Front Row

We catch up with pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader Tay Cher Siang , a regular on the local jazz circuit, and part of the WVC Malaysian Jazz Ensemble . Cher Siang has also been working on a variety of other projects, including curating a whole set of events for the new jazz and music venue, TiTi Fusion , which is located in Sri Petaling. We catch up with Cher Siang to find out more. Image...

“ An Uncommon Journey ” is described as a labour of love and massive undertaking by like-minded music educators and musicians to reconnect after two years, to share and learn and to make music together. Over 50 musicians, some travelling from out-of-state, gathered weekly at KLPAC over a period of 13 weeks in this collaborative project, with musicians aged 16 to 22 working closely with the KLPAC S...

That day, I was sketching on the street is Ong Hieng Fuong ’s debut solo exhibition, and is described as a display of his conversations with observed moments of life. His works are rendered in a variety of mediums, from vibrant poster colours to elaborate woodcuts. He joins us to talk about his works, and how growing up in Tanjung Sepat, a small fishing town in Selangor, formed much of the inspira...

Out of the Depths is the first post-lockdown concert by Bachfest Malaysia, featuring two moving Bach cantatas, performed by the award-winning Malaysia Bach Festival Singers and Orchestra. Aside from the concert, world-renowned Bach scholar Prof. Dr. Michael Maul will be providing pre-concert lectures, and the concert tour is also the official book launch for Michael’s Chinese/English version of th...

A multi-hyphenated soul, Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian multidisciplinary artist, author, rapper, poet, hip hop artist and now also woodcut printer. He has to his credit a long list of accomplishments, including four poetry books, four hip-hop records, he has written an acclaimed one-man play called Since Ali Died, and his debut novel, “Here Come the Dogs” was longlisted for the International...

Tanjai Kamalaa Indira (TKI) Dance School is recognised as the ‘Longest Operating Dance Training School in Malaysia’ by the Malaysia Book of Records. They are set to present their 23rd thematic production, a dance recital accompanied by live music entitled ' Natyaamirtham - The Nectar of Dance, a performance celebrating joy, and we discuss the upcoming performance with Indira Manikam, the co-founde...

The late Brian Friel was considered one of the best-known Irish playwrights of his generation, and his first play Philadelphia, Here I Come! premiered in Dublin in 1964, before subsequently moving to Broadway where it ran for 326 performances and earned several Tony Award nominations. The play is described as a tragicomedy, and explores themes like new beginnings, emotional escapism, memory, nosta...

Cahaya XR: First Edition is described as an exhibition that fuses local stories with immersive technology, to demonstrate new ways of reimagining Penang’s traditional stories and heritage, while also showcasing how the metaverse can be used to hold space for inclusive community storytelling. Featuring works by Penang artists White Bones, Ysabel Loh and Kabilan Murali Dharan, the exhibition is both...

The Titikmerah Collective are celebrating their 8th anniversary with a group exhibition titled ‘ Simulacrum ’ which means ‘something that looks like or represents something else’. Featuring the works of 18 artists, including core members of the collective and invited artists, the exhibition features paintings, sculptures and digital works. We find out more about the collective and their current ex...

The community theatre play "And Then Came Spring" centres on the life of a child bride in Kabul, who is abandoned by her husband after she has their baby, and his decision sets off a chain of events that changes everyone’s lives forever. The play is a collaborative effort between refugee community-funded theatre group Parastoo Theatre and the Instant Cafe Theatre Company . We find out more from Sa...

Stuck at home with nothing to do because of the Movement Control Order? Worry not, because we're here to keep the boredom at bay. Every day, we present our special curated list of arts, culture, and entertainment that you can experience right from your own home. Today, we feature Love Never Dies , Andrew Lloyd Webber's follow-up to the story of The Phantom of the Opera. Then, we dive with the Yell...

2020 has not been kind to our local arts industries. Most shows, festivals and exhibitions had to either close down completely, or experiment by going digital. For this final show of 2020, we try to take an optimistic tone, and discuss what artsmakers have learnt and how the industry can move forward into the new year. Joining us for the conversation are: Bilqis Hijjas, dance producer, Rimbun Daha...

If Darth Vader, Superman, or Wonder Woman were wayang kulit characters, how might their costumes and personalities be reimagined? Fusion Wayang Kulit , a Malaysian troupe that is reviving Kelantanese shadow puppetry by merging it with stories from popular film and comics culture, is attempting to answer this question through a YouTube series called “Puppet Explained”. Best known for th...

Project Ranih is an online archive to collect children’s folk songs of the Kelabit community of Sarawak. We speak with one of the project’s founders, Alena Murang, about the place these songs hold in the Kelabit culture and the challenges of preserving them. Image Source: Project Ranih  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Freedom Film Fest has become a fixture here in the Malaysian cultural calendar, for highlighting documentaries on human rights and social justice that are relevant to this region. Usually the festival is coupled with various live events and talks, but the COVID-19 pandemic this year has limited a lot of that. So we speak to directors of the Freedom Film Network, Anna Har and Brenda Danker, abo...

Woodcut carving and printmaking occupies an interesting space within visual arts, as it crosses the lines between the traditional and the modern, between folk art and contemporary art. A current exhibition called “Carving Reality” features works from Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, and spotlights the emergence of social realist woodcuts in East Asia. We sp...

The notion of a Southeast Asian artistic identity is a complicated one, particularly within the context of contemporary art. With 2020 having dealt a huge blow to the arts worldwide, we look at developments and new directions in Southeast Asia: what the challenges are, the current movements, and what the future might hold. To help answer these questions, we speak with Patrick Flores, professor of...

The Global Migrant Festival is an online arts and literary festival that foregrounds the stories and experiences of low-wage migrant workers and refugees. The organisers of the festival see the arts a window into the human condition, and seek to use it as a medium to have the voices of these communities heard. We speak to two of the festival’s featured performers: Warsan Weedhsan, co-directo...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many performing arts companies have been turning to their archives or past performances to see how they can be repurposed for viewing today - because of the challenges of staging live shows or even having rehearsals and so on. Which is how we now have an online streaming of the play Nadirah, written by Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at back in 2009. The play h...

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed how art is created and performed; Soliloquy - A Dance Film is an example of those possibilities. A collaborative dance video between dancer and choreographer SueKi Yee and musician Rachel Morais, it was made this year, while observing social distancing requirements, and with SueKi in Kuala Lumpur and Rachel in Brisbane. We speak to them both about th...

The WLG Incubator is an initiative by Wei-Ling Galleries to mentor and collaborate with emerging Malaysian artists, and this year, the artists selected were Anas Afandi and Tang Tze Lye. Over a six-month program, the two artists worked with Malaysian artist Ivan Lam as their mentor to discuss, research, and develop new concepts. The results of this are currently being shown at the WLG Incubator Yo...

In these pandemic times, the idea of attending a performance often feels rather remote. But what if that performance took place in the form of a phone call, where you spoke to a stranger for an hour? That is the basic premise of a performance happening as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, with a show called “A Thousand Ways - Part 1: A Phone Call”, by American theat...

On October 29, 2020, Malaysian literary and artistic icon Salleh Ben Joned passed away at the age of 79. Salleh was known for his powerful poetry and essays in both Bahasa Malaysia and English, and is also often referred to as a maverick and non-conformist for his works that challenged taboos about race, religion, sexuality, and so on. In many ways, he is also seen as being relatively underrated o...

Musician and producer Alvin Wee, who is originally from Sarawak, has been making a name for himself in Hollywood through his work in films like Kung Fu Panda 3 and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. He most recently worked on Disney’s Mulan, and his upcoming work includes doing sound mixing for the next James Bond movie and the upcoming Top Gun sequel. However, Alvin still finds much joy in workin...

In 2014, Malaysian sculptor Tengku Sabri Ibrahim had a stroke, which left him doubtful of ever being able to make art again. Yet, over the next few years, he worked with an assistant to rework his process of artmaking; the result is “Bujukan Semilir/Feathering the Breeze”, an exhibition of sculptures, drawings, and stories that draw on his experience of recovering from his stroke...