Front Row

The Australian University has brought in 30 students and mixing them with local students at the Bentley Music Academy. Between the two groups they will stage an opera--The Mikado--and excerpts from Broadway musicals. Our guest tell about the collaboration and why such a collaboration is important. They also share on how exposure to music education impacts the young. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Our guests tell us about the repertoire of movie-theme music that the Selangor Philharmonic Orchestra will play in its concert, ‘May the Music Be With You’. They point to John Williams’ genius and introduce us to Hans Zimmer and a Welsh composer, Karl Jenkins whose piece accompanied video but not a film or a television series. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From Rimbun Dahan in a new year, new collaborations by teams of Southeast Asian artists. Bilqis Hijjas the convenor and curator of this annual event--together with two dancer-artists--tells about the 10 site-specific dance works. Our guests give us a look at how they as collaborators negotiate differences to mutually create and they share on the issues and attitudes towards dancing in the region....

Our producer takes a trip to an art gallery to look at eight large portraits of artist, Chong Ai Lei. Her portraits set her in the home she grew up in. Our producer describes some of her works and reveals what they evoke in him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The festival--which is a mix of workshops, demonstrations and performances--enters its fifth year. Our guest tells not only of its offerings but also about the former participants, especially in its competition. The festival which humbly started with a focus on the piano has now opened its door to other jazz instruments. Michael Veerapen reasons why this change in the festival. See omnystudio.com/...

Our producer was at klpac the week before Christmas when he noticed a group of performers of different nationalities. Being nosey, he asked who they were and what they were doing and discovered a gathering that sought to melt the borders among performers and arts practitioners of different disciplines and nationalities. The No Borders Project is in its sixth year. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

The government’s Cultural Economy Development Agency (Cendana) set up to build a “vibrant, sustainable and ambitious cultural economy” in the country today announces its call for applicant to its Emerging Artist Incubation Funding Programme. The agency’s founding CEO answers questions to clarify the nut-and-bolts of what all this funding entails and what information is requ...

This month on Speak Easy, Elaine Foster invites two poets to do a round-up of the year that was 2017. Azam Rais is a seasoned poet and host of Poet X, an online podcast series of spoken word poetry, while Julian Matthews only discovered spoken word poetry recently. The contrasting experiences of both guests provide a thought-provoking insight into the spoken word scene in Malaysia. See omnystudio....

A BFM-produced-for-the-holidays storytelling of ‘The Gift of the Magi,” by American writer, O Henry. Performed by: Phraveen Arikiah as Jim; Hana Nadira as Della, and Sabera Shaik as Mrs Sofronie Read by: Lim Soon Heng See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Glass, thinking on the future of theatre, started to work with the ‘next generation’. And since the inception of the ensemble in 1990, has created works which reviewers have described as “inspiring and dynamic” and “masterful.” David shares on how to take non-traditional works and devised them into a performance, using examples from the works that he has s...

The four share on why they are performing early (Western) music with period instruments, and what they discover and how to enable discerning ears to hear. They have come together as a musical group, Wicked Music People. They explain how their own modern sensibilities guide their approach, and how they have to bow the fine line between being true to the period music and their contemporary ears. See...

January Low returns to an interview a little more than a year after her last on to talk about her performance, ‘Bloom’. She tells about the need to dance and how through dancing Odissi, she re-imagines herself, seven years after leaving a dance company to become a wife and mother. She also informs on working with actor, Ghafir Akhbar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

Pauline Fan tells us about the types of Kompang and the event at Publika in which a craftsman will demonstrate the making of this percussion instrument. Pusaka continues to promote and foster such traditional skills and preservation of culture. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our producer caught up with Jolly Koh, a senior Malaysian artist, to discover his understaning of beauty, truth and goodness. The artist is holding an exhibition--Jolly Koh @76--of works created within the last few years. He gives his opinions on contemporary art and art writing while underscoring that for him, art is about creating what is beautiful. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...

After 13 weeks, training, writing and learning the skills of directing, six young directors showcase their work and the company, Anomalist Production, that nurtured them, comes on to tell about the process and the need to find, incubate and cultivate new talent. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The director, a Malaysian homed in China, returns to KL to stage another work, this time one by Chinese playwright Cao Yu. ‘Peking Man’ is considered by many, the playwright’s masterpiece. This play details the collapse of a prominent family because of familial conflicts. Klpac earlier in the year staged in English Cao Yu’s ‘Thunderstorm’. See omnystudio.com/lis...

New media in art incorporates contemporary technologies--digital and analogue--to create new/different experiences. Our guests tell about the weekend exhibition and panel discussion, and share the reasons for their interests in this way of expressing which blurs the line between the subject and object, the artist-as-facilitator and the spectator-as-artist. New media art seems to compel an experien...

Non-Indian ASWARA graduates gather to dance classical Bharatanatyam to point out that we all need to cross our cultural borders, go beyond our ethnicities and tongues. Our guest tell of ASWARA students performing classical dances in India and the reception the company received. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The artistic director of the musical group that focuses on classical music tells about the company’s exploration of Johann Sebastian Bach’s secular works. Believe it or not, but the centerpiece of the ensemble’s repertoire is the comedic ‘Coffee Cantata’. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The festival--though it is a tag the organizer doesn’t like--is in its second year. Riding on 2016’s experience, our guest the organizer, shares how this three-day event, which features mostly art, art-and-curatorial talks, guided art tours, has grown to include food. Shalini Ganendra shares on how to approach artworks so as not to be intimidated. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

This month, Speak Easy focuses on how poetry and poetry slam are being used in education across schools and universities in Malaysia to improve things students’ confidence, develop their self expression, and language skills. But poetry in education can do a whole lot more. We hear from poetry educator Yohanna Yusrinal, as well as poet-students Tee Yen, Amanda Lim, Elissa Foong and Taarani Ma...

Part dance history and part dance appreciation, this conversation situates Martha Graham’s contributions as dancer and choreographer to the world of contemporary dance. Bilqis Hijjas also shares on Martha Graham’s life, the “Martha Graham technique” and the seminal works for which the dancer-choreographer is known. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A conversation about capturing the human form in art and some insights into why this activity is complex and compelling. In capturing landscape and objects in still life, the artist is for the most part less overtly impacted and influenced as by the changing human being before them. Our guests share on “the male gaze.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The dancer, choreographer, teacher and artist talks about creating dances. He shares his experience dancing first as part of a troupe and then going solo. He tells about his Welcome to Project and his every changing collective dances, under the rubric 'The Sukanpins Project, when he collaborates with local performers made up of dancers and non-dancers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

Our guests--a mix of Malaysians and Australians--come from a university in Australia bearing a musical for children, titled, “Home at Last: A Toy’s Journey.” The production is funded by the Australian Council for the Arts and the Western Australia’s CAN initiative. The play deals with migration, immigration and communities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...