Everyone’s A Critic

Paying tribute to writer, poet, and National Laureate Usman Awang, Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre’s return to live theatre celebrates the written word alongside performance. Directed by Datuk Faridah Merican, the show features various interpretations and translations of Usman’s writings, bringing together poetry, music, dance and visuals. We review the show, and rediscover the joys of live performances.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

Image Source: Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC)

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Paying tribute to writer, poet, and National Laureate Usman Awang, Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre’s return to live theatre celebrates the written word alongside performance. Directed by Datuk Faridah Merican, the show features various interpretations and translations of Usman’s writings, bringing together poetry, music, dance and visuals. We review the show, and rediscover the joys of live performances.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

Image Source: Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Keringat: Tales of Our Forefathers brings an artistic lens to Malaysia’s socioeconomic development, by showcasing over 50 artworks from colonial Malaya up to the 1980s. The paintings and photographs feature the sectors of agriculture, fisheries, mining, and small businesses, and offer an interesting, often intimate, way of connecting to the country’s past and its journey to the present.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

Image Source: Hu Te Hsin, Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery

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Described as a “virtual maze”, pause // play is a collaborative art project by creatives from various disciplines, under Seni Tiga. The people involved never met physically while working on the project, and the show ended up being a way for them to react to local and global experiences of the pandemic and lockdowns. We review the show, and discuss our experience “getting lost” in it.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chong Kim Chiew’s latest solo exhibition examines money as both an object and a system, through works that depict banknotes dating from colonial times of Malaya and British Borneo, to the Japanese occupation, through to the current day. We review the show and discuss our response to the works themselves, as well as how they fit into larger conversations around art, money, and how we value both.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rakaman Emosi: Kata is the first in a planned series of audio projects that merge duo Francoe’s experimental music with various types of artistic works. In Kata, they collaborate with poets, creating ambient music and sounds for distinctly different forms of poetry and spoken word performances. We review the project and discuss the unique coming together of artforms. Francoe is made up of Coebar Abel and Ian Francis Khoo, and the project features poetry and performances by Hannan Azlan, Jack Malik, Sheena Baharudin, and Theyvapaalan S Jayaratnam.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Air Con, written by Shanon Shah and directed by Jo Kukathas and Zalfian Fuzi, debuted to much acclaim back in 2009 - online audiences will now be able to rewatch the original staging with a virtual streaming. The play is set in an elite boys’ school in Kedah, where the murder of a sex worker pulls back the curtains on a world of bullying, violence, and sex crimes. We review the show, discuss its powerful story, and how its themes resonate today.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Rintangan, artist Haffendi Anuar shows a series of drawings conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown, where he uses the sport of bodybuilding to reflect on health and strength - specifically, the physical, mental, emotional and economic health of the individual and the state. We review the online exhibition, and discuss its use of hypermasculine imagery to depict and subvert these themes.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

Image Source: Rintangan (Resistance) by Haffendi Anuar

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In line with Merdeka celebrations this month - with arts venues still being closed - the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre has released an archival recording of TUNKU The Musical, which was first staged in 2007. Taking a 50-year musical journey that begins on that first Merdeka Day, the show centres around our first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, alongside the stories of various characters. Written by Lim Chuang Yik and Teng Ky-Gan, with music by Mervyn Peters, the musical also stars Maria Yasmin, Tony Eusoff, and Douglas Lim among others. We review the show, discussing the experience of revisiting an archival show and what it might have to offer today.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

Image Source: weelingc.

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The REKA2021 virtual art exhibition, organised by the School of the Arts at Universiti Sains Malaysia, features 104 artists from multiple countries. Themed “Embracing Change”, the exhibition engages with themes and ideas that revolve around the pandemic and the “new normal”. We review the huge variety of works on show, and discuss the merits of virtual art exhibitions particularly within the context of arts education.

Everyone's A Critic is jointly presented with CENDANA. For updates on Malaysian arts and culture, visit BASKL.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.