By Tan Sei Hon In 1997, a few Malaysian artists took over a spacious single-storey house in Setapak and turned it into their personal studio. Not just as a place to find their muse, but also their rice bowl. When not working on their art pieces, these struggling artists would be constructing bulky items for […]
By Sonia Randhawa Paul’s Place is a dive. As you go in, a multi-coloured sign announces the place. It sits above a doorway half-framed by a flashing-redlight-snake-thing that keeps tempo in a different continuum from our own. You climb a dingy red-lit staircase through a heavy metal door. It looks like the entrance to a […]
By Shanon Shah The first time I played at No Black Tie, it was during open mike at Songwriters Round 5. If I remember correctly Jerome Kugan, songwriter-troubadour extraordinaire, and Lorna Tee, empowered arts groupie extraordinaire, organised this particular round. Jerome, who was also performing that night, kept shuffling from the stage area to the […]
By Zedeck Siew The restaging of Bidin Subari’s Anak Kerbau Mati Emak is quite aesthetically pleasing. Even unlit, the kampong house designed by lrwan lsmadi Shahrim and Razali ltam looks great (with crawlspace among the stilts, a creative third exit for the children in the cast), and, as the lights come on, does not disappoint; […]
By B.C. Ng It was a Monday afternoon that I received a call from Kakiseni, notifying me that I was tentatively the winner of the New Year’s Eve dinner for two at Alexis Ampang. They would give it to someone else if I were unable to make it. I rushed a call to the boyfriend […]
By Nizam Zakaria Bisik merupakan sebuah antologi drama Melayu Singapura oleh tiga penulis mudanya yang berbakat: Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit, Alfian bin Sa’at dan Noor Effendy Ibrahim. Banyak kali saya diberitahu oleh beberapa orang rakan-rakan terdekat (dari Malaysia) bahawa sasterawan dan karyawan Melayu yang besar bertaraf dunia akan muncul dari Singapura. Mereka berkata beglni kerana menurut […]
By Charlene Rajendran In its sixth year of festive celebration, last year’s programme at The Park’s The Other Festival in Chennai, India, included works from Taiwan, the USA, France, and different parts of India. Connecting with the tail end of the week-long schedule of events at this festival last December, I caught two performances from […]
By Anne James I consider the Second MyDance Festival as one of the highlights for dance in the year 2003. It showcased 23 dance pieces from all over Malaysia over 3 nights; warts and all. It checks the “temperature” of dance in Malaysia. Any choreographer or dancer worth his/her salt would not want to miss […]
By Antares In recent years, young filmmakers like Osman Ali, James Lee, Amir Muhammad, and a host of graduates from the Multimedia University and other institutions, have realized a long-held dream of many a Malaysian youth – to make their own movies on their own terms for a whole new audience, local as well as […]
By Mark Augustine A familiar story in the genre of gay fiction: wholesome, studious, clean-cut good-boy (sigh, gush, swoon) meets wry-smiling, over-sexed, truant bad-boy… who smokes! (gasp, oh no!) What ensues is an adolescent tale of adolescent tail and the forbidden love these two boys share but don’t know it yet, and WON’T know for […]
