Front Row

Artist Wong Chee Meng’s latest series of work began with a question, “Have you ever wondered...?” He joins us to speak about how his vibrant paintings, laden with unusual metaphors, get the audience to re-examine perceptions and consider different points of view by stepping out of their comfort zone. He tells how an accident which compromised his eyesight launched him to become a...

The bassist,based in Denmark, began his musical journey from Mali, and even though he left the country to seek his music fortune outside of Africa, the land of his birth continues to feed his creative soul. Moussa Diallo, who also writes and tells stories has recordings made especially for children. He tells how his various interests all dovetail. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...

Art that shows the indigenous perspectives and functions as a caution against the rape of the land by oil palm growers, developers, miners, timber merchants and those who do not see the sacred in the land where their beds are not. Because of local indigenous art’s limited presence within the visual language of the more dominant cultures, it is  not only misunderstood but misrepresented....

The musician-poet-artist is here for the third time, and there’s more urgency in his voice, in his music and in his engagement. He was last here in August 2016 before the new US President’s edicts to bar Muslims from several African and Middle-Eastern countries. Baraka Blue writes: “In a forest, each tree appears a unique entity, separate from all others. Yet, below the surface,...

This lady sings a blend of  Jazz, Soul, Neo Soul, rhythm-and-blues and blues. She shares her journey from Africa to Malaysia and the evolution of her sound born of warm humid climes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The young artist, who has all the trappings of religious orthodoxy and traditionalism, explains her realistic oil-on-canvas paintings of young women--with arms, necks and feet exposed--in soft flowing, translucent night clothes. She tells about the tension between how she herself appears and the images she depicts and why realism fascinates her and best captures her intent. See omnystudio.com/list...

The young artist holds a debut solo exhibition of more than 80 prints created between 2013 and 2017. He tells of his serendipitous journey which started with chanced opportunities and an inquisitive and exploring mind. His present concerns and inquiry are into memories--how the mind surveys, keeps, selects, rejects, fades out, rearranges in order to create. Memories are constructed, fluid and inde...

The theater practitioner shares his journey from the stage into corporate spaces to facilitate training in as diverse areas as human resource to branding and marketing. He tells about the value of storytelling not only to engender products in the form of student-essays and marketing collaterals but also to individuals as they look at their lives. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

A Singapore-play that explores how people in relationships with each other develop a language of their own. A kind of  code. A shorthand for subconscious language; a language where words are not necessarily articulated. We read their minds, we understand their body gestures and we watch their tone of voice. The producer and actor tell how this latest reincarnation, the third time in KL, is di...

This is the third locally-devised play being staged this year, manifesting a desire to tell local stories and in the vernacular, The performers share the devising process and also tell about the differences between acting in English-language plays and vernacular ones. They also give some insights into gamophobia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ‘Aphrodisia’ exhibition is questioning the unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards portrayed within the media. The paintings challenge viewers come face to face with their own interpretations and perceptions of the ‘food and figure’ theme. We talk to Artist Alya Hatta and Curator Nazreen Abraham about how they are breaking the mold.  See omnystudio.com/listener...

Our guest who hails from Canada is a member of the Walastoq First Nation. He shares with us his digging in the Museum of Canadian History in Gatineau, Quebec to reclaim his culture and language and now to promote it so that they won’t die. He comments on the need to engage the young with the traditional, and then to evolve the traditional to embrace modernity. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

When a show that goes from the stage of a singular secondary school onto a professional stage with performers from many schools and universities, what happens then. Our guests tell about the performing arts in secondary schools and hint on the parents’ receptivity to things which are considered not academic like mathematics and science. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guests, besides telling us about the offerings in the latest installment of the classical Indian festival, share their perspective on the local growth and development of Indian classical music, and how Malaysia and Malaysian-ness influence music from the Indian subcontinent. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For its third outing, the theatre company, EJA Productions has decided on a devised play which focuses on ‘the talking cure’. With the help of a clinical psychologist, and a graduate in ‘theatre and psychology’ who functions as the assistant director, the company explores the usefulness of discovering, with a professional, our own emotional landscape in order to better navi...

The success of ‘Amorous Delight’ has given life to a second staging and Ramli Ibrahim tells about talent in the country, where there is plenty and where the dearth is pronounced. He also paints a landscape in which dancing and the other performing arts can thrive. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The mentor describes the two artists when they first started in the Sembilan Art Residency last August, and then points to their transformations. The two artist share how being under the same roof for a period, talking about, breathing and eating art, they influenced each other. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Throne of Thorns’ was recently staged in ASWARA, the national performing arts school, but with a cast and production crew coming from the University of Wollongong, Australia. We find out from the director herself, who now teaches theatre at UiTM, on her process of creating this work, which has been described as a modern play with practices and elements of the Malay traditional theatre...

The exhibition explores how artists stay relevant and current in the spaces they occupy and in the immediate moment of their lives. We hear from both the curator and gallery owner of Weiling Contemporary and from one of the artists, Ivan Lam. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Handlebards have been in town twice so far, each time making an appearance in BFM’s studio. In the first two outings, the troupe presented Shakespeare’s comedies--‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, respectively. This time a tragedy with a predominantly female cast. Hear how and why the Handlebards have grown and evolved, and the...

Pretty, inoffensive ‘art’ continues to be bought-and-sold and hung on corporate walls; provocative art, either overtly or subtly goading tend to find fewer such walls. Small, private galleries often are bolder pushing the envelope. The curator and artists share their thoughts of visual depictions of the ‘pent up’. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Malaysian Piano Quartet (MPQ) is a recently formed ensemble made up of four pianists ( Felicity Thong, Chong Chooi Foong, Son Hui Ling, and Misa Yamamoto) , trained in different institutions in different countries--England, Australia and the United States of America. Together, they perform pieces arranged for ‘two pianos eight hands’. Beyond hearing about the upcoming recital, hear...

A peek into Norzizi Zulkifli’s melding of contemporary theatre practices and the traditional practices of Mak  Yong.  This postgraduate project which first saw light in Australia premiered in Kuala Lumpur just this past weekend.  This sneak-peek  is a  prelude to an interview with the creator, director and now theatre instructor at UiTM. See omnystudio.com/listener f...

A quick tour of the preview exhibition which will lead up to an auction in the coming week. The assistant manager tells of what on the block and highlights a few piece, including the stars of the exhibition. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Sdn Bhd produced and staged by the Actors Studio is in its 13th year. This series has dealt with important issues like HIV, aids and human trafficking. This time it’s focusing on the very thing that has kept it alive all these years; People! The cast is comprised of theatre and non-theatre people, indulging the audience in the much-loved human experience of storytelling. See omnystudio....