Front Row

The moon is often associated with love, passion, and madness - and all of these qualities are channelled into a joint night of performances called “Kinnara - Moon People”, which brings together dance, music, poetry, and theatre. We speak with three of the performers behind the show, dancer/choreographer Geetha Shankaran Lam, writer/performer Lam Ghooi Ket, and musician Hariraam Tingyuan Lam.

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New artists can often find it a challenge to establish what their works are about and where they are heading. An exhibition called “Tikitiboo” - a word derived from the British occupation of India, which means “everything is fine and alright” - tries to provide a space to examine these questions, by featuring emerging artists of diverse backgrounds. We speak with the organiser of the exhibition, Sophia Shung.

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Nikola Madzirov is a poet, essayist, literary translator and editor from Macedonia, born to a family of Balkan War refugees. His poetry has been translated into over 30 languages. During his recent visit to Malaysia for the George Town Literary Festival, we spoke to Madzirov about the roots of his poetry, the value of sharing his work with the world, and how his works often speak of a sense of both belonging and displacement.

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Ahmad Fuad Osman is one of Malaysia’s most interesting contemporary artists, who has been creating work since the early 1990s. His work draws on Malay and Malaysian culture, history and sociopolitical events, with a lot of emphasis on research. A mid-career survey of Fuad’s work, called “At the end of the day even art is not important”, is being held at the National Art Gallery, which looks at the past 30 years of his art. So, we sit down with Fuad and exhibition curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, to reflect on Fuad’s journey as an artist thus far, what lies ahead, and why it is so important for an artist to provide sociopolitical commentary.

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For artist Sean Lean, the past is made up of contradicting cultures that sit, sometimes oddly, next to each other - coming from a “traditional” Malaysian Chinese upbringing, his childhood memories are made up of everything from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to Lord of the Rings, TVB dramas to American sitcoms. Drawing on these, Lean presents “M2”, a series of works that merge the sensibilities of Chinese bedtime stories with comic books. We speak with Lean about the series.

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Playwright Fasyali Fadzly, who made his name in the indie Malay theatre scene, is publishing his debut collection of plays called “Teater Juta-Juta”, bringing together the last decade of his writing for the stage. We speak with Fasyali about his evolution as a playwright, and why it’s important to create a published body of Malaysian theatre works.

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Vocalist, percussionist and composer Santosh Logandran is known for his fusing of Indian carnatic music with a diverse array of musical styles. He’s won multiple awards, has his own band called Nadir, and has performed with the likes of Zee Avi. Santosh is launching his own solo album, called “In Pursuit of Santosham” with a night of performance - so we catch up with him on the musical journey that has led him here and what we can expect from the album.

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Two Malaysian choreographers are coming together to present a double bill of contemporary dance performances, in a show called “Woman - On - Man - Men”. While unified around the idea of the Ego, each choreographer explores the theme from his or her own perspective. We speak with dancers/choreographers Kenny Shim and Suhaili Micheline about the show.

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Relatively underrated as far as musicals go, “Chess The Musical” isn’t one that make it to Malaysian shores very often - and is now being staged here by the Bentley Music Academy. Written by Tim Rice with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (of ABBA fame), the musical uses a chess tournament to satirise the politics of the Cold War between Russia and America. We speak with the show’s musical director Kevin Field and vocal coach Nicole Thomson about what makes this show so unique, and what we can expect from this particular staging.

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“Rewind, Replay” is an exhibition by local artist Siund Tan that uses the nostalgic idea of watching television while growing up to reflect on everything from fables and folklore to history. We speak with Tan and Sophia Shung, director of Suma Orientalis gallery, about the exhibition and the inspiration behind his works.

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