Singapore International Festival of Arts 2026

Noli Timere: A fusion of dance and circus almost 8m high in the air

Noli Timere has captivated more than 10,000 people across 15 performances in the US and Canada.

SINGAPORE – Forget the “hush-hush” atmosphere of traditional theatre. Instead, head out to the vibrant public space above Punggol Coast MRT station or open green space at Empress Lawn to catch a series of free aerial performances.

Sifa highlight Noli Timere – a fusion of contemporary dance and avant-garde circus – is a collaboration between Canadian director and choreographer Rebecca Lazier and American artist Janet Echelman. The two met in 2018 at a conference exploring the intersection of the arts and engineering at Princeton University in the United States, where Lazier is a senior lecturer in dance.

“I was drawn to the inherent choreography in her suspended net sculptures, and she responded to the immediacy and presence in my work,” Lazier, 57, recalls. “We knew instantly we wanted to bring humans to her suspended environments – something that had never been done before.”

Turning a massive art installation into a “stage” took five years of experiments.