The current state of ballet practice

Chang Huey Sze, 2nd place winner of Adult Open, in her Kitri variation from Don Quixote.

The 12th Annual Solo Classical Ballet Competition
The Dance Society of Malaysia
30 May – 1 June
Malaysian Tourism Centre

The Dance Society [TDS] solo ballet competition gives a good snapshot impression of the state of local ballet instruction, practice and performance, but it can be a bit of a gamble. Last year, coming after a long hiatus, I found the standards at the competition a little disappointing. Category 3, the youngest group of dancers, who are not required to dance en pointe, I found to be the most vivacious, and Category 2, the first group of dancers required to dance en pointe, seemed to have the strongest technique, while Category 1, the senior group, was fairly disastrous. The judges apparently thought so too. Last year they decided not to award the coveted 1st position for Category 1, giving the hopefuls only 2nd and 3rd.

However, TDS has not despaired. This year they introduced a new category, the Adult Open, to cope with those over the age limit for Category 1, which indicates quite a degree of confidence in the state of ballet instruction and practice in Malaysia. Never mind that they only got three entrants for the Adult Open! At least they decided that the 1st prize was deserved, and it was duly awarded, likewise across the age-limited categories.

Suhaili Ahmad Kamil, 3rd place winner in the Adult Open, dancing Gamzatti from La Bayadere.

This year I attended the TDS competition as part of Camp Aurora. Ballet can be competitive at the best of times, even without prizes on offer, and this event is no exception. TDS has made a diplomatic decision not to include the names of the studios from which the dancers hail on the program, but still there is quite a bit of sizing-up and posturing between ballet schools behind the scenes – where would the fun be otherwise? Being allied with Aurora School of Dance as a result of my friendship with Suhaili Ahmad Kamil, I was unabashedly routing for the four entrants from Aurora, who, I’m happy to announce, came up trumps. With all four entrants qualified for the finals, Mrs Suraya Ahmad Kamil, the principal of Aurora, was happy, and happier still after all the results were announced.

Teo May Jean, Category 2 first place winner.

Talent at ballet schools, as in nationwide competitions, comes in waves, and this year Aurora is lucky to have a particularly talented and hardworking trio in its Advanced 2 Ballet class – Teo May Jean (this year’s 1st place winner of Category 2), Siti Amellia Feroz (2nd place winner in Category 2) and Nelly Chew, who went home with the Category 2 consolation prize. But there is talent coming up in the ranks too – the spectacularly beautiful Amelia Thripura Henderson, who has only recently started studying ballet but is obviously naturally gifted, walked away with a surprise first place in Category 3. And Suhaili, who herself coached, joked with, criticised and comforted the other competitors from Aurora in preparation for this competition, worked hard for the Adult Open Category, but had to be content with third place.

The versatile Category 1 second place winner, Chew Zi Xin.

Winning a national ballet competition in Malaysia is not the equivalent of doing so in other places that take ballet more seriously. It’s unnecessary to point out that the local standard is lower. More importantly, an event that might rocket a dancer to fame and stardom overseas, or at the very least to a few decent job offers, here passes as an item to be checked by overachievers on the way to adulthood, like getting 13 A1s, or passing your Grade 8 piano exam. With no local ballet company to go to, there are no jobs on offer. A few dancers will move into teaching and perhaps set up their own studio. Some, perhaps, will go overseas in search of a career, but most will give up dancing altogether, perhaps when they start college, certainly when they leave college, and never look back. And after seeing the hard work and talent on offer at the TDS competition this year, that makes me immensely sad.

Showing absolute clarity of line, Category 1 first place winner Lee Jia Xi.

Take 18-year old Chew Zi Xin, winner of last year’s Category 2, who this year bagged 2nd place in the most coveted Category 1, despite her youth. She’s a great all-rounder, transitioning smoothly from very classical pieces to a contemporary style with lots of floor work. Both fast and strong, she appears on stage to have genuine enjoyment for what she does. The Category 1 first place winner, Lee Jia Xi, is a very different creature. She chose her routines – Odile’s triumphant solo from Swan Lake Act 3, and a slow exacting choice variation — to showcase her extremely strong sense of placement and line, and absolute control. I would like to see more of what she can do, but the TDS competition is one of the few occasions when Jia Xi, and many other dancers of her calibre, come out of the woodwork to perform for a broader audience. And at least we don’t have to worry about keeping an eye out for Raymond Liew, 3rd place winner in Category 1. He dominates this year’s dance diploma graduates from ASWARA, and is a convincing choreographer in addition to being able to bring the house down with his jumps. Or maybe it’s just nice to see a boy at the TDS competition, one with capable technique and a good dose of testosterone.

Raymond Liew, 3rd place winner of Category 1, in flight in his slave variation from Le Corsaire.

Boys are thin on the ground in ballet anywhere in the world, but more striking, I thought, was the racial breakdown of the competitors. It is apparently agreed, now, that only Chinese girls should fight for the top spots at a ballet competition, but has it always been so? Yes, there are a scattering of Malays and Indians in the younger ranks, but while there are a few Indians are still slogging through the upper categories, the supply of Malays seems to dry up when they reach Category 2, aged 15 to 17. I suspect that this has less to do with genetic natural talent than with nice Malay families not wanting to see their daughters flashing their legs in pink tights in public after they reach puberty. But black tights are always an option! Witness Siti Amellia Feroz, winner of second place in Category 2, whose panache and style were equal to any throughout the competition. In the required routine she demured with a little romantic country-style number, but in the choice routine she pulled out the stops, flashing eyes as well as legs to win the judges around. And black tights are not the only option — I believe that there are imaginative ways in which Muslim families can get around their trepidation about seeing their daughters on stage. They needn’t give up altogether. In all types of dance we need to resist the surge to ghettoisation by ethnicity, and ballet, by dint of being an ‘impartial’ import from the West, has the additional opportunity to be a middle ground where dancers from all races can come together, in competition or not.

The shining dawn of virtuosity and charm

Bharatanatyam Arengetram of Hariraam Tingyuan Lam
The Temple of Fine Arts
Panggung Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur
31 May 2009

Dance is a frustrating art. As the artist grows older and develops subtlety and maturity, the body, the instrument of the art, decays and betrays. Particular feats of gruelling physical demand may only be possible in the artist’s callow youth, and never again. For most of the life of the artist and his or her audience, those short golden moments will survive only as memories.

So it’s exciting to catch a young person in one of these sublimely physically challenging moments, while being certain that you are also witnessing a potentially great artist on the cusp of his career. The bharatanatyam arengetram, the solo debut, of Hariraam Tingyuan Lam was one of these occasions.

As the eldest child of Temple of Fine Arts bharatanatyam guru Geetha Shankaran-Lam and her musician husband Lam Ghooi-Ket, you might think that such a child is naturally destined for greatness. But think of the pressure! Not only was Hariraam required to satisfy his parents’ artistic sensibilities, but also to prove to the world the worth of his parents’ (to some, unorthodox) union. In the latter, at least, Hariraam is not alone – he joins the ranks of great Chindian classical Indian dancers which include January Low and Mavin Khoo.

Far from sinking under pressure, Hariraam rose to the occasion, and then sailed blithely over the top of all expectation. The seven compulsory works included in an arengetram are not to be attempted by the faint of heart, and Hariraam is clearly no slouch – his selections of work were both challenging and unusual. In the first half, his unusual musicality and technical ability came to the fore. His body, attenuated by the intense cardiovascular demands of the arengetram, was grounded and powerful. His lines and pathways were exact, almost mathematical – here describing a perfect circle with the rotation of his arm from the shoulder, there aligning his limbs in the most exacting angles. His leaps were bouyant, but his stamps trenchant. He could stop turning on a dime, freezing in the perfect position. His rock-like balances on one-leg had the audience applauding. And his timing with the complicated rhythms impressed even the connoisseurs.

If during the first half Hariraam seemed a little brittle in his technical bravado, one could attribute this to the indestructible hubris of a teenage boy. In the more expressive and narrative items of the second half of the evening, his charm trumped his virtuosity. While he appeared perfectly appropriate in the guise of the Gods, his dramatic ability really came to the fore with the less heroic characters. In his portrayal of Krishna’s somewhat snivelling friend, or the Lord Muruga disguising himself as a an old man begging for food, or Krishna’s harassed mother multitasking while doting on her baby boy, Hariraam showed a naturalistic style, a great sense of humour, and a keen eye for the subtle characterisations of human beings. His animal scenes were just as good – he put his somewhat wicked teeth to good use as Narasimha, Vishnu’s half-man half-lion avatar, and his puff-faced wide-eyed portrayal of Hanuman had me absolutely beguiled. His ability to cleanly transition from character to character in the space of a second maintained a clear narrative flow. And in spite of being a little off his legs, as dancers say, which could very well be due to enormous physical fatigue, his sense of timing was still exquisite.

Everyone who was there was certain they were witnessing the unleashing of a great artistic force upon the world. Strangely, there was no standing ovation, but perhaps it is because we were saving our applause and waiting to see what Hariraam does next. This, I think, is the most difficult part in an artist’s journey – how to follow a great success? The path to arengetram, with the assistance of dedicated gurus, is difficult, but at least it is clear. After that, things get more complicated. But if I were Hariraam, after such a performance I would think myself entitled to retire into a cave somewhere to play my violin … at least for a little while.

Many thanks to Rathimalar Govindarajoo for her thoughts on Hariraam’s performance.

Up Next: TDS Solo Classical Ballet Competition

The highlight of the year for many earnest and trembling little would-be ballerinas from dance studios across the Klang Valley. Divided into four categories (this year introducing the new professional-level Open Category), this is a celebration of technique and classicism. Suhaili Ahmad Kamil, Most Promising Artist at the recent BOH Cameronian Arts Awards, will be competing for the top spot. Check out the finals on Monday 1 June at the Malaysian Tourism Centre on Ampang Road.

Up Next: Bharatanatyam Arengetram of Hariraam

Hariraam Tingyuan Lam. Even his name rhymes. The celebrated son of Temple of Fine Arts greats Lam Ghooi-Ket and Geetha Shankaran-Lam is approaching artistic adulthood. Expect his bharatanatyam solo debut, this Sunday 31 May, 7.30pm at Panggung Bandaraya, to be packed with fans hoping to see the emergence of the next true king.

A contradiction in terms?

Prince Siddhartha, The Musical
22 – 31 May 2009
Musical on Stage Productions
Istana Budaya

I have seen a number of productions from Musical On Stage. A couple of my friends, all very fine dancers, perform in the ensemble. It is appropriate that Musical On Stage should have the best dancers, as in other ways too they seem to lack for nothing. Their budget is impressive. Their productions are famous for their material extravagance – the no-expenses-spared sets, costumes, music and ensemble size.

The previous production of The Perfect Circle staged at KLPac Pentas 1 was somewhat restrained by the capacity of the space, but in the suitably lavish environs of Istana Budaya there are no such limitations. So, with their most recent production, Musical On Stage has indulged its every whim. For every scene change, massive sets descend from the flies and the stage itself moves up and down. The large ensemble – I counted more than 25 dancers – whirls through costume changes. The money spent on projected animation and synthesized backdrops alone must have been enormous.

Concubines hard at work.

But there is one unavoidable fly in this ointment. This particular musical is about Prince Siddhartha, who became the Enlightened Buddha, whose contribution to human kind, according to the musical, was to teach them to turn away from transient and material happiness to contemplate more universal and eternal themes. He eschewed his family’s royal bounty to don the simple robes of a monk. He encouraged a feeling of spiritual equality between all classes of people. So when his tale of modesty is told with all the pomp and circumstance that can possibly be mustered, doesn’t the term ‘Buddhist musical’ seem an oxymoron?

Perhaps a religious musical in any sense is never particularly successful, unless treated with a heavy dose of humour or absurdity. Jesus Christ Superstar had to be jazzed up with lots of sex and Seventies costumes to make it palatable. In addition to scale and extravagance,  many classic musicals appeal because they allow the audience to vicariously indulge in all sorts of delicious evil. Gary Kamiya of Salon once wrote that the glaring flaw in the classic Christmas tale It’s a Wonderful Life is its depiction of Pottersville. “We are intended to shudder in horror at the sinful city he [Potter] has spawned… There’s just one problem: Pottersville rocks!” And so it is with Sweet Charity, Chicago, and Grease — never were dissolute harlots’ legs so charmingly parted. Musicals cannot thrive on goodness alone. It is sex, drugs and rock’n'roll that get them going.

The same is the case in Prince Siddhartha. The scene in which a crowd of palace concubines try to seduce Siddhartha is the most colourful, musical and attractive. When Siddhartha encounters the dreadlocked ascetics living underground, whipping themselves and indulging in weird yoga, the scene is fantastically stalactite-ridden. Later when Siddhartha’s rival gets repeatedly struck by lightning and then dragged down to the firey depths of hell (the stalactites now doing double duty) – oh, what a celebration of sound and fury, colour and light! And as for the emergence of the Devil and his wicked daughters, well, that looked like a pretty good carnival too.

Musicals also need sympathetic characters, the shadier the better. The Enlightened Buddha, through no fault of the actor who portrays him, is entirely unsympathetic, and in fact that’s the way the Buddha would like it. Let’s have no worldly feelings of sympathy here! The only character who raises a heartbeat is Siddhartha’s father, the old king. In the beginning he appears ridiculously mustachioed, clad in anachronistic shiny synthetic material and giving vent to a terrible caricatured laugh — “Ho ho ho ho!” Yet in the end, when he is reunited with his son who has become the Buddha, and who cannot express any love for his father, uttering only platitudes, then we feel a pang of distress for the old man. In the next scene the Buddha meets his former wife, who after a bit of token soul-searching kneels down and energetically devotes her life to Dharma. Now the old king’s solitude is complete. Everyone who has meant anything to him is either dead, or has betrayed him to embrace a logic that he cannot accept. I am glad that, despite its other faults, Prince Siddhartha, The Musical never forced the old king into the same ecstatic heights which all the other characters so easily attain. It leaves the old king the one true tragic figure on the stage.

The death of Buddha.

Musicals, like all theatre, are characterised by impermanence and the fulfillment of desire. The Devil character says that Buddha wishes to destroy this evil world on which the devils prey, but an audience preys on such things too. In order to feel redemption, the audience must first witness and experience suffering. So a musical, as an art form, cannot do justice to the ideals of Buddhism. And Buddhism seems an inappropriate and paradoxical theme for a musical.

How clean is your toilet!

Toilet
Co-presented by Pentas Project and KLPac
20-24 May 2009
Pentas 2, KLPac

On the way to see director Loh Kok Man’s new version of his work now entitled Toilet, I was expecting, or perhaps hoping for, lots of grit and grime, blood and guts all over the walls, grotesquerie and grimness. What I found was altogether different: light polished vignettes, all scrubbed and disinfected. And while I enjoyed the production in the end, I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing.

Toilet began with an ensemble dance section, or at least, the dancers were dancing, and Gan Hui Yee, the only non-dancer in the cast, was providing a heavy posed counterpoint to the dancers’ romantic repeated phrase of little movements – feet padding rapidly on wooden benches, lips administering quick kisses to their own forearms, bodies hopping lightly on and off the benches.

Tin Tan Chai Chen and Gan Hui Yee.

Although a late addition to the cast to replace actor Berg Lee, Hui Yee quickly established herself as the grounded earthiness of the production, the only one to whom my original concept of the work could still apply. Soulful-eyed Louise Yow, veteran of Kwang Tung Dance Troupe who has worked with Charlie Tan Dance Theatre, Low Shee Hoe, and Musical on Stage, was by contrast the most ethereal of the group – her extremely slender form and easy extensions always controlled by her technique, but threatening at any moment to go drifting into the stratosphere.

But Louise and Hui Yee never got to face off in Toilet. Hui Yee was paired most often with Tin Tan Chai Chen, a doll-faced dancer with a committed and confident theatrical presence in scenes which require considerable physical stamina, such as the slow-motion sequence in which a banana-gobbling Hui Yee pops Tin Tan’s yellow balloon, or Tin Tan gets her own back by bullying Hui Yee with domineering singing.

Louise Yow.

Louise meanwhile shared several scenes with Leng Poh Gee, who started his dance career with Dua Space Dance Theatre and is currently a tutor and choreographer in the University of Malaya’s dance programme. In their first scene together, Louise and Poh Gee dance by themselves on their own wooden benches, a yearning phrase of balances and suspensions. I found it particularly difficult not to be mesmerised by Louise’s long lines and the elegant grace of her transitions. Poh Gee and Louise’s second scene together is a duet, full of clinging drags, close body work and lots of variations on the basic baby carry. Physically the sequence is interesting and it was well performed but it lacked convincing passion, as did the scene that preceded it, in which all the dancers kiss, then trade partners. Only Hui Yee’s character, rejected by the kissers, watching but uninvolved, strikes a chord.

Amy Len battling her solo.

And then there’s Amy Len. One of Kuala Lumpur’s most powerful dancers, Amy made her mark quietly in other scenes, but came to her own in an increasingly frantic solo against a backdrop of repetitive self-conscious narrative voiced by the other performers. The text, drawn from Peter Handke’s play Self-Accusation, documents the growing self-awareness of the narrator, and his subsequent descent into social anomie and existential crisis. Against this relentless wall of noise, Amy slices and twists, twitches, contracts, in battle with herself, dancing to and against a rising crescendo of music and sound and flashing lights, falling to the floor and dragging herself up again, to eventual collapse. It was a performance that had Best Featured Dancer stamped all over it.

But for me the best performer in this often baffling production was the Ng Chor Guan’s two-faced music. A melodious tinkle of pianos and birdsong dominated many of the scenes. [I was impressed that the birdsong was locally recorded rather than pulled from the usual catalog of sound fx – the call of the black-naped oriole was unmistakeabl.] The transitions between scenes interrupted the lightness with raucuous brass, the sound of the backwash of water, whistle-blowing, the crash of construction noises and the feeling of being under a train, all more commonplace and toilet-like.

The most memorable and magical moment of the production was entirely due to the combination of music with stage and lighting design, rather than with the intrusion of any human performers. Scores of different-sized disco balls descended from the ceiling, and to a brilliant tinkling score, they revolved at their own speed and heights, now all lit, now only some, showering the audience with shifting polka dots of light. The scene strained the barriers of belief, at certain moments it came dangerously close to the twee soulless spectacle of the sound, light and fountain show down the road at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa. But those gorgeous musical disco balls, they could not help but enchant.

The conclusion of 'Toilet'.

The risks of that scene were repeated across all of Toilet. At times the production bordered on kitsch and predictability, then it seemed to rescue itself. The performers were all individually skilled but they occasionally failed to convince. The production was enjoyable, and yet it somehow missed its mark. In its polished performances and sterile set I could not sense the ugliest gestures of the excretion of body waste. Perhaps the work should have been named something closer to ‘Hidden Desires’. Perhaps it was better left untitled.

But with such a strong cast and direction, I would go and see Toilet over and over again. And not just for the musical disco balls.

Times they are a changin’

Alarippu to Moksha 2009
13 May 2009, MTC Theatre, Jln Ampang
Sutra Dance Theatre

Big changes are going on at Sutra Dance Theatre. January Low is leaving to spread her wings elsewhere, starting with a 5-month residency in South Korea. With her exit comes a whole new era for Sutra, and Alarippu to Moksha, Sutra’s regular performance which serves as a launching pad for student dancers, was a good opportunity to check out the shape of things to come.

Certainly January is leaving some big shoes to fill. In a performance at the Singapore Dance Festival last year, January described how she feels that the Indian classical dance form is infused into her body. She is familiar with all its guises, its most subtle sensibilities as well as its most extravagant displays. This was evident in her performance on Wednesday night – she appeared to be enjoying herself immensely, freeing herself to happily inhabit the movement as I have not seen her do in a long while. In the sinuous phrases of ‘Saberi Pallavi’, it was delightful to watch her in one-legged poses, slowly deepening the bend in her supporting leg until it looked as if she could go no more, and then, with exquisite timing, launching into the next movement. And there was particular poignancy in her later portrayal of Krishna’s lover, when moments before she had been in tears as Ramli Ibrahim acknowledged her great contributions to Sutra and her art.

January’s absolute sense of comfort with the Odissi technique is one to which only very experienced dancers may subscribe, and the junior group who performed in the first few numbers on Wednesday night have yet to attain it. They also have a long way to go in developing focus and maturity on stage, but they are young, and their coltish awkwardness is both forgiveable and endearing.

Tan Mei Mei, with Divya in the background.

As for the senior dancers, their relative strengths were on parade in Ashta Nayika, in which they illustrated the various dramatic situations experienced in the eternal romance between mortal and god. Divya shows a pleasant abishegam, and a light graceful movement in her arms, but there is something a little unformed about her. She may yet grow into greater strength. Tan Mei Mei is very capable; her agony as the jilted lover was strongly performed, but perhaps too businesslike. Sivagamavalli and Geethika Sree were charmingly well matched in their flower-picking scene, and Sivagamavalli’s following solo was very expressive and watchable. Nishah Devi was perhaps a little too convincing as the pouting ‘little wifey’ to Harenthiran’s lover, but she is clearly a force behind the scenes in arranging works and rehearsing the younger dancers, and this is an important role that should not be overlooked. Revathi has the greatest capacity as a performer. She was quite fetching in her rejection of her lover, rejecting his token and slamming the door on him with spirited grace. In her opening duet with Harenthiran, the lines of her positions were lovely and she absolutely radiated serenity. But she is a small-bodied dancer, and her presence is naturally quieter – its delicacy can be eclipsed by the extrovertism of the other girls.

And then there’s Rathimalar Govindarajoo, who has returned to dance with Sutra in the last few years, after five years in London with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company. Being Rathi’s close friend, I sometimes forget how virtuosic she can be. In the piece ‘Ashta Shambu’, depicting the attributes of Shiva and eulogising His triumphs, the audience was in no doubt that they were in the presence of a seasoned performer. Rathi is proficient in varied roles, but she particularly shines in the gruesome and bloodthirsty Shiva dances, when she accesses a great sense of darkness and power. When, as Shiva, she looses an arrow from her bow, it is a full-bodied gut-wrenching movement. She stomps upon her enemies, and claims her kills – you can almost see the corpses piled up around her. Then, as the worshiper, her pivoting turns with arms raised above her head, fists opening and closing, are distinct from the other dancers in her épaulement, spine and shoulders spiralling in ecstatic fervour.

L-R: Nisha, January, Mei Mei, Divya.

But Rathimalar has been branching into her own choreography, and performing outside of Sutra Dance Theatre, so it is unrealistic to expect her to direct Sutra’s future. I think the responsibility lies with the other senior dancers as a group, rather than as individuals. As individuals, none of them are as versatile as January Low, but the combination of their strengths is formidable. In the final Moksha there was a single magical moment, a sense of real excitement, when the senior dancers stormed the stage and joyfully launched into the rhythm, the junior dancers parting in their path like a school of startled fish. If, after January’s exit, the senior dancers can collectively harness this energy, then Sutra Dance Company can only go from strength to strength.

Up Next: Prince Siddhartha, The Musical

A more mainstream production from the Chinese community, also in Mandarin, from the prolific Buddhist production company Musical on Stage. Many talented dancers with classical training are involved, including my friends Chan Sheow Fern, Ng Sei Li, Hii Ing Fung, and Foo Siau Yin. Musical on Stage has a reputation for very high production values and polished performances.

22-31 May, Istana Budaya.
www.musicalonstage.com

Up Next: Toilet

What was once presented as a mainly theatre work is being revised in a more dancerly genre, featuring some of the more established contemporary dancers from the Chinese-speaking community: Amy Len from Kwang Tung Dance Troupe, Leng Poh Gee, lecturer at University Malaya, and Louise Yow. In Mandarin with English surtitles, this performance is likely to combine multimedia with grotesquery, illustrative of continuing trends within the urban Chinese-speaking avant-garde.

20-24 May, Pentas 2 KLPac
www.pentasproject.com

Speaking only to us

Gostan Forward
A Solo Performance Lecture by Marion D’Cruz
Five Arts Centre
8-10 May, Annexe Central Market

“Is it dance?” Marion D’Cruz is sick of the question. In her long and varied career  — the topic of discussion and demonstration at her masterful solo performance Gostan Forward at the Annexe last week — Marion was never afraid to take her art where she needed it to go, bending, breaking and redefining the boundaries of the discipline. Semantic quibbles over where to place her work on the continuum of theatre and dance mean little to her, for clearly they miss the point.

But there is another question, to some now equally trite and tired, which for Marion has been a lifelong source of inspiration, and we might phrase it thus: “Is it Malaysian?” Marion, like many members of her generation, has been consumed by the desire to participate in the process of a nation actively imagining itself. Her work has always been interlinked with the state of the nation, our politics, crises of identity, traumas and joys. Marion sought to create a vocabulary of dance and theatre that is uniquely Malaysian, and  she’s done better than most.

The degree to which she has succeeded can, I think, be measured by audience reaction. I went to Gostan Forward on Saturday night, accompanied by a non-Malaysian friend. At the performance I met another friend who, though Malaysian, was raised in the cultural bubble of international schools. He didn’t know what gostan meant. My friend from overseas was even more mystified – what sense could she make of this wild woman on stage, moving her audience first to laughter then to tears, speaking first in this language and then that, pulling disparate cultural and political references from here and there and weaving them into her narrative? Marion and Five Arts Centre, like Instant Café Theatre, have made a space for this irreverent style that only Malaysians (and, perhaps, older Singaporeans) can understand. For Malaysians, Marion’s performance was so clear and straightforward (despite its gostan topic), so accessible, that it requires little interpretation. During the performance, she wondered briefly, “What if I had not come back from New York?” Well, she might have been speaking to a more global audience, but she would not be speaking so directly to us.

Marion’s presentation was humorous, illuminating, frightening, always engaging, but never confessional. Some members of the audience thought that she could have spoken more about her relationship with her husband Krishen Jit, but I disagree. There is enough of the public Marion, the Marion that we already know in bits and pieces, to keep an audience sated when it is all brought together – why ask for more? Many of the people in the audience were younger than I am, and we didn’t really know much about Marion’s artistic activity in the past. But what we discovered, what Marion told us, about her life and its role in our history, came to us as easily as something from our collective subconscious – oh, of course!

Marion has reached a stage in her career when, although she is far from dead, it is useful for her and the audience to consider her legacy now and how it will be handed down to posterity. I grew up with another figure, seminal in the search for the Malaysian vocabulary, who was also energized by the optimistic nationalist visions of the 70s: my father. Which will prove more lasting, I wonder, his edifices of concrete, or Marion’s ephemeral presentations? These things are unpredictable. I am reading the diaries of Virginia Woolf at the moment, and it interests me how she compares her state of small but rising fame with that of contemporary bigwigs, Prime Ministers, lords and ladies. She would not have predicted that a hundred years later we would be reading her diaries, and all those lords and ladies dead and forgotten. But now, as the ongoing discussion on Arteri indicates, the idea of nationalism as a driving force seems to be spent in the younger generation of artists in Malaysia. So where now? And whither Marion?

Reading Woolf is instructive. “Now, with middle age drawing on, and age ahead, it is important to be severe on such faults. So easily might I become a harebrained egotistic woman, exacting compliments, arrogant, narrow, withered. To correct this, and to forget one’s own sharp absurd little personality, reputation and the rest of it, one should read; see outsiders; think more; write more logically; above all be full of work.”

Marion is nothing if not full of work, as the program for Five Arts Centre’s 25^th anniversary this year shows. She is building a reputation as a teacher, too, although not as a guru – I think Marion has too much of a sense of humour, too much questioning self-awareness for that. What she gives us is not an authoritative sense of “This is how you do it,” but quite the opposite: an example of daring to which we can aspire, a pattern of action which may reverberate in our cultural consciousness for a long time to come. As she says herself, speaking through, from, with the orang tua mask which she assumes so comfortably, “Buat saja, lah, ’nak!”

[For a more straightforward, and less gostan, account of what happened during Marions’ performance, check out Choy Su-Ling’s article in AsiaDanceChannel. And for a more hard-hitting discussion, Simon Soon's piece on ARTERI. ]