By Yasmin Zetti Martin A school. A dead body. A scandal… “Biasalah asrama.” Award-winning singer-songwriter Shanon Shah’s first full-length play, Air Con tells the story (in Bahasa Malaysia (Kedah dialect) and English with surtitles) of a group of boys at an elite school in Kedah. The boys confront sex, violence, bullying, and growing up after […]
By Yasmin Zetti Martin Pang Khee Teik, writer, photographer, program director at The Annexe, and former editor of Kakiseni takes time out from his decadent life to give us Kakisenians some friendly advice, pass on some birthday greetings, and talk about the ‘do’ this coming weekend at The Annexe. Caution, reading ahead means you risk […]
By Juliet Jacobs She’s done ‘Sepi’ and ‘Fawzia’ and even parodied some Broadway ditties in between. Now Doreen Tang takes on Paris, the Princess that is, in KLPac’s psychedelic “Aladdin – the Pantomime”. ~ Tell us about yourself. I grew up in Petaling Jaya, in a close-knit family and studied at various institutions — Methodist […]
By Juliet Jacobs Besides guiding, training and inspiring young minds towards greater things, the lovely folks at ASWARA have also been at the forefront of preserving our Malaysian arty traditions. The dance department at ASWARA continues with this very own tradition of theirs, in “Asyik.” Co-choreographer Wong Kit Yaw tells more about this simple, yet […]
By Juliet Jacobs Director/actor/writer Gavin Yap tells us about his initial meeting and subsequent relationship with playwright Sarah Kane’s works, as he tackles her last and most experimental work, 4.48 Psychosis. ~ Tell us a bit about yourself. Have you always wanted to be involved in acting and directing? Okay, let’s see: I was born […]
By Zedeck Siew Fast becoming Singapore’s most important playwright, the strength of Alfian Sa’at oeuvre lies in the wit and verve with which he handles a variety of subjects: Singaporean gay culture in the Asian Boys trilogy – the recently concluded “Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol 3” had audiences bawling in their seats; the SARS […]
By Jenny Daneels In reply to critical comments in an article we published last year on the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) and the venue’s anchor tenant The Actors Studio (TAS), co-founder and dramatist-director-actor Joe Hasham agrees to an interview with Kakiseni co-founding editor Jenny Daneels to help put things in perspective. Kakiseni is […]
By Tengku Amalia Over a year ago, my classmates and I watched a Wayang Kulit performance as part of our Traditional Asian Theatre course, alongside a seven-day crash course on Mak Yong. Despite being half-Kelantanese (as my father reminds me from time to time), I found myself unable to comprehend most of the text, due […]
By Juliet Jacobs Taking time off their rehearsal schedule, Lim How Ngean, Loh Kok Man and Reza Zainal Abidin discuss their latest project, “Within / Without – two sides revealed”. Three directors, three performers (Melissa Saila, Nell Ng, and Lim Tiong Wooi), and three monologues inspired by works of three Asian playwrights (Kuo Pao Kun, […]
By Juliet Jacobs Kay Chin on knitting, remembering lines, and bizarre initiation rituals. ~ Tell us about yourself. I don’t like to window-shop, and I don’t have much money to shop for real. So when a friend told me that there was a “biomechanics” workshop — by director Chris Jacobs – going on, I decided […]
By Antares Since returning from England in the late 1980s, Kam Raslan has carved a niche for himself as a freelance writer and some-time magazine editor (most infamously at the 1990s incarnation of Men’s Review). He is currently a scriptwriter for the Instant Café Theatre Company, a part-time commercial and television drama director, and a […]
By Juliet Jacobs Tell us a bit about yourself. In 1997, I went off to Harvard for four years, where dancing was a huge relief from my daily cerebral struggles. Not knowing what to do next, I moved to Australia and earned my graduate diploma in Choreography at the Victorian College of the Arts. Art […]
By Juliet Jacobs Tell the world about Fong Muntoh, AKA Monti. I am from the land of many virgins: Ipoh. I was born there and spent a great deal of my life growing up in Hospital Bahagia Tanjung Rambutan — because my mum was a nurse there, and she used to get the inmates to […]
By Zedeck Siew Tell us about yourself. Did you, like any other good middle-class child, have to pick up a formal musical instrument? Yes, my parents insisted I attend piano lessons, beginning at age seven — although they had to drag me kicking and screaming the first few years. I got bored easily, and got […]
By Juliet Jacobs Tell us a bit about yourself. I was born 38 years ago in Baling, Kedah. I graduated with a Fine Arts degree from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in 1991, and I’ve been exhibiting since then. I now live and work in Melaka and Kuala Lumpur. I am also involved in Matahati, an […]
By Juliet Jacobs Okiku is based on a story from Japanese folklore. Tell us more about the conceptualization and story. Sam Yen: The perception is that Okiku is a ghost story. It is — but only to a certain extent, depending on which version you’re reading. Our version deals more with the human elements of […]
By Benjamin McKay A celebrated photographer, filmmaker, writer, and actor (for stage and screen), multi-talented Bernice Chauly is also an activist and educator. She took time out of her busy rehearsal schedule – Bernice appears in James Lee’s production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre – to chat about how […]
By Juliet Jacobs Tell us a bit about Five Alone — how was it conceptualised? What can the audience expect? Five Alone represents five solo dance pieces by five different choreographers. They’ve infused their own experiences and understanding of life into each of these individual pieces. The audience will be treated to an experience that […]
By Juliet Jacobs Little Mission Impossible: should we Expect the Impossible? Tell us more about the musical. Little Mission Impossible makes the impossible possible on stage. It’s a children’s musical adventure that sees the journey of Ai Ya-Ya, a little pixie, in a quest to maintain the colours of the world. She runs into numerous […]
By Benjamin McKay An emerging visual artist whose work has been exhibited both in Malaysia and abroad, Yap Sau Bin represents an emerging generation of artist who attempt to fuse their local experience with a broader global understanding of contemporary visual arts practice. Having studied at the Birmingham Institute of Arts and Design at the […]
By Juliet Jacobs ‘Three girls in a play’ is your tagline for the event — sounds naughty. Tell us more! Who came up with the idea for this monodrama and seminar? The three girls: Seok Chin, Felix, Oi Min — and I. In Chinese-language theatre it’s hard to find men. Women are the main force […]
By Zedeck Siew Tell us about yourself. What inspired you to pick up the baton? The sound of the large symphonic orchestra: it was a love affair from the very first sight and sound. This was from when I sang as a six-year-old boy in a children’s choir in the Prague National Theatre. I was […]
By Benjamin McKay In an attempt to uncover the mysteries of creative practice in Malaysia, and discern what makes Malaysian artists unique to their time and place, I plan to interview an array of local cultural practitioners over the next year. I begin this enquiry with a conversation with Mark Teh. Mark, 25, has been […]
By Juliet Jacobs Shed some light on the play for us Well, it’s about art and how far a person is willing to go for it. It also questions art and brings up interesting points about the negative and positive sides of it. Why Neil Labute? Why ‘The Shape of Things’? When we initially came […]
By Kakiseni Two years ago, French human resource consultant Cyril Rayer took a sabbatical – to “leave the analytical approach to work” and to capture instead the meaning of work through photography – to travel through Asia. Starting at Iran, he visited factories, studios, stages, places of worship, farms, NGOs and even political parties, finally […]
By Azmyl Yunor Penang-born Goh Lee Kwang deserves his due credit in the “Malaysia Boleh” rhetoric; he has toured Europe in 2004 (“Europe Pleasures Tour”) way before the Siti-hype at Carnegie Hall. Along with fellow sound/ visual/ installation recluses Klang-born-Melbourne-based Yeoh Yin Pin, Tham Kar Mun and Yandsen Yong, they have received accolades internationally for […]
By Gina Fairley Arahmaiani is a master at creating herself. She is a performance artist and her work is intended to provoke – spoken, performed or painted. Arahmaiani is an artist who has represented Indonesia at Biennales such as Venice, Sao Paulo, Havana, Yokohama… and the list goes on. This conversation was recorded with Iani […]
By Kakiseni Rey Buono chides me: “If you had told me you were going to do an interview about my opinion on the KL arts scene, I would have said I don’t have the time.” But in spite of his obvious disappointment with the insularity of my tabloid questions, he kindly indulged. Until not long […]
By Rogayah Shahariman Not being a dancer or choreographer herself, Rogayah Shahariman doesn’t want to be known as a “dance expert.” Nevertheless, her keen following of the scene seems unusual. More so in a country where dance, particularly contemporary dance, appears to be one of the least marketable (and fund-able) of the arts. Perhaps she […]
By Dr Mohd Anis Md Nor Passionately academic and handy with anecdotes about every dance practitioner in this country, Dr. Mohd Anis Md Nor is a walking encyclopaedia of Malaysian dance history. Highly respected as a professor of ethnochoreology and ethnomusicology at University Malaya, he has been, for the last six years, the adviser for […]
By Kakiseni Saidah Rastam is not one of Malaysia’s best kept secrets. Her cutting-edge music has a reputation beyond our borders. She has been invited for the second time by Goh Boon Teck, director of Singapore’s Toy Factory Theatre Company, to compose with his company. This time, it is for a contemporary theatre piece based […]
By Jo Kukathas & Haresh Sharma Half a year ago, I brunched with director Jo Kukathas and Singaporean playwright Haresh Sharma at Top Hat. These two motor-mouthed wordsmiths discoursed in such an epic fashion that I had spent the last six months trying to edit down the interview. This is it, at last. At that […]
By Pang Khee Teik When asked his age, Petaling Jaya boy Richard Chang, now a business news editor at New York’s Reuters as well as an Off-Broadway actor, says, “… if you publicize it, I may never getto play an ingenue or an old man again…” He shouldn’t have to worry. After all, he has […]
By Saidah Rastam This is a fairy tale. This is, for me, the ultimate success story. Chong Kee-Yong, 33, grew up in a palm oil plantation in Kluang, Johor. His mother and father were and are farmers. His father wanted him to study economics. Chong ‘escaped’ from home, and to the Malaysian Institute of Art […]
By Saidah Rastam ‘Serious’ Malaysian orchestral music composition has been limited. Until now. Maybe there has been an increase in educated composers, trained in orchestral arranging. Maybe it’s the results of ventures by institutions such as Akademi Seni Kebangsaan and the International College of Music and by noble musicians who have been passing down their […]
By Cheryl Lim With less than two weeks to go before the arrival of the acclaimed Riverdance show in Kuala Lumpur, Kakiseni was fortunate enough to speak on the phone with the show’s English production manager, Martyn Drew, who gave some insights on what it takes to make sure this mesmerising Irish dance show travels […]
By Cheryl Lim After having scared his audience with the sheer magnitude of the competition between shows and the logistical nightmare of presenting a show at the Edinburgh Festival (Part 1 and Part 2). Toby Gough goes on to giving a few reassuring hard facts that will get your show staged, or, more modestly (but […]
By Pang Khee Teik Four sunny Saturdays ago, I was invited to an open house at the Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Rumah Teater. Rohaizad Suaidi, who is the entire Theatre Department at UPM, was flustered: the food was late, the people were plenty and hungry, and maneuvering about the small corridor required balletic coordination. But you […]
By Kathy Rowland John Bell AM OBE, Artistic Director of The Bell Shakespeare Company took some time off his busy schedule to share with Kakiseni readers some insights on the Bard and Australian theatre. Shakespeare has a long history on the Australian stage. Is Bell Shakespeare the first ever national-level company expressly dedicated to staging […]
By Adam Tuan Mukriz Adakah anda berpuas hati dengan sambutan orang awam terhadap MyDance Festival 2003? Jika berbicara dari segi matlamat, [sambutan terhadap] MyDance Festival adalah lebih dari memuaskan. Memang pada awalnya kami tidak terfikir untuk menjadikan festival ini sebagai satu upacara yang besar memandangkan tenaga kerja yang ada [kurang mencukupi]. Namun saya bangga kerana […]
By Pang Khee Teik Dina Zaman, writer for Marie Claire and former script editor and veteran of the rough and tumble world of corporate Malaysia, is finally staging her play, Harakiri, a satire on office life based on her experiences at the latter. The play, presented by Chakra Works and directed by R. Rajen, will […]
By Michelle Woo Professionally: an editor, and formerly a literary one. Creatively: a writer of socially-provocative plays and stirring prose. From the heart: an aspiring actor. Kee Thuan Chye, at 47 years of age, talks about his ripening dreams. Kakiseni: What drives your writing? Is it a sense of the past, present, or future? Kee: […]
