Inter-ethnic understanding is a high\npriority for many groups, and National Service doesn’t really seem to be\nworking. The Jumping Jellybeans, however, have begun a project with much\nyounger children, which contains the potential to help cultural sharing between\nchildren of different language groups in Kuala Kubu Bharu. And National Service\ndoesn’t have yellow hoods, little-flame-children or rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kuala Kubu Bharu, or KKB, is a small-ish\ntown nestled in the foothills of the Titiwangsa range. Administrative centre\nfor the Ulu Selangor district, it was one of the last places in the Peninsula\ndeclared free of Communists. In the late ’90s, the town was embroiled in an\nenvironmental controversy over the now-completed Selangor dam which involved\nthe forced relocation of two Orang Asli villages, Kampungs Pertak and Gerachi.\nAnd, on a more personal note, it was my haven from KL’s claustrophobia, at\nleast until the dam was completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The town’s history is inevitably\npresent not just in the architecture and the broad teak-lined streets, but in\nthe people, affected by the Chinese new town, the army barracks and the\nadministrative buildings overlooking the small town centre. Modern developments\ninclude the shopping mall and the National Service centre on the town’s\noutskirts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jumping Jellybeans wanted to work\nwith children from various backgrounds, and engage in a trade with them. For 10\nweeks, the Jellybeans, led by Shanthini Venugopal and Cinzia Ciaramicoli, would\nexchange stories with the children for their stories. They’d teach and learn. A\nfundamentally egalitarian process which reminds participants and audience that\nthe well-educated KL elite don’t have a monopoly on skill, dreams or stories.\nSo in the day’s exchange, Malay, Indian, Chinese and Brazilian (!) dancers\nexchanged, with Orang Asli and Chinese music and song, a dramatisation of\n“Little Red Riding Hood” and Nasi goreng yang belum siap, a fire\nsafety skit. It was, after all, held in the Akademi Bomba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shanthini is a formidable woman.\nDetermined to make The Barter of Dreams<\/em>\na bilingual event, she spent precious minutes before the event began trying to\nfind a suitable Malay translation for ‘barter’. Mentega (butter) was dismissed,\ndagang (trade) was discussed and rejected. Eventually the word was uncovered.\n‘Barta’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The performances themselves were\nvariable, but seemed in part to reflect the cultural confidence of the\ncommunities involved. The Orang Asli children did not showcase Orang Asli\nculture, this was left to the adults. The Chinese and Indian performances were\nthe most resoundingly self-confident (next to the professional performers),\nwhile the Malay dance fell in-between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The morning began with a video that\nreviewed the project, showing its beginnings and how the various groups were\nengaged. The first performance was by four girls from the Akademi Bomba,\nperforming a Malay dance, followed by a performance of an Indian village dance\nby boys from the Divine Life Society. It wasn’t as polished as the Akademi\nBomba performance, but it made up for this by exuberance (which seemed\ninversely proportional to the size of the dancer). This in turn was followed by\na performance by children from the Khing Ming Chinese primary school, overseen\nby a slightly harried teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next came the performance of the\nMaculele by both the Divine Life Society and the Orang Asli children, with\ndancers from Bantus Capoeira. The Maculele isn’t the innocuous dance it first\nseems. It originated as a disguise for martial arts lessons for slaves on\nBrazilian plantations. The moves are martial arts moves, slowed down and set\nloosely to a drum rhythm. The ‘dancers’ parry each other’s moves within a\ncapoeira circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mei Thing performed a solo karaoke\nperformance, followed by the Orang Asli women from Kampung Pertak, performing\ntraditional songs followed by some joget. They had to be forcibly chased from\nthe stage, having a tendency to want to play, and play, and play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Possibly one of the best outcomes of\nthis programme so far was embodied in the Hui Ciu Association’s lion dance\ntroupe, which had stopped practicing six months previously. The coach had left\nthe troupe, and, disheartened, they had stopped practicing. The Barter<\/em> gave them the focus they\nneeded to come back together. The coach came back down for a couple of days,\nand the kids were so enthusiastic that they continued performing outside the\nhall after the show was over. They were still going when I left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The show ended with two skits, one\nby children from the Akademi Bomba, part PR for the fire-fighters, part public\neducation on fire safety. Personally, my vote goes to the little flames, the\nsmaller children dressed with red and yellow ribbons, who were gradually doused\nby the firefighters. Vote for performers who seemed to have the most fun, at\nany rate. And perhaps most innovative use of costume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final act was the Jellybeans’\nrendition of “Little Red Riding Hood”. All the children (and some\nadults) gathered near the front of the stage for this interactive version of\nthe classic fairy tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Barter<\/em> was a first step by the Jellybeans, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, to helping to inculcate a practical love of the arts, and to encourage creative dialogue between otherwise separate groups. The presentations tended to be mono-ethnic. One of the obvious challenges for the next round is encouraging more sharing and interaction between the groups. \u00b7<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sonia Randhawa is the director of Centre for Independent Journalism <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 11.08.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inter-ethnic understanding is a high priority for many groups, and National Service doesn’t really seem to be working. The Jumping Jellybeans, however, have begun a project with much younger children, which contains the potential to help cultural sharing between children of different language groups in Kuala Kubu Bharu. And National Service doesn’t have yellow hoods, […]<\/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":[7758,7781,7770,7763,7764,7762],"tags":[4134,844,4138,4144,591,530,4132,501,234,4137,4135,568,4131,4136,4141,4133,4143,4142,621,4139,40,3306,3077,46],"language":[7785],"writer":[7884],"class_list":["post-27578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel","category-seni","category-budaya","category-tarian","category-muzik","category-teater","tag-akademi-bomba","tag-arts","tag-bantus-capoeira","tag-capoeira","tag-children","tag-chinese","tag-cinzia-ciaramicoli","tag-culture","tag-dance","tag-divine-life-society","tag-hui-ciu-association","tag-indian","tag-jumping-jellybeans","tag-kampung-pertak","tag-khing-ming-chinese-primary-school","tag-kuala-kubu-bharu","tag-lion-dance","tag-maculele","tag-malay","tag-mei-thing","tag-music","tag-orang-asli","tag-shanthini-venugopal","tag-theatre","language-inggeris","writer-sonia-randhawa-ms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578","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=27578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38720,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578\/revisions\/38720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27578"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27578"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}