The Singapore Arts Festival kicks off 25 May. If you watch anything, watch these, says Edward Choy

PLAY! A Video eeGame Symphony

15 & 16 June; 7.30pm. Esplanade Concert Hall Picture this: the ultra-posh Esplanade Concert Hall filled with geeks. Not just one or two, standing around fiddling with calculators and PSPs, but whole hordes, some actually wearing T-shirts that say ‘Horde’ (and if you understood that reference then you’ll definitely want tickets to this show). PLAY! features a symphonic orchestra performing music from iconic video game titles like ‘Super Mario Bros’, ‘Final Fantasy’ and ‘World of Warcraft’. All the while, a giant screen will air visuals from the games. Expect involuntary gear-shift movements from the young man beside you.

Sacred Monsters

8 & 9 June; 8pm. Esplanade Theatre The title is a reference to the nickname given to stars of the stage in nineteenth-century France, and ballerina Sylvie Guillem and choreographer Akram Khan are just about as big as they get. Guillem the prima ballerina engages in a spectacular dance-off with Khan, trained in Indian kathak, which will both challenge and excite connoisseurs. For us plebeians, the opportunity to gasp at Guillem’s infamous 180-degree leg extensions should more than suffice.

Wong Kar Wai Dreams

13, 14, 15 June; 8pm. Drama Centre Theatre You know you have to watch this, simply because the plot is so trippy. Cult Hong Kong director Wong is best known for his stylised art-house flicks like ‘Chungking Express’ and ‘In the Mood for Love’. This play is about a woman who dreams of Wong dreaming about her as his leading lady – in a movie set in Singapore. If you’re a fan of the filmmaker, that’s probably just barely convoluted enough for you. But it gets even better: the performance is being staged by Singapore’s best puppet theatre company, the Finger Players, with Singapore’s best mime actors in its cast. We’re serious – mimes on stage with puppets. Who needs psychotropic drugs when you’ve got shows like this?

The Map & Paper Concerto

2 & 3 June; 7.30pm. Esplanade Concert Hall Two concertos for the price of one, and they’re both pretty awesome. In the Map Concerto, composer Tan Dun brings traditional Chinese village music into the concert hall, employing an orchestra that interacts with the recordings of villagers’ performances. A particularly evocative sequence has a cellist responding live to a video recording of a girl’s song to her prospective spouse. The Paper Concerto demonstrates Tan’s creative genius as the percussionists coax extraordinary sounds from cardboard, paper bags and even paper sails.

Full Frontal

19 & 20 June; 8pm. Esplanade Theatre Studio The Full Frontal programme pairs new directors with old material, and this year the choices are stellar. Perhaps best known as an actress, Li Xie directs local theatre legend Kuo Pao Kun’s ‘Little White Sailing Boat’, which was written and staged two years after Kuo’s release from prison for alleged communist activities and played to full houses at the 1982 SAF. Peter Sau, a pioneer graduate of Kuo’s Theatre Training and Research Programme, will direct former Straits Times journalist Tan Tarn How’s ‘Machine’ in the other half of this double bill.