Front Row

The ‘Aphrodisia’ exhibition is questioning the unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards portrayed within the media. The paintings challenge viewers come face to face with their own interpretations and perceptions of the ‘food and figure’ theme. We talk to Artist Alya Hatta and Curator Nazreen Abraham about how they are breaking the mold. 

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Our guest who hails from Canada is a member of the Walastoq First Nation. He shares with us his digging in the Museum of Canadian History in Gatineau, Quebec to reclaim his culture and language and now to promote it so that they won’t die. He comments on the need to engage the young with the traditional, and then to evolve the traditional to embrace modernity.

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When a show that goes from the stage of a singular secondary school onto a professional stage with performers from many schools and universities, what happens then. Our guests tell about the performing arts in secondary schools and hint on the parents’ receptivity to things which are considered not academic like mathematics and science.

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Our guests, besides telling us about the offerings in the latest installment of the classical Indian festival, share their perspective on the local growth and development of Indian classical music, and how Malaysia and Malaysian-ness influence music from the Indian subcontinent.

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For its third outing, the theatre company, EJA Productions has decided on a devised play which focuses on ‘the talking cure’. With the help of a clinical psychologist, and a graduate in ‘theatre and psychology’ who functions as the assistant director, the company explores the usefulness of discovering, with a professional, our own emotional landscape in order to better navigate our real-world lives.

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The success of ‘Amorous Delight’ has given life to a second staging and Ramli Ibrahim tells about talent in the country, where there is plenty and where the dearth is pronounced. He also paints a landscape in which dancing and the other performing arts can thrive.

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The mentor describes the two artists when they first started in the Sembilan Art Residency last August, and then points to their transformations. The two artist share how being under the same roof for a period, talking about, breathing and eating art, they influenced each other.

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‘Throne of Thorns’ was recently staged in ASWARA, the national performing arts school, but with a cast and production crew coming from the University of Wollongong, Australia. We find out from the director herself, who now teaches theatre at UiTM, on her process of creating this work, which has been described as a modern play with practices and elements of the Malay traditional theatre. Zalfian Fuzi, who saw the production joins in the conversation.

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The exhibition explores how artists stay relevant and current in the spaces they occupy and in the immediate moment of their lives. We hear from both the curator and gallery owner of Weiling Contemporary and from one of the artists, Ivan Lam.

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The Handlebards have been in town twice so far, each time making an appearance in BFM’s studio. In the first two outings, the troupe presented Shakespeare’s comedies--‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, respectively. This time a tragedy with a predominantly female cast. Hear how and why the Handlebards have grown and evolved, and the challenges for an all-female cast.

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