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FIVE ARTS CENTRE REPORT 2015 2015 Marked the Second Year Of FIVE ARTS CENTRE REPORT 2015 2015 marked the second year of our two-year tenTenTEN! programme, which celebrated the 30th Anniversary of Five Arts Centre in 2014, and marked the tenth year since the passing of founder member Dato’ Krishen Jit in 2015. 2015 kicked off with the Unfinished Business Conference. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Conference on Krishen Jit’s Performance Practice and Contemporary Malaysian Theatre 9 – 11 January 2015 Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre – KLPac Conference Convenors: Charlene Rajendran and Ken Takiguchi Produced by: Lim How Ngean and Marion D’Cruz From 9 – 11 January 2015, we held a conference entitled Unfinished Business: Conference on Krishen Jit’s Performance Practice and Contemporary Malaysian Theatre. Held at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac), this Conference brought together 160 local and international participants including arts practitioners, writers, academics, and students. The Conference had an eclectic range of sessions including keynote addresses, academic paper presentations, story-dialogues, workshop dialogues and performances. The Conference was a resounding success, gauging from the feedback and comments that we received. “A great dialogue about the legacy of one of the pillars of Malaysian theatre. For those like me, who were not privileged to know the man or to have any direct relationship with him, it was a fabulous history lesson, and an opportunity to ponder the impact of his work, future directions etc. I was most touched to learn of his incredibly nurturing personality - which seemed to be a recurring theme throughout the various sessions, and the porous transitions between classical, contemporary, Malay, English, local, global, etc.... and rather than being confined by specificity of genre, he chose (at the risk of being presumptuous) to use whatever was needed to make interesting or meaningful art. Bravo Five Arts Centre!” Joseph Gonzales, Dean, Faculty of Dance, Aswara. Performance by Ivan Heng Perforrmance by Jo Kukathas Performance by Huzir Sulaiman and Claire Wong Page 1 of 22 Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel/Fax: +6 03 77254858 Email: [email protected] / www.fiveartscentre.org / facebook.com/fiveartscentre Keynote Speech by Kanaga Sabapathy Keynote Speech by Makoto Sato Workshop by Marion D’Cruz Workshop by Chee Sek Thim Workshop by Janet Pillai and Mark Teh Story Dialogues: Namron Zahim Albakri Jillian Ooi Faridah Merican Presentations: Charlene Rajendran Fahmi Fadzil Janet Pillai Mark Teh ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 2 of 22 Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel/Fax: +6 03 77254858 Email: [email protected] / www.fiveartscentre.org / facebook.com/fiveartscentre Cakap Dapur: R&D Stories By Leow Puay Tin Directed and performed by Chee Sek Thim Produced by Suhaila Merican 5 – 8 February 2015 at Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC), Kuala Lumpur. 14 – 16 August 2015 at Sinkeh, Penang. Cakap Dapur: R&D Stories is playwright Leow Puay Tin’s latest work. It is a performance text developed from a workshop on research and documentation by Professor Mohd Anis Mohd Nor. It takes the audience through a series of text modules touching on history, culture, identity, self and nation. The three-month rehearsal process was an experimental laboratory, where the performer/director gave a series of readings to invited audiences for feedback. Chee Sek Thim performed this in Kuala Lumpur in February and in Penang in August. Cakap Dapur also introduced the audience to some important concepts on creating a performance. With every line delivered, Chee bridged the distance between the stage and audience. There was just something magnetic about the Penang-based actor and director. He also projected a congenial demeanour, making him endearing and approachable………………In the end, Cakap Dapur was an insightful exploration of not only theatrical issues but also of grander themes of identity, culture and nationhood. The Star, February 2015. Chee Sek Thim in Cakap Dapur: R&D Stories ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TPAM Performing Arts Meting in Yokohama 7 – 15 February 2015 Yokohama, Japan. June Tan and Mark Teh were invited to attend the TPAM Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, the longest established international platform for contemporary performing arts in Asia. At TPAM, apart from watching performances and networking with performing arts professionals, June gave a talk on The Personal and the Political: Five Arts Centre’s Response to Contemporary Malaysia, while Mark participated in a panel session on Asian Page 3 of 22 Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel/Fax: +6 03 77254858 Email: [email protected] / www.fiveartscentre.org / facebook.com/fiveartscentre Artists and Future Co-Productions. Mark was also invited to deliver an artist presentation about his multidisciplinary work, and was featured in an exhibition highlighting young Southeast Asian performing artists, at Yokohama Creativecity Center and BankART. Mark Teh presenting June Tan presenting ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Will Read These Names A reading of 963 names of unsung heroes by Marion D'Cruz and the audience. 12 April 2015 artACT mapKL@Publika artACT was an event where art met activism in exhibitions, documentaries, performances, talks, workshop/forums and more, in aid of good causes, to spark awareness, to raise hope, and to talk about issues that matter. Marion D’Cruz read the names and details of 963 people arrested under the ISA. The audience were invited to help read the names. Marion D’Cruz reading Page 4 of 22 Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel/Fax: +6 03 77254858 Email: [email protected] / www.fiveartscentre.org / facebook.com/fiveartscentre Roundtable dialogues for the Staging History Publication 11 April 2015 Gallery Seksan, Kuala Lumpur. Organised by Kathy Rowland, June Tan and Hoe Hui Ting. As part of Five Arts Centre's 30th Anniversary Celebrations, we published a book of play scripts, entitled Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts Centre Malaysia 1984 - 2014. The book contains 15 play scripts from Five Arts Centre's productions, critical essays, archival images and a bibliography of Malaysian theatre. One of the sections in the book included edited transcripts from two roundtable discussions organized in April. The first roundtable was with collaborators involved in the design, set, lighting and other design aspects of a production. The second roundtable brought together directors, performers and playwrights. The objective of both roundtables was to discuss the process of negotiation, collaboration, conflict and resolution - that goes into creating a production, from concept to rehearsals, bump-in and eventual staging of the work. The following were the participants of the workshops: Roundtable 1: Theatre-Making: Design Panel: Carolyn Lau, Mac Chan, William Harald Wong, Wong Tay Sy, Moderated by Grey Yeoh. Roundtable 2: From Text to Stage, From Stage to Text Panel: Imri Nasution, Janet Pillai, Leow Puay Tin, Marion D’Cruz, Mark Teh Moderated by Carmen Nge. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 minute solos 16 – 19 April 2015 Festival Bo:m in Korea with Korean and Malaysian artists. Seogyo Art Space, Seoul, South Korea. In October 2014, members of Five Arts Centre met up with Korean practitioners on a research tour as part of the Korean-Malaysian Exchange Programme, organised jointly by Korean Arts Management Services (KAMS) and the Malaysian Jabatan Kebudayaan dan Kesenian Negara (JKKN). One of the Korean practitioners was Seunghyo Lee, the Director of Festival Bo:m who invited June Tan to co-produce 2 minute solos with Festival Bo:m with artists in Korea. Established in 2007, Festival Bo:m is an annual international spring festival held in Seoul, showing experimental and avant-garde works of interdisciplinary art. It has built a reputation as being a platform for visual arts, theatre, dance and performance in Korea. Festival Bo:m Page 5 of 22 Five Arts Centre, 27 & 27A Lorong Datuk Sulaiman 7, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tel/Fax: +6 03 77254858 Email: [email protected] / www.fiveartscentre.org / facebook.com/fiveartscentre 2015, the 9th edition of festival, took place from March 27 to April 19 with a focus on Malaysia. 2 minute solos was first conceived by Marion D’Cruz and was presented in Kuala Lumpur in 2013 and in 2014. 2 minute solos, as a conceptual framework, provides a platform for practitioners to perform a solo piece for 2 minutes repeatedly, in a number of different spaces. The audience, in small groups, moves from space to space until all have seen all the solos. The theme of the solo can be curated, or not, and the performance can choose to respond to the chosen site, or not. 2 minute solos aims to create intimate performance, where the practitioner is challenged to get their message to the audience in two minutes. For Festival Bo:m there were 7 practitioners – two Malaysian dancers based in Korea (one a contemporary
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