Front Row

Malaysian singer-songwriter Mia Palencia has settled in Tasmania, Australia, for eight years, and has been bringing her unique approach to singing and songwriting to the music community there. Mia returns to Malaysia with the Derwent Valley Concert Band to present a series of concerts that feature both Australian and Malaysian flavours, including some of her own compositions. We speak to Mia and the band’s conductor Lyall Mcdermott about the concerts and their collaboration.

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Kumar Nagalingam is a trainer, author, and former law lecturer - but since the age of 13, he’s also been an artist. After nearly four decades of painting, Kumar has decided to show his works for the first time in an exhibition called “Beyond the Canvas”, which traces his artistic journey from the 1980s to present day. We speak to Kumar about his art and his aspirations. 

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Our guests explain why they think that it is significant that emerging talent remain unnoticed in our current visual art landscape. They tell about their upcoming exhibition, titled ‘In Defense of Poetry’, in which the collective asserts it brings a “renewed form of artistic action.” A peek into the opening gambit which will be held on “a rooftop of a furniture warehouse that will soon be torn down.” The exhibition incorporates visual arts, performance art, the spoken word and music.

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Over the years, Five Arts Centre has presented a number of theatrical works that engaged with contemporary and political issues. Now, with Malaysia under a new government for the first time since Independence, political changes and upheavals seem to be happening rapidly - from the release and pardon of former Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to former PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak facing trial on corruption charges. How are previous political works of theatre reframed by such events? Mark Teh and June Tan of the Five Arts Centre talk to us about why such a process can be useful.

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Most of us have heard the story of how Hansel and Gretel get lost in the woods and entrapped by a witch who lives in a gingerbread house. The Kuala Lumpur City Opera is revisiting the fairy tale in opera form, by staging Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel - A Fairy Tale Opera”. We follow the trail of breadcrumbs with the folks behind the staging, to talk about bringing the opera to life.

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A.R. Rahman is one of India’s best-known music composers, winning multiple Academy Awards and putting Indian film music on the international stage. For his longtime fans, though, Rahman’s early songs from the 90s and 2000s still hold a special place. An upcoming concert called “Retro Rahman” wants to recapture some of that magic by bringing together singers from India who sang many of Rahman’s early hits. We speak to Unnikrishnan, acclaimed Indian classical vocalist and playback singer, about his music and his collaborations with A.R. Rahman.

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Our guests are here participating in the Damansara International Arts Festival 2018 (DIAF’18). They tell about their research into the performing arts and their focus on ‘spatial dramaturgy’. They also share on their devised performance created in collaboration with local performers like Jo Kukathas, Ling Tang, Kathyn Tan and several others. And from the Malaysians, the stories most important to them. In the interview they showed the link between their approach to theatre and the production that will be staged.

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The results of the 14th General Elections have sparked many new artistic creations. An exhibition called “Harapan” brings together a diverse array of visual art that respond to this historic shift in Malaysian politics, from anger at the past administration and hope for the new one to caution against repeating past mistakes. Curator Alan Teh and some of the contributing artists talk to us about their work and the role of political art.

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The Damansara Performing Arts Centre is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, and in conjunction with that, renaming its annual festival the Damansara International Arts Festival 2018. Themed “Convergence”, the festival aims to provide a meeting point between local and international performers through works that run across theatre, dance, music, and even puppetry.

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Most of us have heard the fairy tale of The Frog Prince, but local theatre company Kudos Productions is presenting a radically reinterpreted version of the story. The play, which is called “After Earl: Before the Fall”, is set to be a rollicking fantasy adventure - and yes, it is still about a frog. The play’s producers and actors talk to us about hopping onto stage with this unexpected tale.

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