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.