Front Row

The actor and trainer, Oliver Senton, was in Kuala Lumpur, brought in by a performing group to train young would-be participants in musical theatre.  He gives a brief history of The School of Night and its manifestation in the 20th century under the guidance of Ken Campbell, who is described by The Guardian as “one of the most original and unclassifiable talents in the British theatre o...

Hands give inspiration and birth to works by the artist Yau Bee Ling. She relates her growing up years and other  stories that gave her the inspiration to depict on canvas.  Hands, as appendages, are our natural extensions to touch and to connect with each other--other human beings with hands--and the surrounding physical world. Hands can create. Bee Ling illuminates further the spiritua...

The proverbial complaint from the public often is that ticket prices to concerts are expensive, what more when the performers are unknown quantities (or of uncertain quality). The musicians justify and explain why tickets to a classical music festival is high and at the same time share the program that they will be performing in the Johor Bahru Classical  Music Festival 2016 See omnystudio.co...

A relatively new percussion group has come on the scene, distinguishing itself from other groups by focusing a little more on the visual technologies and incorporating them into the company’s drumming performances. Our guests tell about the company’s upcoming show ‘Carpe Diem’ and of how it is using projection mapping to provide a visual feast that accompanies the audial fe...

The Soorya India Festival will be held in Kuala Lumpur with Odissi exponent Uthara Mano; Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer, Meenakshi Srinivasan, both from India; and local artists from Temple of Fine Arts Malaysia. Our guests give pointers to explain the differences among these dances, which include a Katha performance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest who is appearing this weekend in the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas as the featured soloist met with Front Row to talk about an artist’s honesty and what falls on this performer’s shoulder when on the stage. He also comments on the audience and what they could do to help themselves, though the responsibility lies primarily with the musician. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

At the opening night of the Malay adaptation of Macbeth, Front Row producer, Lim Soon Heng spoke to theatre virgin, Muhammad Haniff, and theatre regular, Tina Carmillia, about what they thought of Dato' Seri. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The jazz pianist and the musician-sound engineer, tell about the production of a music CD. They give us a look into the process and explain how a band can be larger than itself in the studio. They also express why in theory one kind of performance should not cannibalise the other. Find out how to buy their latest album on the WVC - Malaysian Jazz Ensemble page .   See omnystudio.com/listener...

The husband-and-wife team, after more than two decades in the UK, now back in the country, are featuring dances that they choreographed for "From Soho to Shinjuku • Half Man Half Myth – A Double Bill", and in one of which Ming Low is dancing in. They tell about dancing and how dances can tell stories and relate experiences, and at the same time avoid cliches of dance vocabularies. &nbsp...

The Harry Potter film series are over, at least for now. A stage production, going beyond the time frame in the books, has just started. And so has a spoof which condenses seven Harry Potter books into 70 minutes. Dan and James talk about Potted Potter, the unauthorized Harry experience, telling where they found the humor.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The artist and director of the upcoming exhibition "Making" explain the impulse to discover new techniques, materials and media. Beyond  the Why’s, they throw light on some processes, like what is entailed in making decisions and choices, what influence these choices and how these in turn enable a different kind of inquiry.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Bubble and Milkshake use bubbles born of magical art to tell stories and at the same time offer a visual metaphor for overcoming fears. We talk to them about the science of bubbles and how bubbles fit into this metaphor.  With the weekend almost here, they blow in humor and laughter and blow away the work week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After watching the latest offering in this year's Shakespeare lineup at klpac, Soon Heng tells you his thoughts on "Shakespeare's Women". Hear what he thinks about the all-women performers, their multi-tiered set, and the strength of Shakepeare's female characters. Listen to the interview with the director, executive director, and one of the actors of "Shakespeare's Women". See omnystudio.com/list...

On October 31, 1984, Delhi, India, witnessed a horror of great proportions. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards. In retaliation, an orgy of murder, rape and arson was unleashed upon the Sikh residents of Delhi in which more than 3000 lost their lives. Our guests, performers from ‘Kultar’s Mime’-- based on a poem by Sarbpreet Singh --syn...

The father-and-son team has tweaked the Scottish play and situated it on our fair shores, and retell the Bard’s tale with local flavours that extend beyond rendang, rumours and rascals. They tell us the process and the challenges of translating Shakespeare. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The winner of this year’s Young Art Taipei 2016 tells what drives him. Although trained as an architect, he has given up that day job to use art to raise questions, challenge the status quo and express what he thinks isn’t always obvious.  Ajim Juxta explains ‘arcology’. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In its fourth cycle, the Sembilan Art Residency paired Anahita Ghazanfari and Syahbandi Samat. The former comes from Iran; the latter from Sabah. The artists share their experiences of the residency and tell stories of the works they individually and collaboratively produced. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, it was about women acting in roles written by Shakespeare. Today, it’s women singing. The inaugural music festival organized by The Gardens Theatre brings together a list of singers, each taking the stage on a different date. We have invited three of these performers in to give us a sneak peek and to help us anticipate what to expect. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...

Looking at Shakespeare’s female characters who were traditionally played by men. What burden does this history weigh on contemporary women portraying these characters? In the course of the discussion with our guests from "Shakespeare's Women", we hope to uncover new understanding of the Bard’s plays--Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, A Winter’s...

The artistic director tells why teaching young people to drum is important and thus the reason for the upcoming fund-raising concert. At the event, Hands Percussion aims to raise enough to sponsor 1,000 young people in their effort to learn drumming and participate in an international drumming festival that the percussion troupe will hold later in September. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

In conjunction with a batik exhibition at Ilham Gallery, a one-day symposium has been organized bringing together textile experts “working in different areas working of studies from art history to heritage to anthropology,” to discuss “the historical, cultural and spiritual significance of textiles in the region and beyond.” The convenor and guests give a peek into the vari...

They are back by demand in a concert together singing. We’ll find out what makes sparks fly between the two that not only the voices meld together but clever repartee and banter. Hear also samples of what the concert might sound like when we get them to sing in the studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guests--merely teenagers--have performed not just in this country but overseas--nothing short of Carnegie Hall, New York. Jeremy Yeo, Joshua Ng and Debra Grace Lim have competed in prestigious piano playing competitions and have scored prizes. We will find out from them where the drive comes from and what it means to play music and to be inside it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

WVC Malaysian Jazz Ensemble will be presenting Shakespeare in music as part of the klpac celebrations, ringing in the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. The musicians will share the challenges and the joys of putting Shakespeare’s sonnets into contemporary jazz and singing them, including composing music based on plays like ‘Titus Andronicus’, ‘Hamlet’, &lsq...

Our guests talk about their upcoming ‘untraditional’ performance which combines elements of a music concert with a theatrical structure, to create a dance drama that focuses on Flamenco dancing. The performance explores human relationships and other existential questions. Parallels are drawn between the life of the character(s) and the history of the Flamenco music from its birth until...