Front Row

Desiring a play--A Streetcar Named Desire--into a dance: What happens when words and related actions disappear to be reimagined in balletic pirouettes, grande jetes and plies; and jazz brushes, lunges and paddle turns?

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When do representations (realistic or abstract) of life remain pretty pictures and when do they cross the line to become statements, questions and challenges to the status quo?  This is an interview to unveil if artists are provocateurs.

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When a diva performs a tribute to divas, who then is THE diva in the spotlight? When Rozz comes on stage, it is not just the fabulous designer outfits or the super-high pumps. Or the larger-than-life personality. Beyond the glitz and glamour, is the voice and the musical talent.

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Under Dama Orchestra’s tutelage and direction a group of young performers is presenting a musical version on an opera--Hansel and Gretel--by Engelbert Humperdinck, a 19th-century German composer. (Not to be mistaken for Engelbert Humperdinck, the British-Indian pop singer of ‘Please Release Me’ fame released in 1968). Melissa tells of the training process, the production and takes us backstage.

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Artist-curator, Wong Hoy Cheong and Iqbal Shamsul take us on a journey that looks afresh at the negatives, contact prints, test prints, personal documents, writing and equipment of the professional photographer--Ismail Hashim. The tag-team explain and lay bare the photographer’s “various trajectories of representation and presentation.” They give a view into the world of curating art.

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The Gyeonggi Provincial Dance Company will be in Kuala Lumpur the weekend to perform traditional Korean dances. The performance repertoire includes the Dance of Peace, which in ancient times was reserved for the country’s kings and queens to bring peace to the country; the Dance of the Dongrae Crane which was traditionally performed by men ‘who pursued a life of pleasure; and many more. The interview gives a view into the dances and a handle to understand and appreciate them.

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As part of KL’s ambition to be a world-class cultural city by 2025, the capital begins in earnest to offer made-in-KL (or the Greater KL which includes Petaling Jaya, Selangor) culture: a musical about the city on the muddy estuary. The director and the writer tell how this production will entertain tourists (and Malaysians too) for the next three years.

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For some, classical music is a language only for the initiated who have undergone years of study, paying attention to every musical rest and coda. The American-trained classical pianist walks us through some characteristics of Romantic music (written in the latter part of the 18th century and 19th century), paying in particular attention to Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor Op 54.

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The exhibition titled ‘The Ceiling Floats Away With a Sigh’ is a one-mathematician-and-artist show which opened last week. One reviewer calls the works ‘continuations of the the artist’s research on traumatised bodies.’ Some of the displayed works show a mathematical regularity but bathed in a luminescence formed by liquid light that it is difficult to find the traumatised bodies.

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Billed as a personality with many roles--singer, actor, ATM-machine, maid--Junji Delfino reveals how she manages them and which one comes closest to her own bones. This performer has an upcoming weekend jazz concert accompanied by The Michael Veerapen Jazz Trio.

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