While most people spent Sunday evening huddled at home, awed by the almighty storm that unleashed itself on the Klang Valley, some of our braver folk made their way to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre for the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage’s Anugerah Seni Negara 2006 awards ceremony. It was a glamorous evening, with the Agong, and host of other dignitaries, arts practitioners, academics and groupies there to honour those who have contributed, and continue to contribute to the betterment of the arts in Malaysia.<\/p>\n
Top honouree for the night was composer and musician Datuk Dr Ahmad Khan Bin Nawab Kahan, (Datuk Ahmad Nawab) who was named Anugerah Seniman Negara. Penang-born Ahmad Nawab has been involved in the local music scene since the 1950’s, and has to his name over 2000 songs. Skilled in numerous genres of music, he has worked with luminaries like P. Ramlee, Saloma, Sudirman, Salamiah Hassan, Andre Goh, M. Sani and countless others.<\/p>\n
After the formalities of the awards ceremony, the newly minted Seniman Negara — in his trademark sunglasses –\u00ad treated the audience to a wicked solo sax performance. This was followed by a performances of some of Nawab’s greatest hits by the likes of Khatijah Ibrahim, Jamal Abdullah and Ramlah Ram.<\/p>\n
Other winners for the night included artist \/ cartoonist Dato Mohd Nor Khalid (Lat), choreographer Ramli Ibrahim, lighting whiz Ee Chee Wei, artist Chuah Chong Yong, dancer Zamzuriah Zahari, the multi-talented Andre Goh and many more. (full list of winners below)<\/p>\n
Anugerah What?<\/strong><\/p>\n Anugerah Seni Negara: first introduced in 1993, the award is considered the highest accolade bestowed upon arts practitioners in Malaysia by the government.<\/p>\n When it was first conceived, only one award was presented for Anugerah Seniman Negara, a sort of lifetime achievement award in the arts if you will. But in 2004, in response to the growth in the arts scene, the awards scope was expanded to include categories Karyawan Seni and Pendukung Seni.<\/p>\n This year, it was expanded further to include the category Bakat Muda, honouring younger agents in the field. Each category then awards outstanding achievements in music, dance, theatre and visual arts.<\/p>\n Show Me The Moolah<\/strong><\/p>\n If you thought trifling trophies was all they got, think again.<\/p>\n The recipient of the Anugerah Seniman Negara receives RM60,000 (up from RM30,000 in previous years), a trophy (naturally) and a songket Baju Melayu set among other things; recipients of Anugerah Karyawan Seni each receive RM10,000, a trophy and a certificate of appreciation; Anugerah Bakat Muda recipients each walk away with RM5,000, a trophy, certificate, and also training under the Ministry’s Latihan Penggiat Seni; and finally recipients of the Anugerah Pendukung Seni each receive RM5,000, a certificate and trophy.<\/p>\n Above all, it is an acknowledgment from the government and their peers of a job well done.<\/p>\n Pick Me! Pick Me!<\/strong><\/p>\n So how does it work?<\/p>\n Well theoretically, someone has to do good work in any of the four categories to get noticed enough.<\/p>\n Then, anyone so compelled by said stunning work, are free to make a nomination through the public and peer nomination system for the awards, by filling in a form, complete with reasons, documents and a list of their achievements to date \u2013 basically why you think he\/she’s the one. But be sure to have their consent before you do.<\/p>\n Once the list of candidates are in, members of the four panels \u2013 music, dance, theatre and visual arts \u2013 get to work in assessing the nominees \u2013 much debate and discussion follow \u2013 before the year’s winners are finally decided upon.<\/p>\n Incidentally, the members in the panel are made up of practitioners, academics and basically respected figures and experts in their respective fields.<\/p>\n Kaki-quotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n Always on the look out for excuses to harass hot, intelligent artists, we made calls to some of this year’s winners, to get their take\/reaction to the awards:<\/p>\n Umesh Shetty, Anugerah Karyawan Seni Tari<\/em> Khalid Salleh, Anugerah Karyawan Seni Teater<\/em> Ramlan Abdullah, Anugerah Karyawan Seni Tampak<\/em> Mac Chan, Anugerah Karyawan Seni Teater<\/em> Prakash Kandasamy, Anugerah Bakat Muda Seni Muzik<\/em> And the award goes to:<\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s a rundown of this year’s winners:<\/p>\n Anugerah Seniman Negara<\/em>: Datuk Dr. Ahmad Khan bin Nawab Khan<\/p>\n Anugerah Karyawan Seni Tampak<\/em>: Anugerah Karyawan Seni Tari<\/em>: Anugerah Karyawan Seni Muzik<\/em>: Anugerah Karyawan Seni Teater<\/em>: Anugerah Bakat Muda Seni Tampak<\/em>: Anugerah Bakat Muda Seni Tari<\/em>: Anugerah Bakat Muda Seni Muzik<\/em>: Anugerah Bakat Muda Seni Teater<\/em>: Anugerah Pendukung Seni<\/em>: ~~~<\/p>\n Juliet Jacobs is Kakiseni’s Events Editor. She doubles as a staff writer. Kathy Rowland gets invited to free lunches. She eats a lot.<\/p>\n First Published: 23.11.2006 on Kakiseni<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While most people spent Sunday evening huddled at home, awed by the almighty storm that unleashed itself on the Klang Valley, some of our braver folk made their way to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre for the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage’s Anugerah Seni Negara 2006 awards ceremony. It was a glamorous evening, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3186,3207,3185,838,634,3199,3195,3208,3206,3201,3203,654,1685,3200,3205,3194,3209,3187,853,3204,3196,3188,3191,3202,3193,2849,3189,283,3197,3190,562,571,3192,1577,3198],"language":[7523],"writer":[7614,7615],"class_list":["post-15693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-ahmad-nawab","tag-andre-goh","tag-anugerah-seni-negara","tag-anugerah-seniman-negara","tag-award","tag-azlan-abu-hassan","tag-chuah-chong-yong","tag-datuk-mohammed-yaman-hj-ahmad-yus","tag-ee-chee-wei","tag-eric-lee-yin-fah","tag-faisal-tehrani","tag-gavin-yap","tag-hatta-azad-khan","tag-jason-voon","tag-juhara-ayob","tag-khalid-saleh","tag-klasik-nasional","tag-lat","tag-mac-chan","tag-mohd-faisal-musa","tag-mohd-faizal-ramli","tag-mohd-nor-khalid","tag-ooi-eow-jin","tag-prakash-kandasamy","tag-rahim-mohd-noh-jantan","tag-raja-maliq","tag-ramlan-abdullah","tag-ramli-ibrahim","tag-shafirul-azmi-bin-suhaimi","tag-suhaimi-mohd-zain","tag-the-actors-studio","tag-umesh-shetty","tag-woon-wen-kin","tag-zahim-al-bakri","tag-zamzuriah-zahari","language-english","writer-juliet-jacobs","writer-kathy-rowland"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39087,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693\/revisions\/39087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15693"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=15693"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=15693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThis dancer\/choreographer who bagged the award for dancer under the Karyawan Seni Tari category, was very surprised and honoured to win. “It’s fantastic!” he says. Nominated by Sukania Venugopal, Umesh didn’t quite realise how big the awards are. An honour to be recognised by the government and his peers, Umesh was also impressed with the members on the dance committee’s panel, who are all respected members in the dance community, who come from different dance backgrounds. The introduction of the Bakat Muda award this year also went down well with him, especially since the winners get to undergo training programmes under the ministry, which he thinks is important, encouraging and helpful for any young artist.<\/p>\n
\n“Dia bagi, saya ambil. Bagi saya, saya kerja bukan untuk award. Lebih baik saya kerja untuk bangunkan budaya.”<\/p>\n
\nRecipient of the award for Karyawan Seni Tampak (Seni Arca), Ramlan too was pretty surprised about his nomination and win. He found out that he had been nominated by a few galleries, and learnt of his win while he was in Jordan. Though a great surprise and honour, Ramlan does feel that the visual arts award, which currently recognises two categories, \u2013 art and sculpture \u2013 should be expanded to include other awards for categories such as print making, painting, photography and other different art mediums too. Though pleased with the government’s recognition of the visual arts, he feels more can and should be done, and that they had missed out on some important features.<\/p>\n
\n“I felt so proud and surprised!”<\/p>\n
\nFor Prakash, receiving the award is not just about the validation from the government and his peers. (Which he likes too, make no mistake.) More so than that, it’s the pride in his parents and family’s eyes that does it for him. He says that to his parents, he might appear to just be this guy who “bangs on the drums”. So it is awards like these, which help put things in perspective, showing them (and himself) that he’s “on the right track.”<\/p>\n
\nVisual Arts \u2013 Dato Mohd Nor Khalid (Lat)
\nSculpture \u2013 Ramlan Abdullah<\/p>\n
\nChoreography \u2013 Ramli Ibrahim
\nDance \u2013 Umesh Shetty<\/p>\n
\nComposition \u2013 Suhaimi Mohd Zain
\nMusical Arrangement \u2013 Ooi Eow Jin
\nMusical Direction \u2013 Woon Wen Kin
\nMusician \u2013 Rahim @ Mohd Noh Jantan<\/p>\n
\nScriptwriter \u2013 Prof. Dr. Hatta Azad Khan
\nDirector \u2013 Zahim Al Bakri
\nActor \u2013 Khalid Saleh
\nLighting Design \u2013 Mac Chan
\nSet Design \u2013 Raja Khalid Raja Mohd Iskandar (Raja Maliq)<\/p>\n
\nVisual Arts \u2013 Chuah Chong Yong
\nSculpture \u2013 Mohd Faizal Ramli<\/p>\n
\nChoreography \u2013 Shafirul Azmi Bin Suhaimi
\nDancer \u2013 Zamzuriah Zahari<\/p>\n
\nComposer \u2013 Azlan Abu Hassan
\nArrangement \u2013 Jason Voon
\nMusical Direction \u2013 Eric Lee Yin Fah
\nMusician \u2013 Prakash Kandasamy<\/p>\n
\nScriptwriter \u2013 Mohd Faisal Musa (Faisal Tehrani)
\nDirector \u2013 Gavin Yap
\nActor \u2013 Juhara Ayob
\nLighting Designer \u2013 Ee Chee Wei<\/p>\n
\nMedia\/Arts Writer \u2013 Klasik Nasional
\nPrivate Sector \u2013 The Actors Studio
\nCorporation \u2013 Digi
\nNGO \u2013 Bahagian Sekolah, Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia
\nIndividual \u2013 Datuk Mohammed Yaman Hj. Ahmad Yus
\nIndividual \u2013 Goh Eng Boon (Andre Goh)<\/p>\n