Evolving Multiculturalism: Speech by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Opening of the 2026 Mid-Year Congress of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) at the Esplanade Singtel Waterfront Theatre on 19 May 2026

Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo,

Ms Goh Swee Chen, Chair of the National Arts Council,

Mr Alfonso Leal del Ojo,

Mr David Baile, Chair and CEO of the International Society for the Performing Arts

And everyone else who's here for this exciting gathering of people from around the region, around the world.

Welcome to Singapore. We are honoured to host you, and we’re sure that something productive will come out of these four days.

I want to thank the National Arts Council. They worked very hard with their partners to bring all of us together. And I want to express appreciation to ISPA for your remarkable, 115 years of working to connect people around the world through the performing arts.

The last time that Singapore hosted the ISPA Congress was June 2003. More than two decades on, we meet in a world more uncertain, more divided, and with more egregious offenses to humanity. But beyond the wars and geopolitical conflicts of the day, there is a slow-moving current that will have profound and lasting consequences: the steady corrosion of trust - between nations of different peoples, and more fundamentally within societies themselves. People are becoming more divided along lines of ethnicity, culture, beliefs, educational status, and socio-economic circumstances.

Multiculturalism, which was one of the more important advances across a range of democracies, is now in retreat in large parts of the world. The reasons are not simple and often relate to other factors, such as a loss of economic confidence among majorities of people.

There will hence be no quick fix to the loss of trust within societies. But it will require reimagining multiculturalism, and recognising that it only becomes a reality, and only sustains itself, by acts of will – in other words, by an active rather than passive approach to multiculturalism. No nation can any more claim to be effortlessly multicultural. It will require effort.

It needs active national and community strategies, robust civic networks, and determined efforts by teachers, starting from preschools, community and religious leaders, employers, and artists, among others.

The arts play a particularly important role. They allow us to encounter one another not as categories, but as people - with histories, emotions, aspirations, and different ways of seeing the world.

The arts hence both expose us to differences, and allow us to explore what we have in common. “Different, but same, same”. They give us the shared experiences that take us to the core of who we are as human beings.

For Singapore, multiculturalism was never an abstract ideal. From our early years, we made a deliberate choice: that diversity should be a source of strength, not division. And it must involve everyone in the population.

As Mr Lee Kuan Yew said in 1959, our very first year of internal self-government – he was commenting on the thousands of people who would flock to see performances of different cultures, “they were not just mere spectators watching something being performed for them. They were participants, each and every one, in a spiritual experience which will bring people closer and make them more coherent, and more loyal to each other and to the State which belongs to all of us”.

Multiculturalism has hence been at the core of the Singapore journey - the journey of building and deepening the identity of a young and diverse nation.

We have come to think of this identity as being advanced through three distinct spaces:

The first is the space of each community's cultural and religious life - its language, faith, rituals, and memories. It is where communities draw emotional assurance and a sense of rootedness. Far from asking communities to thin these out, we have encouraged them to keep their taproots deep. A confident multicultural society begins with communities that are confident in who they are.

The second is our common space - the secular, neutral ground of our schools, mixed public housing estates, and workplaces. It is where Singaporeans meet as equals, regardless of ethnicity or creed. It requires every community to accept some measure of compromise, so that our children grow up with a sense of sameness, and we can live together with trust. We have therefore been deliberate, even strict at times, in keeping this common neutral space.

It is the third space of multiculturalism that we are now developing most actively and creatively. It is where cultures and artists meet, borrow from each other, and reshape their own practices. It is where we spur the development of new rhythms and forms in the creative arts, within and across each of our traditions, in a distinctly Singaporean context.

- Like we just saw with Flame of the Forest and Shazza a moment earlier.

- An example is Siong Leng Musical Association, which keeps alive the ancient Chinese music form called Nanyin. Siong Leng has partnered with Indian dance company Chowk Productions to create a dialogue between the two artistic traditions, and between the traditional and contemporary. It has also collaborated with the Malay folk ensemble Gendang Akustika, which brings fresh interpretation to traditional Asli music; the two troupes having in common their soulful vocals and layered musical textures.

- Another example is Apsaras Arts, which is dedicated to redefining classical Indian dance, partnering a Balinese choreographer and musicians from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra to produce a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary performance titled ‘ARISI: Rice’.

- Equally important in this third space have been the artists who cross over to a culture other than their own and attempt to master its intricacies.

- Zoe Tan, lawyer by day, began a dance journey with ballet as a child, but is now a leading exponent of Indian Kathak dance with Bhaskar’s Arts Academy.

We cannot force the evolution of this third space, or curate multiculturalism to match a fixed template. It will have to grow naturally, to its own beat. But it is precisely that organic evolution, that respects the role of artists, their imagination, their experimentation, their engagements with each other, and their efforts to borrow from and sometimes even master another culture, that assures multiculturalism of its authenticity. And what will emerge in time will, I am sure, be a more confident sense of shared identity in Singapore.

Building Bridges

This ISPA congress captures what artistic exchange can do at its best: deepen mutual appreciation across the performing arts traditions, and spark new collaborations between established and emerging arts practitioners.

Singapore's long-standing partnership with ISPA reflects this commitment. Through the ISPA Singapore Regional Fellowship, our artists have connected with international peers, forged collaborations and broadened their own practice. Hosting this Mid-Year Congress in Singapore builds on this foundation.

But our ambition goes beyond this conference. Singapore hopes to catalyse and grow creative exchanges within Southeast Asia. We will provide a node where artists from across the region can meet, experiment, and create works that interweave different genres and influences from diverse traditions.

Southeast Asia has always had this. Its history has been that of absorbed traditions from different parts of the world, and adapting them and making them local.

Forms such as Bangsawan drew from Indian, Malay, and Western influences. Wayang Kulit travelled across communities, adapting its stories along the way. Gamelan, too, evolved across Asia, each time reshaped by local culture.

Those were the early expressions of what the arts have long done: creating space for convergence, and evolving through exchange rather than isolation.

The Multicultural Arts Program Grant

We are strengthening the foundation of multicultural arts in Singapore – starting from the young, activating the arts in our communities and within the whole arts ecosystem. We will at the same time deepen and support new artistic partnerships across the region; help the arts build bridges of understanding across Southeast Asia and beyond.

That is why the new $20 million multicultural arts program grant was announced earlier this year by the Ministry of Culture, Community, and Youth. It's supported by the President's Challenge and the Ministry. The grant recognises what I spoke about earlier: multiculturalism has to be actively nurtured.

- The grant will support artists and organisations in deepening traditional art forms and in developing multicultural, intercultural, and cross-cultural works, including through regional collaboration.

- It will also support the ecosystem that makes such work possible - including the ecosystem of fellowships, research, regional collaboration platforms, youth mentorships, teacher development, and sustained collaboration.

- To guide this work, a President's Challenge Multiculturalism Panel has been established to advise on the implementation of the grant and to guide our initiatives in the multicultural arts.

I encourage our artists and arts organisations to apply for the grant, and to help deepen Singapore's multicultural art space.

Ultimately, this is how multiculturalism lives and grows: through artists who are rooted in their own traditions, always curious about others and sometimes mastering another tradition, and willing to create together.

Conclusion

I should conclude by enticing you with the thought of the familiar Singapore dish that you will be consuming later. The laksa that you will be having later at Makansutra draws from Peranakan, Malay, Chinese, and Indian traditions. Familiar, not because it belongs neatly to any one community, but because it is quintessentially Singapore.

As you engage with one another through performances and discussions over the next four days, I'm sure you will also seed new collaborations and new ways of seeing each other.

So, I wish you all a fruitful time. And it is now my pleasure to declare the 2026 ISPA Mid-Year Congress open. Thank you.