasses and open classes, and an exciting mini-market to round it all off. Watch Malay Dance come alive at Muara Festival 2025!
Theme for Muara Festival 2025: Antara Nusa Bergema
(The Archipelago Echoes)
Muara Festival 2025’s theme, "Antara Nusa Bergema," celebrates the mighty echoes that resound across the Malay Archipelago. Through the languages of dance, music, and storytelling, the festival traces the enduring resonance of traditions, memories, and shared experience as they reverberate between islands and across generations.
"Antara Nusa Bergema" invites audiences to listen deeply to the echoes of the past, feel the vibrations of living culture, and witness how these echoes inspire fresh interpretations in the present. The festival becomes a meeting ground, where ancestral wisdom and creative innovation merge, and where the collective spirit of the Nusantara continues to shape new stories and poetic expressions for the future.
Presented by Era Dance Theatre in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay as part of Esplanade's Pentas series.
About the Festival
Muara embodies the convergence of ideas and practices, a meeting point, from all over the world at “Muara (rivermouth)”
Symbolically, Muara advocates the gathering of the best artisans and groups and the myriad of cultures and traditions they possess.
Muara reflects a different paradigm to what constitutes the traditional and the old. Indeed, a new breath of life is infused with traditional dance sequences to give rise to creative contemporary works. More than just a festival that promises you glitter and grandeur, the festival is also a platform for ideas exchange, collaboration and sharing between arts practitioners, enthusiasts, young choreographers and the public.