Instant Cafe House of Arts & Ideas

It’s SOUND SEASON at CHAI!
Let’s Meet NG CHOR GUAN – an award winning Malaysian Composer + Sound Designer
28 October 830pm @ CHAI

Get to know your local composers and sound designers and gain insights on how they collaborate to create music for theatre, dance, film, multi-media and their own music and sound performances.
Who should come?
People who [...]

Date: 8.30pm Sat, 7 August 2010 @ CHAI
Title: Social Media 4 Machas

a conversation with Grace Chin (PopWire), Hasbeemasputra Abu Bakar (Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia) & Zurairi Abd Rahman (Unscientific Malaysia).
Bringing together 3 social media projects that have been initiated over the past year, this conversation will present groups & individuals who are harnessing virtual connections [...]

MALAYSIA’s GREATEST HITS 2 is a YouTube video festival programmed by:
- Amir Muhammad (filmmaker / writer / publisher)
- Imri Nasution (filmmaker)
- Liew Seng Tat (filmmaker / Rumah Angkat-er)
- Nor Fathin Ahmad & Rahmah Pauzi (students, PopIN & Rancangan Yang Memang Terkini)

Since the first video (‘Me at the Zoo’) was posted on YouTube in April 2005, [...]

ICT’s FIRSTWoRKS presents
FIRSTWoRKS Exchange 2010 Vol 2
sex.violence.blood.gore by Alfian Saat – A Dramatised Reading

As part of award-winning Singaporean writer, Alfian Saat’s residency
@ CHAI (12-25 July 2010)
sex.violence.blood.gore by Alfian Sa’at
A Special Multilingual Edition @ CHAI featuring Malaysian and Singaporean actors including:
Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siu (Singapore)
Edwin Sumun, Dara Othman, Diong Chae Lian, Ryan Lee [...]

The Un-Official History of the Internet – a lecture by Hardesh Singh
31 July 830pm @ CHAI

Everyone uses the Internets, but how the hell did it come about?!
By 2010, the Internet has become a world-wide broadcasting capability, an info disseminating mechanism, and a technological medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals without regard for geographic location… [...]

MALAYSIA’s GREATEST HITS 1 is a YouTube video festival programmed by:
- Chi Too (filmmaker / conceptual artist)
- Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri (filmmaker, That Effing Show)
- Hardesh Singh (music producer-technopreneur)
- June Tan (producer / filmmaker, My Mother Said… series)
31 Jul 2010 y 5-7pm @ CHAI

Since the first video (‘Me at the Zoo’) was posted on YouTube in [...]

MAHASISWA MENGGUGAT!
Dialog Tiga Generasi Aktivis Mahasiswa
a conversation with Isham Rais, Khairul “Jonah” Anuar & Hilman Idham

8.30pm, 24 July 2010 @ CHAI
Bringing together three prominent student activists of the past and present, this conversation with Isham Rais, Khairul Anuar and Hilman Idham will trace an oral history of student activism in Malaysia post-1969 – looking into [...]

STUDENT POWER!
Sejarah Kebangkitan Mahasiswa Universiti Malaya ‘60an
a multimedia lecture by Fahmi Reza
8.30pm, 17 July 2010
“To alienate students from politics means to alienate them from their own society” – Khong Kim Hoong, University Malaya Student Union 10th Council president (1969).
Student autonomy, Students’ Union, student government, Speakers’ Corner & Solidarity Marches – the 1960s are often referred [...]

As part of Singaporean award-winning writer, Alfian Saat’s residency @ CHAI (12-25 July 2010)

The conflict between established authority, be it a just government or a tyrannical one, and dissidents, with or without just cause, is a perennial one. A classic expression of it is ‘Antigone’ by Sophocoles in the 5th century BCE Athens.

Today the Republic of India is a sign of Asia’s emergence as the site of global economic and political power as one of the four so-called BRIC nations. But half a century ago, India was a sign of the then international anti-colonial struggle…

Come 21st May at 8.30pm, drop by CHAI and have Tea With Nehru.

CHAI Celebrates MIGRATION this Season!
Next up we have…
The HUI (Chinese Muslims) Identity and Culture
by Rosey Wang Ma
Generally when one thinks of ‘Muslim’, what comes to mind is people from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, certain African countries, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  For those who are savvier of [...]

Directed by Jo Kukathas and Zalfian Fuzi
Instant Cafe’s latest comedy revue.
15-16 May 2010
PJLA Jaya One

Deepak Menon Film Showing and Conversation with the director, his mother Sooria Kumari, a retired Tamil school teacher and the co-writer of his film Chemman Chaalai…

Imran Ahmad author of Unimagined – a Muslim boy meets the West will be speaking on ‘Islam and the West: Living, Travelling and Getting Published in a Post 9/11 World’.

Sharaad Kuttan shares his 12-minute visual essay, “AutofocusIndia” as an example of the ways in which we can explore personal and artistic responses to travel. This is followed by a showing of a full-length documentary by British film-maker Lindsey Merrison.

The playwriting workshop explored ways in which writing plays differs from other kinds of writing; the elements that make plays: story; plot; character; dialogue and the audience…

The Infamous Holiday Snapshots of VK Lingam and Eusoffe Chin and the Artlessness of Photography

FIRSTWoRKS EXCHANGE 2010 Vol 1
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
IMAGINING THE NATION
A Malaysian Japanese Theatre Exchange

Artist K Azril Ismail documents the painful stories on, inside and outside the walls of Pudu Jail…

This exhibition by Puah Chin Kok comprising 10,000 photographs including the 9 photographs of VK Lingam’s family vacation in New Zealand transformed the interior of CHAI to a mosaic of personal lives made public.

‘Who needs history? Well everyone in fact! Farish Noor, Malaysia’s own Pop Idol of History was inspiring, lyrical, funny and provocative about the decline of history and its erasure in Malaysia.

Amir Muhammad is the only person you know who has seen every single surviving Malay movie made before 1957. He shows and tells us why we should watch them too.

Hindu Temple mapper Dr Rampal and Google Earth Artist Yap Sau Bin exchange ideas

A staged reading followed by Part 2 of the FIRSTWoRKS playmaking workshop

Professor Khoo spoke candidly to his son and to us about the evolution of Malaysian history, his efforts at transforming perceptions and his approaches to studying history.

Kam Raslan and Na’a Murad take us on an
Interactive Whistle-stop Tour of Malaysian History

A staged reading with Delicious cakes and tea
followed by a FIRSTWoRKS playmaking workshop

The Padang, Sultan Abdul Samad building, Masjid Jamek, that stuff’s just for tourists, isn’t it? Actually, it’s ours, but what do we really know about them?

An adaptation and staged reading of the Italian comic masterpiece + Talkback

Happy Dagger Theatre conducted a 10 week Acting and Theatre Making Workshops for Malaysian theatre professionals and students.

Matthew Isaac Cohen and Eddin Khoo’s conversation explored the context and contours of traditional and popular performance within the setting of Southeast Asia’s cosmopolitan history and culture.

New monologues and short plays about HOME by Jo Kukathas, Ridzwan Othman & Zedeck Siew

A presentation and discussion of the multi-media work of NYID with director, writer David Pledger and dramaturg Peter Eckersall…

CHAI’s Inaugural Exhibition: HOME. An exploration into the meaning of HOME through medias such as painting, video, installation…

CHAI: Instant Cafe of House & Ideas!! Celebrated by visual artists, directors, playwrights, academics, writers, bloggers…