When one thinks of the House of Cartier, that designer brand of timepieces and jewellery, one would think of classic designs best accompanied with a quietly elegant sense of style. But a turn at an exhibition featuring creations from its Heritage Collection recently spun my head around on two counts: that Cartier has a radical history, and that a respect for tradition is best matched with a daring for innovative side-steps into the untried and unprecedented.
The exhibition was The Art of Cartier, a collection of specially commissioned jewellery and precious objects comprising over 100 pieces specially repurchased in the past twenty years, and selected to tour the world since 1989. Its priceless gig at the National Museum of Singapore recently – the collection’s first showing in South-east Asia, was indeed a timely one as the last Preview Season event for the newly renovated Museum before its official re-launching.
I arrived at the Museum aptly located on Stamford Road on the very last day of the The Art of Cartier, organised by the legendary maison, and presented by the Museum. This cosy collaboration between a Singaporean public organisation and a French designer-brand corporation at the Museum’s new extension, called Gallery Theatre, was truly dramatic – spotlit glass-cases nestled into staggered redbrick walls where the Cartier creations held sway like holy grottos. In this seemingly religious ambience a volunteer guide provided a spirited commentary. An enthusiastic gaggle of perfectly coiffured tai-tai’s and curious sunbaked backpackers toured the exhibits like pilgrims of gemstones and precious metal.
Right from the start The Art of Cartier was an exceptional journey in time, in the history of design, and in quick glimpses into the lifestyles of the very rich and terribly famous. It seemed that Cartier was the choice of European royalty as well as Indian Maharajas, who would arrive at the Parisienne jeweller’s workshop with crates full of precious stones for the Cartier artisans to set in exquisite designs.
The route of the exhibits begins with designs from the Belle Epoque era of the early 1900s. It was here that Cartier innovation trail-blazed its own course, employing for the first time platinum, which lent itself to mounts and settings that were as delicate as they were solid, and which showed off the sparkle of diamonds in a way gold and silver never could.
Enamel, hardstone and a daring combination of colours were also the hallmark of Cartier. And the maison’s design inspirations came from as far-flung places as the Middle East, and China, capturing the imagination of those who had a penchant for the priceless, the exotic and the singularly unique.
Materials, motifs, ideograms, mythical creatures and divinities inherited from these places exotic and unfamiliar to the West, were incorporated bravely into Cartier designs. Each must have caused quite a sensation in their time. Cultural fusion, long before the phrase had been coined, and of an exquisite craftsmanship that would have set Cartier way ahead of any other jewellers then.
Nature may have inspired Cartier, but their artisans ensured that any one Cartier floral and animal designs would be bold and assertive in its materials, posture and architecture. Some boasted highly articulate structures, where wings quivered and tails could lash one way or the other.
Hollywood celebrities too had their day with Cartier. Gloria Swanson, one of the silver screen’s earliest icons would be immortalised flashing not just one but two diamond, platinum and rock crystal bracelets fashioned by Cartier in what has been described as prefiguring jewellery as fashion accessory.
One of the hallmarks of Cartier design is in the creation of their ‘mystery clocks’, where their hands seem to float in space without any visible connection to the movement. Utilizing crystal discs and an intricately concealed mechanism, Cartier mystery clocks are quite a sight to behold. I was mesmerised for quite a while as time passed, well … ‘mysteriously’.
Other notable exhibits were the sword designed for Jean Cocteau, the famous ‘Crocodile’ necklace for Mexican actress Maria Felix, and the ostentatious creation for the Maharaja of Patiala – a heavily jewelled and gem-ed up number that would turn Elton John green with envy, or make Liberace do double-flips in his grave.
While I am not really very much into jewellery, The Art of Cartier was quite an experience. It reminded me that when inspiration meets innovation, and when some daring is part of the mix, that is perhaps when some history can be left behind for others to gape at in total awe. I know I did. And it wasn’t even because of their price tags.
(761 words)
The Art of Cartier was presented by National Museum of Singapore from 30th December to 17th October 2006.
(This piece was published in the February 2007 edition of THE HILT.)
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Thursday, 28 September 2006
Not armies, but artists
There are days I wake up wishing it were all a dream. It has never been easy, but hopefully, the pain can turn into joy. Like childbirth. No, this is not from personal experience. I am biologically male. Well, OK, anatomically, then. Genitally?
But the truth is, a job in my chosen line – of being a writer such as those who churn out articles like this – is like living on the edge. From deadline, to deadline. Clever people like you will proclaim, “Life’s like that, what?”
The wiser ones would chip in, “School is meant to prepare you for the dreaded deadline. And deadlines are good because targets must be met.” And to that I would add, “a wholly adult construct”. No wonder then that the wise are usually old. Deadlines can age you. Fast.
Homework, projects, examinations. I am sure you have noticed how they have a tendency to turn days, weeks, and months into semesters, diplomas and degrees. One academic hurdle after another, and before you know it, you are flipping a motar board into the air, even as you yourself are propelled into the rat race. Fast.
I graduated with a degree in the arts. A generalist of sorts, armed to do most things except build something out of sand or metal; cut, stitch and heal body or soul; or even argue in a court of law. And so it came to pass that I would find first employment as an advertising copywriter. This was in the last millennium. The truth is it was a decade and a half before the end of the last, when Lim Kok Wing was still a Mr., not yet institutionalized, and most people weren’t sure exactly what such a job entailed.
For the uninitiated, I choose to repeat or, more aptly, plagiarise, from someone more articulate than I. He was, if memory serves me well, an advertising legend who said, “Copywriters spend ten percent of their time writing, and ninety percent of their time convincing their clients they really can write.”
So, there you go. When I heard it, an epiphany happened. The uninitiated would need to be told that an epiphany is that light-bulb thing you see in comics. Except that this one was in neon tubes that spelt out the following: “Being creative isn’t just about, being creative. You need to be convincing.”
Following that, another thing happened. (Dare I call it a pro-phani-ty?) Coupled like a wonderfully familiar cliché of a metaphor the phrase fell into my cerebral lap: creativity and conviction – they need each other, like, yes, the chicken and the egg. Of course, the second of the couplings we know as the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum of metaphors.
“But which is which?” did I hear you ask? It doesn’t matter if you get the point.
If it is meant to go anywhere, do anything, or be of any worth, creativity requires conviction. And conviction with creativity rocks. It is as simple as that. Seriously simple. That it takes conviction to motivate, and encourage creativity.
So what really is creativity? Those ideas turned into action that moves things forward. Some are simple, others more complex, each requiring the conviction of time, effort and support.
Creativity usually begins with curiosity. And curiosity often begins with questions. So when two or three or more are gathered in the name of curiosity, asking questions and looking for answers, whether factual or artistic, we should not be afraid. Because, it simply means that creativity is a foot, and that the germination of more ideas is about to occur, and move us forward, as one happy kelompok.
Imagine if Newton had ignored the apple, or Magellan had not bothered what lay beyond the horizon, where might mankind be right now? Not very far from where he first started, right?
Let go further back. If prehistoric man had been cast into a hypnotic spell by the flickering tongues of a flame, and sat rigid not wondering if by its heat he could make his Brontasaurus steak a little more appetizing, could Chef Wan be a celebrity cook today?
Ask? Answer.
Creativity needs conviction. It needs our courage and support, not a tempurung, to flourish fearlessly and constructively.
Imagine? When that happens, everywhere, nations could very well be represented not by armies, but by artists, and rather than fight with each other, we will simply show off our best, creative minds, moving mankind forward in mind, body and soul.
Yes, when that happens – and it can, please: BE CONVINCED – the world will be one great big arts festival.
Yes! Much more enjoyable than what’s going down here on earth and in our land just right now.
So please, someone – set a deadline. Fast.
- THE SHRIMP WARRIOR~ fighting for the ‘lil flings
(Published in WEEKEND MAIL - 28th September 2006)
But the truth is, a job in my chosen line – of being a writer such as those who churn out articles like this – is like living on the edge. From deadline, to deadline. Clever people like you will proclaim, “Life’s like that, what?”
The wiser ones would chip in, “School is meant to prepare you for the dreaded deadline. And deadlines are good because targets must be met.” And to that I would add, “a wholly adult construct”. No wonder then that the wise are usually old. Deadlines can age you. Fast.
Homework, projects, examinations. I am sure you have noticed how they have a tendency to turn days, weeks, and months into semesters, diplomas and degrees. One academic hurdle after another, and before you know it, you are flipping a motar board into the air, even as you yourself are propelled into the rat race. Fast.
I graduated with a degree in the arts. A generalist of sorts, armed to do most things except build something out of sand or metal; cut, stitch and heal body or soul; or even argue in a court of law. And so it came to pass that I would find first employment as an advertising copywriter. This was in the last millennium. The truth is it was a decade and a half before the end of the last, when Lim Kok Wing was still a Mr., not yet institutionalized, and most people weren’t sure exactly what such a job entailed.
For the uninitiated, I choose to repeat or, more aptly, plagiarise, from someone more articulate than I. He was, if memory serves me well, an advertising legend who said, “Copywriters spend ten percent of their time writing, and ninety percent of their time convincing their clients they really can write.”
So, there you go. When I heard it, an epiphany happened. The uninitiated would need to be told that an epiphany is that light-bulb thing you see in comics. Except that this one was in neon tubes that spelt out the following: “Being creative isn’t just about, being creative. You need to be convincing.”
Following that, another thing happened. (Dare I call it a pro-phani-ty?) Coupled like a wonderfully familiar cliché of a metaphor the phrase fell into my cerebral lap: creativity and conviction – they need each other, like, yes, the chicken and the egg. Of course, the second of the couplings we know as the tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum of metaphors.
“But which is which?” did I hear you ask? It doesn’t matter if you get the point.
If it is meant to go anywhere, do anything, or be of any worth, creativity requires conviction. And conviction with creativity rocks. It is as simple as that. Seriously simple. That it takes conviction to motivate, and encourage creativity.
So what really is creativity? Those ideas turned into action that moves things forward. Some are simple, others more complex, each requiring the conviction of time, effort and support.
Creativity usually begins with curiosity. And curiosity often begins with questions. So when two or three or more are gathered in the name of curiosity, asking questions and looking for answers, whether factual or artistic, we should not be afraid. Because, it simply means that creativity is a foot, and that the germination of more ideas is about to occur, and move us forward, as one happy kelompok.
Imagine if Newton had ignored the apple, or Magellan had not bothered what lay beyond the horizon, where might mankind be right now? Not very far from where he first started, right?
Let go further back. If prehistoric man had been cast into a hypnotic spell by the flickering tongues of a flame, and sat rigid not wondering if by its heat he could make his Brontasaurus steak a little more appetizing, could Chef Wan be a celebrity cook today?
Ask? Answer.
Creativity needs conviction. It needs our courage and support, not a tempurung, to flourish fearlessly and constructively.
Imagine? When that happens, everywhere, nations could very well be represented not by armies, but by artists, and rather than fight with each other, we will simply show off our best, creative minds, moving mankind forward in mind, body and soul.
Yes, when that happens – and it can, please: BE CONVINCED – the world will be one great big arts festival.
Yes! Much more enjoyable than what’s going down here on earth and in our land just right now.
So please, someone – set a deadline. Fast.
- THE SHRIMP WARRIOR~ fighting for the ‘lil flings
(Published in WEEKEND MAIL - 28th September 2006)
Friday, 1 September 2006
Text Appeal
(Published in the November 2006 edition of THE HILT.)
Lessons lurk in two kinds of history: those collected and endorsed by official historians; or that shared by a communal imagination. For instance, just how different is Malaysia from its nextdoor neighbour, Singapore? Expect this question to strike up fascinating chitchat among its citizens. Honestly. Providing, of course, neither of either ilk are in earshot of each other. So what better way to really tell it like it is than a cross-Causeway collaboration where written texts, not just scripts, are interpreted by theatre practitioners from the other country?
Flashback: It is July 2004 at a popular nightclub called Zouk, but it is 5pm in the evening. Too early for the fashionable clubbing set of Kuala Lumpur yet people are streaming into one of its cavernous dancehalls. It will shock the regular Zouk visitor to know that this is a gathering of bespectacled bookworms and stuffy literary types. Billed as RIDE THE NICE BUS, the event is part of the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Literary Fest. Five of among KL's finest actors will give dramatic release to poems and extracts of plays. The material is Singaporean, the actors Malaysian, and the bus referred to as “Nice” is a popular executive coach service, which to this day plies dutifully between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Conceived by Madeleine Lee, Alvin Pang and Eleanor Wong (two Singaporean poets and a playwright), curated by Pang and Wong, and given over to Krishen Jit (Malaysian theatre director) to mould into a performative experience, the one-off performance of RIDE THE NICE BUS concludes to thunderous applause.
The RIDE, from its opening poem, where the iconic Singaporean fountain is given a theatrical brushing down in Edwin Thumboo’s poem “Ulysses By The Merlion”, to the final piece, a lyrical extract from Kuo Pao Kun’s script “Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral”, is breathtaking. Jit deftly weaves Singapore’s diverse literary excavations for affirmation and identity into an exquisite tapestry, and the Malaysian actors deliver with honesty and vigour. The mainly Malaysian audience sees the nation nextdoor grappling with the many psychoses of fast-track development, walking the East-West tightrope of social and moral values, and empathizes. The next fuse is kindled when Lee, Wong, Jit and his wife, dancer-choreographer, Marion D’Cruz, share a post-show chitchat in a taxi-ride through KL.
Fast-forward to a year later: September 2005, Singapore. The Singapore Writers Festival is coming to an end. Theatre company, W!LD RICE has been commissioned to present a stage production to close the festival. A re-enactment of the taxi chitchat by Wong and Lee, who has secured official support and funding) has inspired the company’s founder and artistic director, Ivan Heng, to revive Jit’s original Malaysian vision together with a Singaporean rejoinder. W!LD RICE buses in the Malaysian actors, perhaps 'Nice-ly' too, and Heng appends to Jit’s anthology his own response: Malaysian material curated by Leow Puay Tin (Malaysian playwright/actor), and a cast of five of among Singapore’s best. The back-to-back versions – like two nations in a theatrical pas de deux - would be billed by Heng as SECOND LINK – a reference to the newer, more modern bridge at Tuas that connects the two countries.
As Heng builds on the original concept of “performed literature”, he is aided by a retrospective advantage, and a more wily Leow, who plumbs the depth of Malaysia's writing heritage, trawling up not just poetry and scripts, but also folklore, historical and government policy documents, press interviews, even a recipe for Steamed Chicken Rice. Enlarging the aperture of writings beyond just poetry and plays aptly echoes the polygenous social fabric in a more geographically and socially expansive Malaysia. Leow then titles it TIKAM-TIKAM: A MALAYSIAN ROULETTE and instructs that it lives up to its namesake, the tikam-tikam: a local lucky dip game that Malaysians and Singaporeans would have experienced as children. In similar ‘luck of the draw’ fashion (hence, the roulette reference) audience members would determine this chapter’s running sequence of Malaysian texts. Only the opening piece and the end piece would remain pre-determined and anchored.
Between its set beginning and end, TIKAM-TIKAM’s unpredictable sequence of Malaysian texts each night would challenge the Singaporean performers – not unlike the way a Malaysian’s casual nature might push the wrong buttons of the more punctual, fastidious Singaporean. Its ‘one day this way, the next day that way’ line-up – perhaps cheeky acknowledgement of the peninisula’s more fragmented, organic, and edgy demeanour – would throw up new juxtapositions and contextual semantics with every showing. In fact, Leow’s curatorial decisions reflect a predilection to issues of race and religion, though always artistically veiled and stopping short of being overt and offensive. The opening piece, “In 1969” a short story by Beth Yahp about her mother in the year of Malaysia’s worst racial upheaval is a chilling yet heartfelt curtain-raiser.
With SECOND LINK, the similiarities and differences of Malaysia and Singapore seem to loom like an apparition through a frosted windowpane – evident but not conclusive. The Singaporean audience connects, just as the Malaysians did to their writers one year before. It seems that cross-border empathy is an emotion leveraged best by imaginative artists. The last piece of TIKAM-TIKAM, and also the piece which closes SECOND LINK, is a poem called “Dance” by Fadzilah Amin. Malaysian actors return to the stage to partner each Singaporean for a poem about the Malay traditional dance known as Ronggeng. It is a masterly choice and brilliant dramaturgy: “If only at one point our hands could clasp / What rich variety of movement and gesture could be ours.”
SECOND LINK is a runaway success. W!LD RICE is compelled to open the higher stalls at the spanking new National Library’s Drama Centre, to accommodate unanticipated ticket sales, audiences are delighted with the pumped-up version of what began as BUS, and a Singapore daily runs two lauding reviews of the production on the very same day. The new and improved formula of a text-exchange between theatre representatives of each country is ‘seconded’ enthusiastically by both critics and box-office.
Its success soon attracts the attention of the Hong Kong City Festival of Arts. Five months after, in January this year, W!LD RICE tailors a downsized version to fit a smaller venue, taking the project in a new form to a new audience. The bilateral cross-cultural endeavour generates waves of goodwill probably more lasting than any political entourage.
In early August 2006, W!LD RICE launches the inaugural Singapore Theatre Festival. Living up to its name, it is the daring theatre company’s initiative to celebrate Singaporean writing. Five new scripts would premiere at this three-week celebration of new Singaporean plays. Without a major corporate sponsor, it is a massive gamble that pays off at the box-office, and Heng and his team are vindicated. Most of the total of nine productions are a sell-out. To close the festival, SECOND LINK is offered to Singaporean audiences for the second time, and given a second chance to be honed and polished, it is no surprise that Singaporeans lap it up ecstatically. At a festival meant to help springboard new Singaporean plays, a diverse selection of Malaysian writing, together with the talents of our actors, enjoyed their moment in the limelight. How can Malaysians not be pleased?
On the eve of Malaysia’s 49th Hari Kebangsaan (National Day) W!LD RICE unleashed the 5th staging of this fascinating project for a Malaysian season to more acclaim. We can learn from history, yes, we all know that. Yet so often we forget to document the development of landmark creative and communal endeavours. I believe the BUS that became the LINK to be one such landmark, and we are reminded once again that artists truly build bridges. In this case especially, it is one bridge where no natural terrain, no flora nor fauna (not even a politician’s ego) had been compromised to build it.
(1,299 words – 1 September 2006)
+++++
The Kuala Lumpur season of “SECOND LINK – The Singapore- Malaysia Text Exchange” was performed at The Actors Studio, Bangsar from 30th August to 3rd September 2006. It was directed by Ivan Heng and presented by Wild Rice in collaboration with Five Arts Centre and The Actors Studio. More information at http://www.wildrice.com.sg
Vernon Adrian Emuang performed in the Singapore season of SECOND LINK in 2004. He is also an arts activist, highly supportive of intercultural, experimental and multigeneric projects.
Lessons lurk in two kinds of history: those collected and endorsed by official historians; or that shared by a communal imagination. For instance, just how different is Malaysia from its nextdoor neighbour, Singapore? Expect this question to strike up fascinating chitchat among its citizens. Honestly. Providing, of course, neither of either ilk are in earshot of each other. So what better way to really tell it like it is than a cross-Causeway collaboration where written texts, not just scripts, are interpreted by theatre practitioners from the other country?
Flashback: It is July 2004 at a popular nightclub called Zouk, but it is 5pm in the evening. Too early for the fashionable clubbing set of Kuala Lumpur yet people are streaming into one of its cavernous dancehalls. It will shock the regular Zouk visitor to know that this is a gathering of bespectacled bookworms and stuffy literary types. Billed as RIDE THE NICE BUS, the event is part of the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Literary Fest. Five of among KL's finest actors will give dramatic release to poems and extracts of plays. The material is Singaporean, the actors Malaysian, and the bus referred to as “Nice” is a popular executive coach service, which to this day plies dutifully between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Conceived by Madeleine Lee, Alvin Pang and Eleanor Wong (two Singaporean poets and a playwright), curated by Pang and Wong, and given over to Krishen Jit (Malaysian theatre director) to mould into a performative experience, the one-off performance of RIDE THE NICE BUS concludes to thunderous applause.
The RIDE, from its opening poem, where the iconic Singaporean fountain is given a theatrical brushing down in Edwin Thumboo’s poem “Ulysses By The Merlion”, to the final piece, a lyrical extract from Kuo Pao Kun’s script “Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral”, is breathtaking. Jit deftly weaves Singapore’s diverse literary excavations for affirmation and identity into an exquisite tapestry, and the Malaysian actors deliver with honesty and vigour. The mainly Malaysian audience sees the nation nextdoor grappling with the many psychoses of fast-track development, walking the East-West tightrope of social and moral values, and empathizes. The next fuse is kindled when Lee, Wong, Jit and his wife, dancer-choreographer, Marion D’Cruz, share a post-show chitchat in a taxi-ride through KL.
Fast-forward to a year later: September 2005, Singapore. The Singapore Writers Festival is coming to an end. Theatre company, W!LD RICE has been commissioned to present a stage production to close the festival. A re-enactment of the taxi chitchat by Wong and Lee, who has secured official support and funding) has inspired the company’s founder and artistic director, Ivan Heng, to revive Jit’s original Malaysian vision together with a Singaporean rejoinder. W!LD RICE buses in the Malaysian actors, perhaps 'Nice-ly' too, and Heng appends to Jit’s anthology his own response: Malaysian material curated by Leow Puay Tin (Malaysian playwright/actor), and a cast of five of among Singapore’s best. The back-to-back versions – like two nations in a theatrical pas de deux - would be billed by Heng as SECOND LINK – a reference to the newer, more modern bridge at Tuas that connects the two countries.
As Heng builds on the original concept of “performed literature”, he is aided by a retrospective advantage, and a more wily Leow, who plumbs the depth of Malaysia's writing heritage, trawling up not just poetry and scripts, but also folklore, historical and government policy documents, press interviews, even a recipe for Steamed Chicken Rice. Enlarging the aperture of writings beyond just poetry and plays aptly echoes the polygenous social fabric in a more geographically and socially expansive Malaysia. Leow then titles it TIKAM-TIKAM: A MALAYSIAN ROULETTE and instructs that it lives up to its namesake, the tikam-tikam: a local lucky dip game that Malaysians and Singaporeans would have experienced as children. In similar ‘luck of the draw’ fashion (hence, the roulette reference) audience members would determine this chapter’s running sequence of Malaysian texts. Only the opening piece and the end piece would remain pre-determined and anchored.
Between its set beginning and end, TIKAM-TIKAM’s unpredictable sequence of Malaysian texts each night would challenge the Singaporean performers – not unlike the way a Malaysian’s casual nature might push the wrong buttons of the more punctual, fastidious Singaporean. Its ‘one day this way, the next day that way’ line-up – perhaps cheeky acknowledgement of the peninisula’s more fragmented, organic, and edgy demeanour – would throw up new juxtapositions and contextual semantics with every showing. In fact, Leow’s curatorial decisions reflect a predilection to issues of race and religion, though always artistically veiled and stopping short of being overt and offensive. The opening piece, “In 1969” a short story by Beth Yahp about her mother in the year of Malaysia’s worst racial upheaval is a chilling yet heartfelt curtain-raiser.
With SECOND LINK, the similiarities and differences of Malaysia and Singapore seem to loom like an apparition through a frosted windowpane – evident but not conclusive. The Singaporean audience connects, just as the Malaysians did to their writers one year before. It seems that cross-border empathy is an emotion leveraged best by imaginative artists. The last piece of TIKAM-TIKAM, and also the piece which closes SECOND LINK, is a poem called “Dance” by Fadzilah Amin. Malaysian actors return to the stage to partner each Singaporean for a poem about the Malay traditional dance known as Ronggeng. It is a masterly choice and brilliant dramaturgy: “If only at one point our hands could clasp / What rich variety of movement and gesture could be ours.”
SECOND LINK is a runaway success. W!LD RICE is compelled to open the higher stalls at the spanking new National Library’s Drama Centre, to accommodate unanticipated ticket sales, audiences are delighted with the pumped-up version of what began as BUS, and a Singapore daily runs two lauding reviews of the production on the very same day. The new and improved formula of a text-exchange between theatre representatives of each country is ‘seconded’ enthusiastically by both critics and box-office.
Its success soon attracts the attention of the Hong Kong City Festival of Arts. Five months after, in January this year, W!LD RICE tailors a downsized version to fit a smaller venue, taking the project in a new form to a new audience. The bilateral cross-cultural endeavour generates waves of goodwill probably more lasting than any political entourage.
In early August 2006, W!LD RICE launches the inaugural Singapore Theatre Festival. Living up to its name, it is the daring theatre company’s initiative to celebrate Singaporean writing. Five new scripts would premiere at this three-week celebration of new Singaporean plays. Without a major corporate sponsor, it is a massive gamble that pays off at the box-office, and Heng and his team are vindicated. Most of the total of nine productions are a sell-out. To close the festival, SECOND LINK is offered to Singaporean audiences for the second time, and given a second chance to be honed and polished, it is no surprise that Singaporeans lap it up ecstatically. At a festival meant to help springboard new Singaporean plays, a diverse selection of Malaysian writing, together with the talents of our actors, enjoyed their moment in the limelight. How can Malaysians not be pleased?
On the eve of Malaysia’s 49th Hari Kebangsaan (National Day) W!LD RICE unleashed the 5th staging of this fascinating project for a Malaysian season to more acclaim. We can learn from history, yes, we all know that. Yet so often we forget to document the development of landmark creative and communal endeavours. I believe the BUS that became the LINK to be one such landmark, and we are reminded once again that artists truly build bridges. In this case especially, it is one bridge where no natural terrain, no flora nor fauna (not even a politician’s ego) had been compromised to build it.
(1,299 words – 1 September 2006)
+++++
The Kuala Lumpur season of “SECOND LINK – The Singapore- Malaysia Text Exchange” was performed at The Actors Studio, Bangsar from 30th August to 3rd September 2006. It was directed by Ivan Heng and presented by Wild Rice in collaboration with Five Arts Centre and The Actors Studio. More information at http://www.wildrice.com.sg
Vernon Adrian Emuang performed in the Singapore season of SECOND LINK in 2004. He is also an arts activist, highly supportive of intercultural, experimental and multigeneric projects.
Tuesday, 18 July 2006
The Creepy Doyen
(This article appeared in the July 2006 edition of THE HILT. It was my very first magazine commission. The editor, Thomas Blum, was looking for someone to write about Krishen from an up-close point-of-view. I have Pang Khee Teik to thank for this. Not having had any success in convincing me to write for him during his tenure at www.kakiseni.com, Pang suggested me to Thomas. I had no desire to make my private writings or feelings too public. I only agreed because I owe Krishen so much and miss him deeply. It became the first of three pieces in quick succession for The Hilt. I haven't looked back, since.)
Rehearsals would run in a shoplot in SS2, Petaling Jaya. The fragrance of Thai cooking wafted up from the restaurant below. Through untinted windows, the glare of the afternoon sun reminded us to be grateful for noisy air-conditioning.
Competing against its numbing drone, we would run scenes from Chin San Sooi's "Yap Ah Loy – The Play", and he would be there again, this Indian man, a silent presence at every rehearsal. He would sneak in and perch himself on a wooden stool behind faux marble tables with collapsible legs. He would sit with arms folded, a hand propping a chin or stroking a greying goatee.
I was not terribly curious about his identity – he did not seem important. After all, he had nothing to say. Years later, I would discover that anything he had to say, he would say it through others. Or he would say it only to you. The power of genius is never self-serving.
The shophouse was Five Arts Centre – a nebulous collective of some of the most eminent visual and performance artists of mid-80s Malaysia. The Centre was founded by San Sooi, together with this Indian man, and several others - including that charismatic educationist and choreographer, Marion D'Cruz, who would in time become, in his own words, his 'rock solid producer' wife.
As a fresh theatre graduate from a university education in Australia, I was keen to make it into the KL performing arts scene. A perilous decision, my parents believed. "Is that a living?" my father would ask. But I had found a spiritual home for my creativity. The Centre's methodologies in search for a contemporary Malaysian voice in performing arts practise echoed my need to give meaning to my own intercultural genetics and exhibitionistic imagination.
As the sweat trickled down my temples after having worked silat moves into a scripted scene about Kuala Lumpur's ethnic Chinese founder, I would look across to the Indian man, looking like a gnarled stump of a tree behind a marble boulder and I would think that surely the performance arts in KL must have a future if one so old as him would be so interested in what we were doing. His sage-like presence seemed to decree some measure of gravity to our 'play'.
For the next two and a half decades of my life – this same sage-like presence would make intermittent intrusions into it. And when it did, it left battle scars that I would reflect on with pride, reminding me of my vulnerabilities and my strengths as actor and entity. Many years later I would tell him how creepy I thought he was. The actor's psyche is both a fragile thing and a potent instrument, and he was its singular virtuoso. I felt he 'played' me well.
When still alive, Krishen Jit (to be exact, of Punjabi extraction) was described as the doyen of Malaysian theatre. Before I knew its actual meaning, the word 'doyen' evoked for me an almost deifying quality, which I would have happily agreed to, as the intellectual power of the man became apparent to me. When I finally took the time to look up the dictionary, I was more than a little disappointed to find out that it simply meant 'the senior, or eldest male member of a group'. Ha! Didn't we know that already? The surprise to me was typical Krishen-esque. Together with Amarjit, 'Unassuming' was his middle name, and I feel maybe that is why in his living years he was so undeservingly uncelebrated.
He never owned a car so he was always at the behest of the drivers among those he worked with. Being asked for a lift by the man was like winning an appointment with God. Peppered among our small talk when I gave him a lift would be precious, amusing insights he had about those on a project with him. It was not production gossip, neither were the stories he shared dismissive of anybody. Rather, they were snappy lessons about the complexity of individual souls in a way only a huge heart and a sharp mind like his could proffer.
In the mid-90s, I was asked by Krishen to act in two of his landmark projects almost back-to-back. "Scorpion Orchid" was a provocative script by Lloyd Fernando, which allegorised the communal conflicts and riots of our pre-Independent era. It was invited to play at the Singapore Arts Festival of '94. The play would then be re-mounted for a Kuala Lumpur season one year later and I would reprise my role with a brand new Malaysian cast.
In between, there would be the groundbreaking "Skin Trilogy". This trilogy of plays was playwright, K S Maniam's sci-fi take on love, marriage and identity in futuristic Malaysia, and Krishen the visionary conceived of a site-specific avant-garde multimedia performance, which would come alive in the numerous exhibition spaces of the National Art Gallery. His strategy was for actors, dancers and musicians to negotiate a processional performance among specially commissioned art installations. The grand result was a cornucopian spectacle of the most amazing theatrics I will ever be a part of.
Now as I look back, I remember again how both projects touched on ideas of race and ethnicity in unprecedented, unapologetic ways. To have taken this one-year journey with Krishen is to have been there when a defining part of contemporary Malaysian theatre was forged. Though this 14-month stretch is really piddly against Krishen's forty years in the performing arts before he died, I will cherish the experience the way one clings on to memories of a life-changing love affair.
A quick Google on Krishen Jit will unearth countless personality features and reviews as well as a slew of heart-wrenching tribute pages following his departure to that big theatre in the sky. To replicate his biography here would simply chronologize his formal credentials. Truly impressive as they may be, yet we must recognize that it was something more and deeper than all that kind of thing, which brought the massive congregation of every age and ethnicity to his funeral. The turnout on that saddest of days was befitting of a much loved and highly respected statesman, or guru or father-figure, or … OK, then: doyen. A doyen who had transformed landscapes of every kind.
Krishen's significant span of work in academia, on cultural policy, and on the international stage would be dutifully repeated in the aftermath of his passing by the well-meaning media. But those who worked with him and shared his vision of art needed something more intimate and personal as the relationships he struck with each of us.
So even to this day, many of us at the Centre would seek solace in our loss just as only close family members would, by reliving anecdotal fragments of being with him, some so incidental that the telling of it would bore those who did not really know him. Like the simple gestures of kindness and affection Krishen was terribly generous with, or the extraordinary revelations about our own quirks and kinks he would teasingly throw back at us when we least expected it, or even his mystifying habit during long rehearsals of dozing off into a soft snore in mid-scene, waking up as it ended and yet knowing if we missed a word or phrase.
He is terribly missed, and yet he is deeply remembered. That beloved doyen's legacy for a contemporary Malaysian theatre lives on in the new generation of arts practitioners who now drive The Five Arts Centre forward. Yes, the Indian man continues to speak through many of us. Creepy, right?
(1,267 words – 16th May 2006)
+++++
Krishen Jit was perhaps Malaysia’s most eminent theatre director, and had presented critically acclaimed works on many stages around the world. He died in April 2005. The Five Arts Centre, a performing arts collective he co-founded is currently running a programme, The Krishen Jit Experimental Workshop Series, in commemoration of his life’s work. More information by email from fivearts@tm.net.my
Vernon Adrian Emuang is a performer, writer and marketing communications specialist. He is also an arts activist, highly supportive of intercultural, experimental and multigeneric projects.
Rehearsals would run in a shoplot in SS2, Petaling Jaya. The fragrance of Thai cooking wafted up from the restaurant below. Through untinted windows, the glare of the afternoon sun reminded us to be grateful for noisy air-conditioning.
Competing against its numbing drone, we would run scenes from Chin San Sooi's "Yap Ah Loy – The Play", and he would be there again, this Indian man, a silent presence at every rehearsal. He would sneak in and perch himself on a wooden stool behind faux marble tables with collapsible legs. He would sit with arms folded, a hand propping a chin or stroking a greying goatee.
I was not terribly curious about his identity – he did not seem important. After all, he had nothing to say. Years later, I would discover that anything he had to say, he would say it through others. Or he would say it only to you. The power of genius is never self-serving.
The shophouse was Five Arts Centre – a nebulous collective of some of the most eminent visual and performance artists of mid-80s Malaysia. The Centre was founded by San Sooi, together with this Indian man, and several others - including that charismatic educationist and choreographer, Marion D'Cruz, who would in time become, in his own words, his 'rock solid producer' wife.
As a fresh theatre graduate from a university education in Australia, I was keen to make it into the KL performing arts scene. A perilous decision, my parents believed. "Is that a living?" my father would ask. But I had found a spiritual home for my creativity. The Centre's methodologies in search for a contemporary Malaysian voice in performing arts practise echoed my need to give meaning to my own intercultural genetics and exhibitionistic imagination.
As the sweat trickled down my temples after having worked silat moves into a scripted scene about Kuala Lumpur's ethnic Chinese founder, I would look across to the Indian man, looking like a gnarled stump of a tree behind a marble boulder and I would think that surely the performance arts in KL must have a future if one so old as him would be so interested in what we were doing. His sage-like presence seemed to decree some measure of gravity to our 'play'.
For the next two and a half decades of my life – this same sage-like presence would make intermittent intrusions into it. And when it did, it left battle scars that I would reflect on with pride, reminding me of my vulnerabilities and my strengths as actor and entity. Many years later I would tell him how creepy I thought he was. The actor's psyche is both a fragile thing and a potent instrument, and he was its singular virtuoso. I felt he 'played' me well.
When still alive, Krishen Jit (to be exact, of Punjabi extraction) was described as the doyen of Malaysian theatre. Before I knew its actual meaning, the word 'doyen' evoked for me an almost deifying quality, which I would have happily agreed to, as the intellectual power of the man became apparent to me. When I finally took the time to look up the dictionary, I was more than a little disappointed to find out that it simply meant 'the senior, or eldest male member of a group'. Ha! Didn't we know that already? The surprise to me was typical Krishen-esque. Together with Amarjit, 'Unassuming' was his middle name, and I feel maybe that is why in his living years he was so undeservingly uncelebrated.
He never owned a car so he was always at the behest of the drivers among those he worked with. Being asked for a lift by the man was like winning an appointment with God. Peppered among our small talk when I gave him a lift would be precious, amusing insights he had about those on a project with him. It was not production gossip, neither were the stories he shared dismissive of anybody. Rather, they were snappy lessons about the complexity of individual souls in a way only a huge heart and a sharp mind like his could proffer.
In the mid-90s, I was asked by Krishen to act in two of his landmark projects almost back-to-back. "Scorpion Orchid" was a provocative script by Lloyd Fernando, which allegorised the communal conflicts and riots of our pre-Independent era. It was invited to play at the Singapore Arts Festival of '94. The play would then be re-mounted for a Kuala Lumpur season one year later and I would reprise my role with a brand new Malaysian cast.
In between, there would be the groundbreaking "Skin Trilogy". This trilogy of plays was playwright, K S Maniam's sci-fi take on love, marriage and identity in futuristic Malaysia, and Krishen the visionary conceived of a site-specific avant-garde multimedia performance, which would come alive in the numerous exhibition spaces of the National Art Gallery. His strategy was for actors, dancers and musicians to negotiate a processional performance among specially commissioned art installations. The grand result was a cornucopian spectacle of the most amazing theatrics I will ever be a part of.
Now as I look back, I remember again how both projects touched on ideas of race and ethnicity in unprecedented, unapologetic ways. To have taken this one-year journey with Krishen is to have been there when a defining part of contemporary Malaysian theatre was forged. Though this 14-month stretch is really piddly against Krishen's forty years in the performing arts before he died, I will cherish the experience the way one clings on to memories of a life-changing love affair.
A quick Google on Krishen Jit will unearth countless personality features and reviews as well as a slew of heart-wrenching tribute pages following his departure to that big theatre in the sky. To replicate his biography here would simply chronologize his formal credentials. Truly impressive as they may be, yet we must recognize that it was something more and deeper than all that kind of thing, which brought the massive congregation of every age and ethnicity to his funeral. The turnout on that saddest of days was befitting of a much loved and highly respected statesman, or guru or father-figure, or … OK, then: doyen. A doyen who had transformed landscapes of every kind.
Krishen's significant span of work in academia, on cultural policy, and on the international stage would be dutifully repeated in the aftermath of his passing by the well-meaning media. But those who worked with him and shared his vision of art needed something more intimate and personal as the relationships he struck with each of us.
So even to this day, many of us at the Centre would seek solace in our loss just as only close family members would, by reliving anecdotal fragments of being with him, some so incidental that the telling of it would bore those who did not really know him. Like the simple gestures of kindness and affection Krishen was terribly generous with, or the extraordinary revelations about our own quirks and kinks he would teasingly throw back at us when we least expected it, or even his mystifying habit during long rehearsals of dozing off into a soft snore in mid-scene, waking up as it ended and yet knowing if we missed a word or phrase.
He is terribly missed, and yet he is deeply remembered. That beloved doyen's legacy for a contemporary Malaysian theatre lives on in the new generation of arts practitioners who now drive The Five Arts Centre forward. Yes, the Indian man continues to speak through many of us. Creepy, right?
(1,267 words – 16th May 2006)
+++++
Krishen Jit was perhaps Malaysia’s most eminent theatre director, and had presented critically acclaimed works on many stages around the world. He died in April 2005. The Five Arts Centre, a performing arts collective he co-founded is currently running a programme, The Krishen Jit Experimental Workshop Series, in commemoration of his life’s work. More information by email from fivearts@tm.net.my
Vernon Adrian Emuang is a performer, writer and marketing communications specialist. He is also an arts activist, highly supportive of intercultural, experimental and multigeneric projects.
Tuesday, 11 July 2006
That Damn 4-Letter Word
Love is a feeling. Feelings pass.
For love to remain eternal, it needs commitment and sacrifice.
Love is a journey where the destination is happiness. Getting there needs a roadmap.
The journey may be pleasant, or long and arduous, but it is the journey of trials and tribulations, and where struggling gives it meaning and depth.
Arriving there at the destination isn’t as important as how the journey is enjoyed and endured.
Love is a banquet which leaves you filled and contented at the end. It is made up of many ingredients, brought together with great effort.
The flavours mingle and co-exist, and hitting the right flavours at the right times create beautiful melodies of sensations, and of memories.
Love is best endured when there is a sense of duty, like a religion that demands ritual and responsibility.
Love is not about you. Love is about the other - the one that you love.
And yet to be loved, we must love our own self the most.
Because when we do, we are attendent to our inner, most true thoughts and feelings, and we are then able to communicate them in all honesty and without agenda to that person whom we say we love.
The purest of all love after all is honesty unclothed. Like a new born before its mother.
(For B, and maybe for W - written on 11 July 2006)
For love to remain eternal, it needs commitment and sacrifice.
Love is a journey where the destination is happiness. Getting there needs a roadmap.
The journey may be pleasant, or long and arduous, but it is the journey of trials and tribulations, and where struggling gives it meaning and depth.
Arriving there at the destination isn’t as important as how the journey is enjoyed and endured.
Love is a banquet which leaves you filled and contented at the end. It is made up of many ingredients, brought together with great effort.
The flavours mingle and co-exist, and hitting the right flavours at the right times create beautiful melodies of sensations, and of memories.
Love is best endured when there is a sense of duty, like a religion that demands ritual and responsibility.
Love is not about you. Love is about the other - the one that you love.
And yet to be loved, we must love our own self the most.
Because when we do, we are attendent to our inner, most true thoughts and feelings, and we are then able to communicate them in all honesty and without agenda to that person whom we say we love.
The purest of all love after all is honesty unclothed. Like a new born before its mother.
(For B, and maybe for W - written on 11 July 2006)
Wednesday, 4 January 2006
The Race Forward
In Malaysia, the Malays mostly think I'm Chinese, the Chinese mostly think I'm Malay - neither wants to have me as their own. I have also been mistaken for a Chindian. A frequent mistake is that I am Sarawakian Iban.
In Australia, I was called both Paki and Nip (Japanese) by Skinheads looking for a fight. My classmates at high-school nicknamed me 'Refo' - short for 'refugee', and accorded with the greatest affection.
At university in Australia in the early '80s I had a stranglehold on any coloured part that was up for auditions during my theatre arts course - playing Gautama Buddha, Red Indian Chief, Pakistani schizophrenic, a black sex slave (??), a Chinese cook in the Wild West, and a Russian of Mongol extraction in Fiddler On The Roof. I think these days, most white Australians would be able to tell the Asian races apart.
In Dijon, France a beautiful mademoiselle once insisted that I was facially too expressive to be fully Asian. I found that an interesting echo of the inscrutable Oriental.
I don't think a mixed-race person is more attractive - just less provocative in that the level of racial specificity is blunted somewhat, and therefore garners greater acceptability across racial lines. Yeah - less provocative: more inclined to 'sameness', and less of 'the other'.
If you ask me Devon Aoki looks distinctly Asian against someone like Nicole Kidman. And I believe I do have Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mariah Carey look-a-likes among my millions of Serani cousins.
IMHO, when those celebrities who look unmistakeably of their non-Caucasian race, can be accepted and deemed attractive and sexy by others outside their race - I think that's when humanity is really moving forward.
And, people - the first Serani's are a result of that cross-cultural/racial acceptance, attraction.and collaboration. :-)
Enough of me.
(I wrote the above piece in response to a SeraniSembang.Org thread referring to a Psychology Today article entitled MIXED RACE, PRETTY FACE: Why we are drawn to exotic beauty. You can read the article by clicking on the thumbnail.)
In Australia, I was called both Paki and Nip (Japanese) by Skinheads looking for a fight. My classmates at high-school nicknamed me 'Refo' - short for 'refugee', and accorded with the greatest affection.
At university in Australia in the early '80s I had a stranglehold on any coloured part that was up for auditions during my theatre arts course - playing Gautama Buddha, Red Indian Chief, Pakistani schizophrenic, a black sex slave (??), a Chinese cook in the Wild West, and a Russian of Mongol extraction in Fiddler On The Roof. I think these days, most white Australians would be able to tell the Asian races apart.
In Dijon, France a beautiful mademoiselle once insisted that I was facially too expressive to be fully Asian. I found that an interesting echo of the inscrutable Oriental.
I don't think a mixed-race person is more attractive - just less provocative in that the level of racial specificity is blunted somewhat, and therefore garners greater acceptability across racial lines. Yeah - less provocative: more inclined to 'sameness', and less of 'the other'.
If you ask me Devon Aoki looks distinctly Asian against someone like Nicole Kidman. And I believe I do have Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mariah Carey look-a-likes among my millions of Serani cousins.
IMHO, when those celebrities who look unmistakeably of their non-Caucasian race, can be accepted and deemed attractive and sexy by others outside their race - I think that's when humanity is really moving forward.
And, people - the first Serani's are a result of that cross-cultural/racial acceptance, attraction.and collaboration. :-)
Enough of me.
(I wrote the above piece in response to a SeraniSembang.Org thread referring to a Psychology Today article entitled MIXED RACE, PRETTY FACE: Why we are drawn to exotic beauty. You can read the article by clicking on the thumbnail.)
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