Front Row

The director, a Malaysian homed in China, returns to KL to stage another work, this time one by Chinese playwright Cao Yu. ‘Peking Man’ is considered by many, the playwright’s masterpiece. This play details the collapse of a prominent family because of familial conflicts. Klpac earlier in the year staged in English Cao Yu’s ‘Thunderstorm’.

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New media in art incorporates contemporary technologies--digital and analogue--to create new/different experiences. Our guests tell about the weekend exhibition and panel discussion, and share the reasons for their interests in this way of expressing which blurs the line between the subject and object, the artist-as-facilitator and the spectator-as-artist. New media art seems to compel an experience that seems to be transient and cannot be replicated. Much like a live performance.

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Non-Indian ASWARA graduates gather to dance classical Bharatanatyam to point out that we all need to cross our cultural borders, go beyond our ethnicities and tongues. Our guest tell of ASWARA students performing classical dances in India and the reception the company received.

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The artistic director of the musical group that focuses on classical music tells about the company’s exploration of Johann Sebastian Bach’s secular works. Believe it or not, but the centerpiece of the ensemble’s repertoire is the comedic ‘Coffee Cantata’.

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The festival--though it is a tag the organizer doesn’t like--is in its second year. Riding on 2016’s experience, our guest the organizer, shares how this three-day event, which features mostly art, art-and-curatorial talks, guided art tours, has grown to include food. Shalini Ganendra shares on how to approach artworks so as not to be intimidated.

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This month, Speak Easy focuses on how poetry and poetry slam are being used in education across schools and universities in Malaysia to improve things students’ confidence, develop their self expression, and language skills. But poetry in education can do a whole lot more. We hear from poetry educator Yohanna Yusrinal, as well as poet-students Tee Yen, Amanda Lim, Elissa Foong and Taarani Mahadeva.

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Part dance history and part dance appreciation, this conversation situates Martha Graham’s contributions as dancer and choreographer to the world of contemporary dance. Bilqis Hijjas also shares on Martha Graham’s life, the “Martha Graham technique” and the seminal works for which the dancer-choreographer is known.

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A conversation about capturing the human form in art and some insights into why this activity is complex and compelling. In capturing landscape and objects in still life, the artist is for the most part less overtly impacted and influenced as by the changing human being before them. Our guests share on “the male gaze.”

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The dancer, choreographer, teacher and artist talks about creating dances. He shares his experience dancing first as part of a troupe and then going solo. He tells about his Welcome to Project and his every changing collective dances, under the rubric 'The Sukanpins Project, when he collaborates with local performers made up of dancers and non-dancers.

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Our guests--a mix of Malaysians and Australians--come from a university in Australia bearing a musical for children, titled, “Home at Last: A Toy’s Journey.” The production is funded by the Australian Council for the Arts and the Western Australia’s CAN initiative. The play deals with migration, immigration and communities.

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