Front Row

The recently opened ‘Contemporary Forum’ exhibition at the Ilham Gallery is a merging of minds (literally) with a collective of 7 curators choosing art pieces created in the past 8 years which aims to highlight and showcase the local arts and cultural scene. Ilham gallery director and ‘The Contemporary Forum’ co-facilitators Rahel Joseph and Lee Weng Choy join us to tell us...

Our guests take us through what might be intuitively obvious, pointing to the structure of stories and the underlying interests of stories. They share their creative processes and point to our curiosity and the impulse to see our life’s journey reflected in the journey of the protagonist on stage. The story is always dramatic and conflict-filled. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

The press release informs that the director, Joe Hasham is attempting the impossible with this Harold Pinter play ‘Betrayal’. He will be alternating the performances in two languages--English and Bahasa Malaysia--and on alternating nights. The performers tell us about the challenges and what they do to overcome them, negotiating between languages and cultures--one English and one Malay...

The two Michaels tell about their collaboration which has enabled Michael Simon from Latin America but based in the Netherlands to absorb our South-east Asian flavours into his musical compositions. Michael Simon describes what is Asian for him, and what the rhythms here evoke in him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The artist tells his journey into the world of art, his art education and offers peeks into his mind, how his works are based on narratives. He reveals why he chooses figures to express himself and what he does with these figures which are like framed like a film still. He tells that he’s interested in evoking responses from the spectator without telling the spectator how to be affected by t...

After introducing us to contemporary dance in Malaysia, Suhaili invites Faillul to talk about the vocabulary of dance and movement. We get some dance history and a view into the creative process of a discipline which, unlike music, is more difficult to annotate. We learn also of the contributions of iconic personalities in the world of dance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The young theatre company, Anomalist Production, is out with another major production this year, this time exploring the tension between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Being a courtroom drama and a whodunit, the play will have its twists and turns. The assistant director Irwan Sumadi brings his real-world law experience into this play; the performers Nikki Basharuddin, Nave Vj, a...

Awarding performers and performances. The guests - Michael Voon, executive Judge of 14BCAA; Anthony Meh and Aman Yap of Dua Space; and Pat Gui, a producer for ‘The Language Archive’ will tell about the process and give a peek into what it means to win. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The dance company returns to Kuala Lumpur to showcase its works. The artistic director updates us on the company’s adventures and shares what lies in store in the company’s annual visit to our city and to Penang. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guests tell about seven collectives, consisting of 44 artists and art practitioners and their upcoming exhibition of works which represent ideologies and processes of working as a collective, simultaneously acknowledging the individuals who work within these collective. The balance between the individual and the collective. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The participants of university-orchestras tell about the role of music in their academic lives when they are studying to become a chef, a pharmacist, a worker in the hospitality industry or whatever field when music is not going to be a career. They reveal the birth of this event which brings musicians from three private universities together to make music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

Hear not only the performer of the first ‘Star Wars’ trilogy (Episodes 4-6) share about the birth of his performance but a two-minute sample of how this one-man show is performed. The man’s infectious love for ‘Star Wars’ is catching, more so when he points out that Luke Skywalker is everyman and makes us all Luke with a calling to become bigger than what we think we...

DPAC’s d’Next Artist Project is back with seven fresh new creations ranging from original stage play and contemporary dance. We talk to three artists involved in the show. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For its 2017 season, KL Shakespeare Players is staging its unique version of the Bard’s Scottish play. The director and performers tell us why this is a problematic play beyond the superstitions surrounding this work. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the course of a discussion on music by young people and music education for young people, specific attention fell on finding the right teachers and institutions. The present climate is such that parents--for whatever reasons--are pushing their young offspring into this discipline. The demand for music education is higher than it has been, and to meet this need, less that desirable instructors a...

The first episode in a series about the theatre with these practitioners taking us into the world behind this space and helping reveal what informs, what influences, what shapes this thing--the space and the performance--we call the theatre. In this show, they shape the conversation around Peter Brook’s seminal work, ‘The Empty Space’. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

The community orchestra shows-off its youth arm in its second concert. The artistic director-and-conductor, Chan Ling Chee, explains how the orchestra helps young musicians to improve beyond giving them the platform to perform and to learn from their peers. We also hear from Lim Khai Xian, Cellist, Kylie Tan and Kyvie Tan, Violists share their world of music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

The director talks about this upcoming production of ‘Jade’, an original play by Alex Broun, which deals with the “psychological damage, and wider implications a crime can inflict on an individual when a minor is involved.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tongue Tied Two is the long awaited sequel to the spoken word cabaret show which premiered at Urbanscapes in 2013. Featuring six poets, two musicians and one improv movement dancer, this redux retells the stories of the monsters from our childhood fairy tales in ways you never dreamed could be true. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Suhaili introduces the novice to the contemporary dance scene in the country. In this first show, she gives a history and introduces the early dancers who embraced contemporary dance. She also points to the emerging choreographers who are marrying more local elements to contemporary dance springing from our soil. She moves fluidly to explain the changing form from ballet to modern dance to contemp...

The 'Aspiring New Zealand' photo exhibition showcases New Zealand’s spectacular winter landscapes that are rarely seen by the public taken from the sky. These works, have recently been awarded the International Photography Award 2016 for the category of Fine Art, Landscapes and Aerial Shoot. We talk to the Malaysian Photographer Jeffry Lim behind the series. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

The Malaysian staging, in English, of a rather famous Chinese tale which has been made into films in Cantonese and Mandarin. Hear the producer and director tell what other adaptations are being made for a Malaysian audience that already knows the tale of deceit and destruction. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guests tell about their serendipitous discovery of gender-specific issues in this Pinter play. They tell how this Malaysian adaptation “would not only look on the concept of infidelity localized to a Malaysian setting but taking on a feminism angle.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first in our series on ‘classical’ music over time. We kick off by looking back at music of the Middle Ages, the period of Richard the Lionheart, Robin Hood and Kublai Khan. This is the period that brought in music notation and the first moves toward polyphonic music.  Hear possible explanations for this evolution. Our guest posits the influences of Medieval music in contempor...

The theatre maker introduces us to the subject of “voice and movement integration.” He shares how this approach to creation is manifested in works performed by his company in productions like ‘Dr Faustus’ and ‘Savages’. Be introduced to approaches like the ‘Laban Movement System’ and the ‘Suzuki Actor Training Method’. See omnystudio.com/...