Malaysiakini presents Jo Kukathas, one of the most talented, versatile and charismatic performers of our time.

Check out our exclusive interview with Ribena Berry and Jo’s other alter egos from 1S1M1S in Rentakini.tv

Produced and edited by Indrani Kopal

http://www.rentakini.tv/video/20552/meet-the-stars-of-1sex-1money-1scandal-the-virus-returns-.html

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/showbiz/article/discourses-with-yang-berhormat/

Discourses with Yang Berhormat

By Sharaad Kuttan

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — In an exclusive interview,The Malaysian Insider speaks to one of the most recognisable faces in Malaysian politics today on matters central to the state of the nation. The indubitable Yang Berhormat does his best to muddy the waters.

TMI: Let me begin by saying YB (picture) that while too many of our leaders shy away from the mere mention of scandal you seem to bravely go forth. What makes you such a man of substance?

YB: When I was Deputy Minister of Space and Tourism, it was I who piloted the space programme. It was I who mooted the idea to have our very own Angkasawan. It was I who said we must have a handsome Malaysian part-time model to boldly go where no Malaysian has gone before.

Of course now he is married he’s had to resign. His wife didn’t want him to work outstation. And the moon is very far outstation.

However, this doesn’t mean we are cancelling our space programme. No. People are complaining that the submarines we bought recently can’t sink so our scientists and some Bangladeshi workers are turning them into rockets.

It’s very simple. A bit of rocket fuel, a nice logo, a new slogan and voila –  The Space Cadet, To Infinity and Beyond!

We can do it! It’s not rocket science after all… soon everyone will know not astronauts, not cosmonauts but the world’s first — Bolehnauts!

In fact, not many people know this but the 100-storey mega tower in the middle of KL will double as our Rocket Tower.

How much will it cost? That’s for me to know and you to find out!

Except you can’t. And won’t.

This is why we have our new slogan. 1 Malaysia… we can still do what we wan!

Get it! Get it! We can still do what we want… oh I’m a joker lah, a joker…

So scandal? Please, I look scandal right in the eye and don’t blink. No whiff of scandal has ever attached itself to my name. What else is the OSA and the ISA and gag orders and the judicial system there for? And if all else fails we go to court and use the “mudah lupa” defence. It works. It really works!

And now I have a new project I came up with it myself. I call it Talent Cork to stop brain drain. We will put a cork to stop the brain draining. It’s my brain child.

Get it! Get it! Brain child! Yes, it’s my very own plan to lure back clever overseas Malaysians by enticing them with a discounted Proton. Of course they can not be cleverer than me. That would be criminal.

TMI: YB you have often used the arts as a platform to keep the public appraised of the goings on of government. Can you tell us something about the “special” relations you have with the arts?

YB: The thing about artists is that they are simple people. You throw them a bone once in a while and they’ll roll over faster than the girls in a Soi Lek video.

Those flers from Instant Cafe are a case in point. They think if they do a bit of comedy, everything will change!  That is the problem with satirists — they are essentially romantics and idealists. They don’t realise the more things change the more they stay the same.

I mean look at PKR! But I enjoy our “special relationship.” I give them material for their “comedy” and they keep me in the spotlight.

TMI: What’s in the spotlight, YB?

YB: Talent Cork, the Brain Drain, Odour in Court, Los not Found, Konspirasi, Crossovers, Walkovers, Walkouts, Pullouts, Buy Elections, Show Elections, Towers, Powers, Flowers, Corsages, Massages, Messages, SMSes, Viruses. The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same…

TMI: YB how long have you known Ms Ribena Berry and could you tell us what you think of her talent?

YB: I’ve known Ribena for 20 years. She’s as flexible as ever. Nobody can do a double summersault backflip dismount and apply mascara at the same time.

Recently she “crossed over” and is now a government spokesmodel working for the Ministry of Unhealthy Behaviour.

There’s been an outbreak of the 1S1M1S virus and she has been brought in to do a debriefing. No! Not that kind of debriefing. That kind of debriefing is extra…

TMI: In view of the public concerns about the state of the judiciary, YB, do you think the appearance of Judge Mental Singh on the same platform with government leader such as yourself will stir more rumours of collusion between well-placed individuals and the judiciary?

YB: I have never been in a collision with any member of the judiciary. Once my driver knocked into a Jaguar belonging to the good judge but I told him not to worry about it. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours he said and so we have been.

In fact we bought each other some rather nice Maori backscratchers while on holiday in New Zealand last year.

TMI: It cannot be denied YB that our civil service is the target of much criticism. How do you rate Puan Badariah Minah Periok? Does she work for you, sir?

YB: Puan Badariah is currently working at the Department of Lost and Found. She has been very helpful in making various unpleasant people and things disappear.

She has been very vigilant. While she has been there and has been able to lose quite a number of things.

In the last departmental beauty contest she was voted Miss Shredding Machine OSX Harimau. Unfortunately she could not enjoy the prize money because she has gone missing.

However, I managed to find a good use for the prize money and now my mistress, Cindy,  and I are going on a fact-finding mission to Disneyland.

TMI: Lastly YB, are you working on any special projects you would like to share with our readers.

YB: At the moment my pet project is to get the Rakyat to celebrate National Corsage Day. Recently I opened my own chain of flower shops called Flower Power. Then by a happy happy coincidence I awarded myself the contract to supply all the corsages to the members of the Dewan Rakyat.

Then by another happy coincidence I tabled a motion in Parliament declaring November 24th National Corsage Day. I urge all Malaysians to celebrate our having Too Much Power by wearing a Corsage on National Corsage Day. The Bigger the Better. More Power to Your Flower.

TMI: Thank you again YB for your insight into our beloved nation.

The Instant Cafe Theatre Company turns 21 this year and what better way to celebrate than by joining them in the restaging of their 2010 comedy hit 1Sex1Money1Scandal — now with 30 per cent more scandal!

Missing jet engines, missing mistresses, missing evidence and missing memories. When everyone in the country muda lupa who better to remind you than those flers from Instant Cafe– with their infectious new comedy 1S1M1S!

Join the multi-faceted Jo Kukathas as she and some of Instant Cafe’s most hilarious and iconic characters – YB Deputy Minister of Panic, Actress Turned Mistress Ribena Berry, Uncivil Servant Puan Badariah Minah Periok, and Judge Mental Singh find love in all the wrong places. Very wrong places.

Starring Jo Kukathas with  Shanthini Venugopal, Junji Delfino, Edwin Sumun,  Maya Tan Abdullah, Zalfian Fuzi, Tria Aziz, Nish Tham and Kuah Jenhan.

The Instant Cafe Theatre Company turns 21 this year and what better way to celebrate than by joining them in the restaging of their 2010 comedy hit 1Sex1Money1Scandal – now with 30% more scandal!

Missing jet engines, missing mistresses, missing evidence and missing memories. When everyone in the country muda lupa who better to remind you than those flers from Instant Cafe– with their infectious new comedy 1S1M1S!

Join the multi-faceted Jo Kukathas as she and some of Instant Cafe’s most hilarious and iconic characters – YB Deputy Minister of Panic, Actress Turned Mistress Ribena Berry, Uncivil Servant Puan Badariah Minah Periok, and Judge Mental Singh find love in all the wrong places. Very wrong places.

Ribena Berry “My body was made for scandal!” dalam konspirasi Zionis!

YB Deputy Minister of Panic and Managing Unexpected and Embarrassing Crises caught with his pants down. Denies it was his pants.

Puan Badariah of the Federal Los dan Faun Department finds missing submarine in Jalan Alor. Plans underway to open Arab seafood restaurant.

Judge Mental Singh loses suicide note. Demands retrial.

Starring Jo Kukathas
With Shanthini Venugopal, Junji Delfino, Edwin Sumun, Maya Tan Abdullah, Zalfian Fuzi, Tria Aziz, Nish Tham, and Kuah Jenhan.

DATES/TIMES: 24 – 28 November 2010.
24 -28 November 830pm & 28 November 3pm

VENUE: PJLA Theatre, Jaya ONE
Block K, Jaya One,
Section 13, No.72A, Jalan Universiti,
46200, Petaling Jaya, Selangor

TICKETS: Call 03- 7960 0439 or E-mail boxoffice@pjla.com.my

Ticket Prices:
RM55 Wednesday and Thursday and Matinee Shows
RM65 Friday, Saturday and Sunday Evening Shows
RM25 for Students [Limited tickets per show, restricted view]
ALL SEATS ARE NUMBERED.

Written and devised by Jo Kukathas, Zalfian Fuzi, Kam Raslan and Na’a Murad, with Edwin Sumun, Junji Delfino, and Maya Tan Abdullah.

Directors: Jo Kukathas and Zalfian Fuzi.
Producer: Adeline Tan
Lighting: Ravi Shetty Sound: Sean Taylor-Leech
Multi-media: Reza Rosli Publicity: Rahel Jospeh Production/Stage Manager: Cathy Chin

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 like music.
Students of music, theatre, dance and film.
People interested in how artists collaborate.
People who want to collaborate with other artists.
People who enjoy learning how art is made.
Those who want to share their work with Guan and others.

PART 1
GUAN- LIFT OFF!

NG CHOR GUAN is an award winning Malaysian Composer + Sound Designer.

Guan has composed for projects in Malaysia, the UK and Hong Kong and his music has traveled to Europe, Japan and Singapore.

He will be sharing insights into how he creates music – what he hears, what inspires him and how he collaborates with other artists from dance, film and theatre.

He will be showcasing his diverse work which includes music for Nyoba Dance, music for theatre including the 3 director collaboration Break Ing – Ka Si Pe Cah (Loh Kok Man, Nam Ron and Jo Kukathas) and other works by Pentas Projects as well as his recent work in Hong Kong the multimedia dance A Deer of Nine Colours.

He will also be showcasing his full length concert – SPACE AGE.

PART 2
OPEN SOUND SYSTEM:
Other sound artists such as Goh Lee Kwang will be sharing their music.
Feel free to come with your music to share in the second part of the evening …

More About Guan

Born in Klang, Malaysia, his passion for music during his adolescent years propelled him towards this fascinating arena. Chor Guan started his career as professional composer during his years in London. His diverse professional credits include music for concert, film, theater, dance (incl. dance video), exhibition and multimedia. His music has been performed in a wide variety of mediums including orchestral, choral, chamber, and electronic music. His work demonstrates an excellent integration of the classical and the contemporary.

Upon returning to Malaysia in 2006, he collaborated actively with theatrical artists and choreographers diversify his works into a new era. To name a few:

Theatre productions include
Antigone,
Okiku- A Tragedy Retold,
The Lost and The Ecliptic,
Break-ing and Toilet.

Dance collaborations include
The Curse of The Forbidden Palace,
Whispers of Love,
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night,
The ‘R’ Adventurous Drift, Nobat,
Peony Dream Lost and Found,
Tale of Healthy City
Ballet Nutcracker.

It didn’t come as a surprise when he was nominated for the 2008 Cameronian Arts Awards Most Promising Artist.

Early in 2009, his music for short films was premiered in the renowned Rotterdam Film Festival in Holland. The short film “Everyday Everyday” was awarded Grand Prize in the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in France and the Artfilm fest in Slovak Republic.

His latest music score and sound design in film was for One Future in 15malaysia. Chor Guan was proud to be invited to compose for the multimedia dance project – A Deer of Nine Colour in Silk Road Hong Kong Arts Festival 2009.

In April 2010, his dream to be astronaut come true, his first full length concert -SPACE AGE (a journey like never before) successfully lifted off to space.

To add to his list of accomplishment, he has also produced 11 CD albums of his own.

SLAM Poetry Workshop by Omar Musa (Australia)
Wed 20 October 2010
8pm @ CHAI
Workshop Fee: RM20
Please email chai@instantcafetheatre.com to register your place in the workshop

Omar Musa is a rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia in 1984 and is of Malaysian-Australian heritage. He has lived in London and California and spends most of his time on the road, performing and writing. He has won numerous awards for poetry and music, including the Australian Poetry Slam in 2008 and the British Council’s Realise Your Dream award in 2007. While living in London in 2008, he recorded with MOBO award winning British rapper Akala. He has also run creative workshops in Aboriginal communities in remote Australian towns. His first hip-hop record, The Massive EP, recorded in Seattle, USA with veteran rock producer Geoff Stanfield, was released in 2009 to critical acclaim.

He was a featured guest on the Triple J Hip Hop Show. He has also been a featured guest at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Singapore Writers Festival, Byron Bay Writers Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival and the Sydney Writers Festival, as well as touring in Indonesia, around Australia and as support for legendary poet/singer Gil Scott-Heron in Germany. He also published his first book of poetry, The Clocks, in 2009, and worked as an actor for the Bell Shakespeare Company in Sydney. He released his debut full length album World Goes to Pieces in 2010.

Supported by the Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur.

A Pod Cast Presented by CHAI Artist-in-Residence Sean Taylor Leech

Recipient of the University of Melbourne’s Asialink Performing Arts Residency at CHAI, Sean Taylor is a sound designer and composer working with Instant Cafe Theatre on a number of upcoming performance, installation and recording projects.

Based in Sydney, Australia as a radio producer and multimedia designer, Sean also produces and DJ’s dance music. In 2003, he began working in Brisbane across many settings, ranging from night clubs and radio stations to galleries and street parties.

Synopsis

In September 2007, Sean Taylor (aka Prince Nod) produced a feature program called Rights Dub for The Night Air show on ABC Radio National, that was broadcast across Australia. The Night Air is a listening experience animated by dub versions of ABC Radio National’s distinctive programming. Obliquely connected material is re-assembled with sonic glue – letting the listener’s imagination build a new story. It’s a space to find the music in speech and the poetry in ideas, a show that invites you to take time to unravel the usual media tangle.

For The Night Air, Sean has created a pastiche of documentary come DJ mix that delves into the news, histories and sounds of the black civil rights movement in America; and examines the parallel cultural influence of black rights music and the dawn of digital sampling on the global music industry. The program captures the fragmented sound and music of an America coming to terms with the challenges of protecting and reviewing its civil and cultural rights.

‘Get up, Stand up’, the 1973 reggae song made famous by The Wailers is a nagging provocation to continue struggling for personal or group rights in an unjust world. But just what are ‘rights’ – who holds them, who’s being denied them and who benefits from getting rights? Using everything from Dubstep, Hip Hop and Baile Funk to speeches by the Black Panthers, Lawrence Lessig and George W Bush, Prince Nod dubs through the music and voices of the civil rights and music rights movements to find the two are connected today more than ever before.

Artist in residence Sean Taylor presents an artist talk and performance

DATE: Friday 29 October, 830pm @CHAI

You are cordially invited to join us at CHAI, where our artist in residence Sean Taylor is showcasing works from throughout his creative oeuvre, ranging from curation and zine writing to video and sound art.

Recipient of the University of Melbourne’s Asialink Performing Arts Residency at CHAI, Sean Taylor is a sound designer and composer working with Instant Cafe Theatre on a number of upcoming performance, installation and recording projects.

Based in Sydney, Australia as a radio producer and multimedia designer, Sean also produces and DJ’s dance music. In 2003, he began working in Brisbane across many settings, ranging from night clubs and radio stations to galleries and street parties.

As producer of the successful global bass music radio show called Forcefed Fistfuls, Sean has pioneered nascent future music in the Australian broadcast industry and continues to represent cutting edge bass music culture from around the globe.

At CHAI, Sean will present an overview of his previous projects, collaborative multimedia art works, radio broadcasts, and finally a performance of his live computer music.
The event will be followed by drinks and an opportunity to meet Sean and enjoy the new sound system at CHAI

For more info on Sean:

http://www.myspace.com/princenod
http://soundcloud.com/princenod
http://www.forcefedfistfuls.podomatic.com/

MY Beautiful BFF
Malaysia’s Big Federation Feast!

This September 16
Eat to your arts content!
A day for eating, drinking, and celebrating what it truly means to be Malaysian
in the company of the folks from Instant Cafe and Five Arts Centre!
Free performances with every bite!

Come celebrate Malaysia Day with us at Jalan Bangkung
with a special BIG BUFFET at Four Seas Restaurant

Hosted By and For
Instant CAFE’s HOUSE of ART and IDEAS (CHAI)
& FIVE ARTS CENTRE (FAC)

Thursday 16 September 2010
Restaurant Four Seas
Jalan Bangkung, Bangsar

Minimum Donation RM80
All proceeds go to supporting the work of CHAI and FAC

Choose one slot:

SLOT 1: 3- 430pm Performance of Wayang Buku by 5 Arts.
Performance at 3.30pm

SLOT 2: 430- 6pm Performance of Wayang Buku by 5 Arts
Performance at 5.00pm

SLOT 3: 6- 730pm Performance by Jo Kukathas (as YB Deputy Minister) and Patrick Teoh as himself!
Performance at 6.30 pm

SLOT 4: 730 – 9pm Performances by Edwin Sumun (as SHE-LAH!) and Junji Gomes as her singing self!
Performance at 8 pm

MY Beautiful BFF is part of MALAYSIAku – CELEBRATING MALAYSIA DAY A full day event of fun, feasting and out door festivities on Jalan Bangkung, Bangsar 16 September, 3pm to 10 pm
Event sponsored by Four Seas Seafood Grill @ Bangkung Row in support of Malaysian Arts

Please call 03-7725 4858 or email fivearts@tm.net.my for ticketing purposes

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 for powerful forms of engagement, as opposed to just a medium of staying on touch with friends and peeking into their daily activities.

Facilitated by PopTeeVee’s Hardesh Singh, this event will also speculate on the recent and upcoming impact that social media will have on news, journalism, activism, collaboration and innovation.

Grace Chin is the Editor of PopWire, a newswire of information and ideas crowd-sourced from the blogosphere and social media networks. She was formerly a writer with The Edge.

Hasbeemasputra Abu Bakar is an activist with Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia, a non-racial, non-partisan initiative for the betterment of the nation that emerged out of discussions between bloggers in the post-March 8 landscape.

Zurairi Abd Rahman is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Unscientific Malaysia, a Malaysian community that promotes science, scepticism & freethought. They cover issues of science, religion, superstitions, civil rights, supernatural hogwash and other poppycock.

Since the first video (‘Me at the Zoo’) was posted on YouTube in April 2005, the site has become the world’s most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos.

Each curator will programme 30 minutes of Malaysia-centric material from YouTube, identifying emergent patterns, themes and genres to see what-how-why Malaysians are making and uploading.

From the first GREATEST HITS last week (programmed by Chi Too, Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri, Hardesh Singh & June Tan), we watched old Malaysian ads, Parliamentary shouting matches, spoofs, satirical songs, and much more!

Come for more Malaysian-made brilliance and nonsense. We bring the videos. You bring your date, geng & kacang!

Saturday 7 August 2010

5-7pm @ CHAI

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 Baskaran, Farah Ashikin, Tuan Tapai Faisal, Gregory Sze Huat, Keng, Lee Zhe-Li (Malaysia)

Directed by Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi

25 July | 6pm
**Entrance by minimum donation RM20**

(Singapore 1999; Stockholm 2006)

Six episodes, exploring the themes in the title. A repressed Geography teacher visits her sister and reveals her nymphomaniac tendencies. Two ladies in colonial Singapore yearn for lesbian relationships with their Cantonese maidservants. Japanese soldiers visit their favourite man-whore for one last time after Japan’s surrender. Three explorers are stranded in the North Pole, their mission to transport glaciers back to a future Singapore where Malaysia has cut off its water supply. Two working class teens meet a pair of transvestites on an MRT train. And then there is the story of Annabel Lee, an apparition who is part Annabel Chong, part Lee Kuan Yew.

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… but that wasn’t always the case. How has the Internet evolved over the past 50 years, and how are emerging technologies expanding its hold on our lives?

Music producer-composer and new media technopreneur Hardesh Singh’s lecture will take us through:

- the race between tech geeks, academics & the United States Department of Defense to lay the blueprint for inter-network communication;

- the development of the World Wide Web, the dotcom bust (remember Lycos, AltaVista, Excite & GeoCities?), and the innovation of the online porn industry!;

- Web 2.0, cloud computing, mobile technologies and social media networks such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Hardesh will also map the various online initiatives and collaborations he is doing through Popfolio, including Poptopus, PopTeeVee, PopIN, PopWire, PopRadeeo and more.

- 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 April 2005, the site has become the world’s most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos.

Each curator will programme 30 minutes of Malaysia-centric material from YouTube, identifying emergent patterns, themes and genres to see what-how-why Malaysians are making and uploading.

There will be old Malaysian ads, Parliamentary shouting matches, rempit races & stunts, spoofs, satirical songs, and much more!

We bring the videos. You bring your date, geng & kacang!

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 the context and politics of the mass student demonstrations at Tasek Utara, Johor and Baling, Kedah in 1974, the Reformasi resurgence of the late 1990s, and the current Pro-Aspirasi / Pro-Mahasiswa divide in our public campuses.

Facilitated by Fahmi Reza, this dialogue will also examine the political and organisational strategies, tactics and challenges faced by each generation of student activists.

Note: The conversation will take place primarily in Bahasa Malaysia.

Here are the recommended reading materials for this week’s dialogue.

1. Sajak ‘Surat Dari Aku Kepada Kau’ oleh Isham Rais
http://tukartiub.blogspot.com/2010/07/sekeping-surat-dari-aku.html

2. Artikel ‘Mahasiswa Bangun’ oleh UBU
http://oocities.com/universiti_bangsar/artikel/art6.html

3. Artikel ‘Perlawan Itu Pasti Terus’ oleh Hilman Idham
http://jalantelawi.com/2010/02/perlawanan-itu-pasti-terus/

Bios

Isham Rais is Malaysia’s most famous NGI – non-governmental individual – a mass movement of one. His writings have been collected in several books, including Pilihanraya atau Pilihan Jalanraya, Keganasan, Penipuan & Internet and Tapai. He was a firebrand student leader of the University of Malaya Students’ Union (UMSU) and the Kelab Sosialis Universiti Malaya from 1973 to 1974.

Khairul Anuar, better known as Jonah, was a prominent student leader at Institut Kemahiran MARA during the late 1990s. He was heavily involved with the Gerakan Mahasiswa Lantang Negara (GMLN) and the alternative Universiti Bangsar Utama (UBU). He contested against current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in the Pekan constituency during the 2008 General Elections, and is currently the Parti Keadlian Rakyat Youth vice-chief.

Hilman Idham is a 21 year-old Political Science student at Universiti Kebangsaaan Malaysia. He is the founder and president of the Kumpulan Aktivis Mahasiswa Independen (KAMI) based in UKM, a supreme council member of Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM), and is one of the UKM 4 who are being charged under the Universities and University Colleges Act (1971).

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 to as the golden age of the Malaysian student movement, before the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 came into place. The student movement reached its zenith when they participated in the 1969 General Elections by releasing a Students’ Manifesto and touring major towns on the Peninsula to hold rallies and speak to tens of thousands of Malaysians.

Fahmi Reza (director of 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka), will present his ongoing research into this under-documented period of Malaysian history in a multimedia lecture that combines rare photos, video footage, newspaper reports, archival materials and interviews.

Note: The lecture will be presented in Bahasa Malaysia.

The second stage of this project has evolved into an inquiry into the overpowering development mania in Kuala Lumpur that appears determined to erase Malaysia’s past in a bid to create a new uncritical future. David Pledger and Peter Eckersall concluded the second stage of this exciting and challenging project in May with Artistic Director Jo Kukathas and Producer Rahel Joseph of Instant Cafe Theatre and a number of local artists. They are in the process of looking for a house in Kuala Lumpur to site the project in which artists will install a series of works and animateurs will develop weekly performances. Pledger will return to curate the project in collaboration with ICT.

Writing Workshops by Alfian Saat (Singapore)

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

• INTRODUCTION TO PLAYWRITING (FOR BEGINNERS) – 13 July **
• PLAYWRITING WORKSHOP  (FOR EXPERIENCED WRITERS) – 17 and 24 July**
• POETRY WORKSHOP – 20 July
• DRAMATISED READINGS – 24 July

**To register for this workshop please email firstworks@instantcafetheatre.com tell us about yourself and state why you would like to join the workshop.  Successful applicants will be notified by email.**

WORKSHOPS

Introduction to Playwriting

13 July | 7pm -10pm

No. of participants: 15 max

Fee: RM 45

This workshop is aimed at those who have never written a play. Participants will be introduced to the basics of playwriting, such as the structure of a play (exposition, conflict, climax, resolution), as well as how to write believable and engaging characters.

The focus of this workshop will be on recognizing the elements that make up a play, and selectively using these to create drama. Particular attention will be made on the differences between the play and other literary forms (such as poetry and prose), with the intention of sensitizing writers to how the body, space and time interact within a performance setting.

Playwriting Workshop: At Home in the World

17 & 24 July | 2pm-5pm

No. of participants: 15 max

Fee: RM 80

Suppose you want to write

of a woman braiding

another woman’s hair–

staightdown, or with beads and shells

in three-strand plaits or corn-rows–

you had better know the thickness

the length the pattern

why she decides to braid her hair

how it is done to her

what country it happens in

what else happens in that country

You have to know these things

-         Adrienne Rich, from ‘North American Time’

This workshop is aimed at those writers who have already penned plays, and is pitched at an intermediate level. In this workshop, participants will be led through a series of writing explorations, where they will investigate certain questions related to the craft. What kinds of audiences are we writing for? Is there a conflict between local concerns and universal relevance? Are there compromises to be made between authenticity (topical references, particular speech patterns) and intelligibility?

This workshop will examine how we can use the available materials around us—life stories, interviews, news reports, archival documents—as raw material for a play. The focus will be on writing characters and situations that are embedded within specific social, political and cultural contexts.

Poetry Workshop

20 July | 830pm-1030pm

No. of participants: 15 max

Fee: RM30

This workshop is aimed at those who would like to explore the different  approaches to writing poetry. Unlike other poetry workshops, this workshop will concentrate not on beginning a poem, but on crafting one. Hence an emphasis will be placed on the process of revising and editing, paying close attention to how the selection of words and the structuring of lines affect the production of meaning.

The poet will provide samples from his own poems to demonstrate how choices are made which determine the final shape of a poem. The attempt is to demystify poetry-writing, which is above all a continuous process of meticulous redrafting, rather than the transcription of a single burst of inspiration.

DRAMATISED READINGS
sex.violence.blood.gore by Alfian Sa’at

A Special Multilingual Edition @ CHAI featuring Malaysian Actors

24 July | 830pm

Entrance by minimum donation RM20

(Singapore 1999; Stockholm 2006)

Six episodes, exploring the themes in the title. A repressed Geography teacher visits her sister and reveals her nymphomaniac tendencies. Two ladies in colonial Singapore yearn for lesbianrelationships with their Cantonese maidservants. Japanese soldiers visit their favourite man-whore for one last time after Japan’s surrender. Three explorers are stranded in the North Pole, their mission to transport glaciers back to a future Singapore where Malaysia has cut off its water supply. Two working class teens meet a pair of transvestites on an MRT train. And then there is the story of Annabel Lee, an apparition who is part Annabel Chong, part Lee Kuan Yew.

_________________________________________________________

Venue: The INSTANT CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

People For Whom This Could Be Interesting

• Writers
• Theatre Directors
• Actors
• Dramaturges
• English teachers and students
• Literary Club members
• Performance makers (text based)

ABOUT ALFIAN SAAT

Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with W!LD RICE, one of Singapore’s most recognized theatre companies. He is also as Associate Artist with Teater Ekamatra, a Malay-language theatre company. His published works include two collections of poetry, ‘One Fierce Hour’ and ‘A History of Amnesia’, as well a collection of short stories, ‘Corridor’.

Alfian has been nominated six times for Best Script at the Life! Theatre Awards, eventually winning in 2005 for his play, ‘Landmarks’, and later in 2010 for his play, ‘Nadirah’. He has also been nominated for the Kirayama Asia-Pacific Book Prize and the Singapore Literature Prize for ‘A History of Amnesia’. In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. His plays have been translated into German and Swedish and have been performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Hamburg, Berlin and Stockholm.

*For more information on ICT and our FIRSTWoRKS Playwriting Programme please visit our website at www.instantcafetheatre.com or email firstworks@instantcafetheatre.com.

Reading of WONG PHUI NAM’S ‘ANIKE’

Read my play?!

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR BROTHER WAS UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY THE STATE?

A brother is put to death by a paranoid Tuanku who then decrees that his body should be hung outside the city gates and left to rot as a warning sign to the rakyat not to disobey his authority.

His sisters, ANIKE and YASMIN are in conflict – their love for their brother wars with their instinct not to go against those in power. But for Anike the decent and human thing to do is to cut her brother down and give him the dignity of a burial.

For this the enraged king demands she be punished.

The conflict between authority and those who dissent, between age and youth is a perennial one. In ANIKE, Malaysian poet and playwright WONG PHUI NAM takes the classic story of the Greek play ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles and makes it into a story for our time: a story of youthful idealism and the terrible consequences that are unleashed when a young woman defies the state.

A WHAT IF… ON A TUAH JEBAT STORY

The play also turns the page on our classic Tuah Jebat story.

The conflict between subject and king is told in Malay history in Jebat’s usurpation of the Melaka Sultan’s palace. This is supposed to be an act to right the injustice done to Tuah by the Sultan in ordering his execution on mere suspicion of sexual peccadiloes. In the ‘Hikayat Hang Tuah’, the Sultan, on being told that Tuah has not been put to death as ordered, angrily summons Tuah to the palace and orders him to kill Jebat on his behalf as a demonstration of loyalty. This Tuah does.

A parallel between this story and ‘Antigone’ may be drawn by having an invented sister of Jebat’s defy the Sultan by retrieving for burial her dead brother’s body left to rot hanging from a tree at the city’s main gate on the Sultan’s orders.

This is what Wong Phui Nam has done in ‘Anike’.

COME AND WATCH A REHEARSED READING of WHAT SHOULD BE A MALAYSIAN CLASSIC.

With
Inessa Irdayanty as ANIKE
and
Cheryl Tan as YASMIN
Also with
Patrick Teoh as MANIAKA the Tuanku
and
FISH FADZIL as his BENDAHARA
And the youthful talents of
Iedil Alaudin as NADIM, Anike’s Beloved and Son of the Tuanku
and
Qahar Aqilah as the MESSENGER

Also featuring
Andre D’Cruz as TOK SETH the Blind Seer
Zalfian Fui as the GUARD
and Jo Kukathas as the CHORUS

Directed by Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi

Entry is by donation to CHAI (minimum RM20 please!) to enable us to continue running CHAI’s public programming and workshops.
CHAI Wallahs* enter for free!

* For more information on becoming a CHAI Wallah, email chai@instantcafetheatre.com

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.

The conflict between subject and king is told in Malay history in Jebat’s usurpation of the Melaka Sultan’s palace. This is purported to be an act to right the injustice done to Tuah by the Sultan in ordering his execution on mere suspicion that he has been dallying with the ladies-in-waiting in the palace. As if told in ‘Hikayat Hang Tuah’, the Sultan, on being told that Tuah has not been put to death as ordered, summons Tuah to the palace and orders him to kill Jebat on his behalf. This Tuah does out of unquestioning loyalty to his ruler. A parallel between this story and ‘Antigone’ may be drawn by having an invented sister of Jebat’s defy the Sultan by retrieving for burial her dead brother’s body left to rot hanging from a tree at the city’s main gate on the Sultan’s orders.

This is what Wong Phui Nam has done in ‘Anike’.

Date: 8th July 2010

Time: 8.30pm

Venue: The INSTANT CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Entry is by a minimum donation of RM20 only.
Chai Wallahs* enter for free!

*For more information on CHAI Wallah, email chai@instantcafetheatre.com

NYID returns to Kuala Lumpur to continue the second development of interdisciplinary project The Meaning of Malaysia Is Open for Inspection with Instant Cafe Theatre (ICT) with whom NYID has been associated since 2007 (How to Make Art in the 21stC)

The Meaning of Malaysia is Open for Inspection is based on an original concept and dramaturgical template developed by David Pledger for NYID’s 2008 Melbourne Festival presentation The Meaning of Moorabbin Is Open for Inspection.

Conceived as an online/offline project, the artwork was created in a modular format and presented in a suburban house, where each room contained an installation- using video, sound, photography and performance- which addressed themes using Landscape, Suburbia, Memory, Popular Culture and Local History. Audience responses were recorded and uploaded onto the project’s dedicated website creating an instant and ongoing connection between the artists, the work and the audience.

The Meaning of Malaysia Is Open for Inspection aims to address the resonance of the project’s themes within Malaysian culture and transpose the original concept and dramaturgy to the group of artists working on the project in Kuala Lumpur in collaboration with the NYID Team led by David.

LOVE THE PM. ANY PM

YB

THOUGH difficult to track down, the infamous YB (just “YB”, like “Madonna” or “Sting” or “Prince”) finally agreed to an exclusive with The Nut Graph. In this interview on 12 May 2010, YB shares his views with us on things Malaysian and current.

YB is currently Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Managing Unexpected and Embarrassing Crises. When queried about his other posts, he says, “I got a letter from David Letterman once, and a restraining order from Julia Roberts. Apart from that I don’t get many interesting things in the post these days.”

TNG: Many people have never heard of you before. Are you really an elected representative?

YB: If people haven’t heard of me, I can’t be held responsible for that. I’ve been a YB since 1990! If you check the photos of Parliament in session in the Dewan Raykat, you can usually spot me in the back. That’s me there having a nice snooze.

Since 1990, I’ve been on the go! I’ve been shunted from every ministry I’ve been assigned to, and even from some that don’t exist but should. I started off as the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Miscommunication; then the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Breaking Records; then the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Space and Tourism, and Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Carbon Footprints and Hot Air.

As for whether I’m elected or not … Elections are overrated. Really. I mean, if our pockets are deep enough, we always know the outcome of the elections even before the elections, so why waste any more money?

Next question please.

What’s your stand on party-hopping?

I am discouraged by it. All this rubbish about parties buying people to “cross over” is not true. I mean, I tried to cross over once but nobody offered me a penny! It was most discouraging.

Would you support the abolishment or review of the Internal Security Act, specifically the provision that allows for detention without trial?

I think people should not be detained without trial. I think they should just go directly to jail. What is the point of calling it detention when what it means is jail? I mean call a spade a spade lah.

I think if we are going to have a mock trial it should be a real mock trial. Anything else would be a mockery of our mock trial. We wouldn’t want that. Otherwise those Australian [members of Parliament] will start shouting and demanding we throw another shrimp on the babi. As if there aren’t enough pig heads and cow heads being thrown around as it is.

Pigs' heads thrown around

Do you think Malaysia should be a secular or Islamic state?

Is that a trick question? We are an Islamic state, aren’t we?

Do you support the whipping of Muslims for syariah offences?

But only if they wash the rotan first. We have to keep things clean and hygienic. The Ministry of Health doesn’t need another scandal on its hands. Or on DVD.

Would you support a Freedom of Information Act? Why or why not?

I think information should be free. That is why I support The Nut Graph. I get to read all their articles for free. I hate websites where you have to use PayPal. Any person who makes me Pay is no Pal of mine. However, if The Nut Graph decides to become a paid website, hopefully I can still get it for free.

But free information should not be for everybody. Somebody has to pay. Somebody always has to pay.

Speaking of pay, can somebody get me some teh tarik and curry puffs? I’ll pay you back later. Heeeheee. And the cheque’s in the mail.

Moving on to more current issues — what is your take on the recent spate of police shootings of civilians?

Police don’t shoot civilians. Guns shoot civilians. But if civilians were more civil, perhaps guns would not shoot people. Guns are sensitive, deep, emotional beings. Anything can trigger them off. Even happiness. That’s why we call them trigger happy.

What’s your take on Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial? Do you think he did it?

There’s another sodomy trial? Didn’t we manage to get him the last time? We must be slipping…

Well, it doesn’t matter if he did it or not. We will use “habeuus corpus”. That is Latin for “We will find a body — and hold it against you.”

If this present body doesn’t work, we’ll find another one.

There’s been a lot of noise about the prime minister’s wife appearing in an ad in the New York Times recently. What’s your take on this?

I’m happy she’s in New York doing that ad for hairspray. But my wife is not happy. She has been complaining about the hairspray shortage in KL. Everywhere she went to find hairspray they tell her no stock.

According to the KL Meteorological Department, there’s a hole in the ozone layer above Sri Perdana Putrajaya the size of the Bakun Dam.

Next question, I’m getting hungry.

What are some of your most notable achievements?

Love the PM. Any PM. When they say, “Jump!” I ask, “How high?”

[Keeping] my head down, not walking the talk, and currently making a movie titledFairies Stole the Jet Engines.

My contribution on climate change at the Copenhagen Summit. On the issue of climate change and rising ocean levels I told them not to worry. Look on the bright side: if ocean levels rise, people don’t have to travel so far to get to the beach.

You’re on Twitter. Do you think this will help increase your popularity as a politician?

I love being a Twit. Since I found Myface and Spacebook I feel closer to the rakyat. You love me, you really love me.

Isn’t it time for lunch yet? 

YB will appear in Sex! Money! Scandal! The Pandemic at the PJ Live Arts theatre in Jaya One, Petaling Jaya, at 8:30pm on Saturday, 15 May and 5pm, Sunday, 16 May. He is happy to announce that these two shows have been sold out, and he will be making an additional appearance, along with popular personalities Ribena Berry, Puan Cannot, and Judge Mental Singh on 16 May at 8:30pm. To book, call 03-7960 0439 (12pm-8pm Monday to Sunday) or e-mailboxoffice@pjla.com.my.

Check out this Youtube link to a video with all the info you need!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZryOl6eCwA

To get a little context on how Instant Cafe Theatre got all started, check these very, VERY serious and fascinating talks from the Live and Inspire Series, starring Jit Murad, Zahim Albakri and Jo Kukathas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcZNIK4jaBU&feature=related

(UPDATE)

Thank you very much for all those who have watched the show and for those who haven’t, well, the sky’s NOT the limit!

Here is a podcast done by BFM, interviewing Jo Kukathas and Kam Raslan on Sex! Money! Scandal the Pandemic

http://www.bfm.my/pj-laugh-fest-sex-money-scandal-jo-kukathas-kam-raslan.html

Next up, we have….

Tea with Nehru

Come have tea with me at CHAI.

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. Its leaders showed the way for the Third World both as a model of resistance to colonialism as well as a model in structuring a post-colonial order that would deliver on the promises of the nationalist movement.

In the early 50s students of University Malaya in Singapore embarked on a 6-week trip to India, which included, tea with Prime Minister Nehru.Through the personal accounts John Doraisamy and Mavis Puthucheary we re-visit the meaning of India, the cultural dynamics of travelling and explore the continued global migration of ideas that we in Malaysia share in.
Venue: The INSTANT CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Date: 22nd May 2010 (SAT)

Time: 11am

Entry by minimum donation of RM10
CHAI Wallahs enter for free!*

* For more information on CHAI Wallah, email chai@instantcafetheatre.com

AN explosively funny story involving missing engines, mansions, murders and things that go bump in the night, Sex! Money! Scandal! — The Pandemic, will be staged at PJ Live Arts in Jaya One, Petaling Jaya on May 15 and 16.

An Instant Cafe Theatre production, it stars ICT founder and artistic director Jo Kukathas.Kukathas plays multiple characters in this comedy — The Deputy Minister, Ribena Berry, Mrs Cannot and Mental Singh, who struggle to spin, handle and react to Malaysia’s “latest outbreak of scandals”.

Kukathas is joined by co-stars Edwin Sumun, Junji Delfino, Zalfian Fuzi and Maya Tan Abdullah, with musician David Gomez on the keyboards.She says: “We blur the lines between fact and fiction and we take things to absurd heights. But strangely, nothing is as absurd as the reality of our everyday lives.” Kukathas wrote and devised the play with Naa Murad, Kam Raslan and Zalfian.

Tickets are RM45 each. Time: 8.30pm and 5pm (May 16). Call 03-7960 0439.

ICT’s brand of political humour torpedo-ed taboos, amid general Malaysia’s self-censoring cowardice, back in the 1990s and early 2000s. (One anecdote has Dr M, after watching an ICT show and seeing himself being lampooned onstage, quipping: “I’ll send the Black Marias for you people soon.”) Today, however, ICT has moved on, focusing more on developing new theatre (it’s FIRSTWoRKS workshop birthed Shanon Shah’s hit play Air Con) and creating high-minded discussion on Malaysian art and culture (ICT’s CHAI House is a frequent host of forums and readings).

KLue talks to veteran actor, satirist and ICT director Jo Kukathas about how her company has changed, what Malaysian theatre is today, and where we all could go from here.

How did Instant Café Theatre begin?

Not long after Operation Lalang, while Jit Murad, Zahim Albakri, Andrew Leci and I were in a production of Romeo & Juliet, we talked a lot about Monty Python, the British satirical show. That got us thinking about lots of stuff that was horribly wrong here — and we started creating Malaysian situations and characters for comedy sketches.

So it was a product of the times. But why decide on comedy, though?

Monty Python is not foreign to Malaysian culture — look at the wayang kulit dalangs.

There were so many things that made us all feel angry, and so many friends who decided to leave the country, at the time. It really was a situation where, if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry. To ICT, it was better to laugh — it’s an antidote to absurdity. Besides, it wasn’t our style to do angry theatre.

ICT’s revues have always had powerless comic characters, who scratch their heads at the actions of those in power. Ambrosia Lala/Ribena Berry, one of my oldest characters — she was in ICT’s very first show, 21 years ago — is just a dumb blonde. But she always says the truth in her naivete.

How else do you fight authority? If we have any cultural rights at all, it is certainly the right to be free to laugh.

What, to you, has been ICT’s greatest achievement?

All the people who’ve been part of the company, who’ve left and gone on to do other things in the arts.

ICT has a revolving (and evolving) door. We were quite adamant, at the beginning, not to write any manifesto — that’s a very developing-nation idea. We keep our doors open, so we can respond to things. We have no membership; instead, everyone who’s worked with ICT belongs to an idea: say what you like — but say it well, and say it with some art and thought.

The FIRSTWoRKS playwriting programme has resulted in a number of successful plays: Ridzwan Othman’s Flies and Foreigners, Shanon Shah’s Air Con, Arun Subramaniam’s Hero. But these plays are a departure from the satire ICT that was previously known for. What prompted this change in direction?

I don’t think ICT has strayed from its Tao, actually: we still write what we want to write. Satire can be limiting; not everyone wants to do it. Setting up FIRSTWoRKS was us recognising that people write in different ways. The programme has created space for people to get their voices heard, and to tell their story.

And this direction isn’t new; it was something that ICT started doing very early on. You could see it happening in our 1990 collaboration with Sutra Dance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

What’s your take on Malaysian theatre, today?

Theatre is about ideas. In any society, it’s not just about putting on shows.

A lot of people are putting on shows, now; but the thinking behind these works are not being given due emphasis. Previously, theatre was amateur, and people had day-jobs. You could only afford to put on something once a year — but because of that, there was more time for conversation.

Today, because theatre can be a profession, there’s a pressure to do more, without time for pause. The model now is to rehearse for a few months, then put the show on. Coupled with bad funding, it’s a vicious cycle. There is no time or space for dreaming.

Tell us about CHAI House, ICT’s current space in Petaling Jaya.

Instant Café’s House of Arts and Ideas (CHAI) is a continuation of our need to keep things open. It is a physical space to meet and share ideas: we host dialogue, talks, readings of plays.

Events at CHAI are grouped into themed seasons; our current theme is “Migration”. The themes are, basically, collective dreaming. It’s like a book club: you read the same book, everyone talks about it, and everyone argues about it. We keep the programme eclectic: approaching a topic from different points of view and in unexpected ways. Who thought that “Food”, our previous theme, could lead to an examination of performance art?

CHAI has also allowed us to leave the narrow definition of theatre, and ask questions about Malaysian culture across disciplines.

What’s next for you, and ICT?

I want to stage Wong Phui Nam’s three plays: Anike, Aduni, and Dark Fog. We’ve already done readings of them. Aduni, particularly, is based on Medea — it’s interesting to examine how people can feel so dispossessed, that they are driven to the point of killing their own children.

I’ve been carrying these plays around for two years — thinking about them, and having discussions. I think they are ready to be done. Works need that kind of time.

~

To celebrate Instant Café Theatre’s 21st birthday, the company is putting on Sex Money Scandal – The Pandemic (15 & 16 May 2010, and part of PJLA’s PJ Laugh Festival), a satire revue featuring Jo Kukathas in the guise of her signature comic characters: Ribena Berry, YB Deputy Minister, Puan Cannot, and Judge Mental Singh. Join this rogue gallery as they struggle to “spin, handle and react to Malaysia’s latest outbreak of scandal”! Visit theirwebsite for more information.

Article taken from KLue Magazine May 2010, Issue 139.

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 this region, Muslims are represented by Malays and Indonesians.

That Islam has been present in China for more than a millennium is not a commonly known fact. It is even more surprising to many that Muslims in China number almost 50 million. Among the ten Muslim minority nationalities in China, the HUI are the Chinese looking, Chinese speaking Muslims.

Theirs is a long history of identity construction, definition, and reconstruction, until they formed and consolidated the HUI identity: A hybrid identity built on a blend of Islamic and Chinese values and traditions, the  HUI present a unique culture, including arts, architecture, calligraphy, language, food, etc… that looks Chinese but a bit strange, Islamic but rather intriguing, even to other Muslims.

This presentation focuses on the hybrid culture of the Chinese Muslims beginning with a brief run through on the history of Islam in China.

Rosey Wang Ma is an independent academic researcher and writer on various aspects of Chinese Muslim communities. Of HUI parentage herself, she was raised in Pakistan and Turkey. She was a French language lecturer for more than twenty years before taking up a career in Education Counselling. She still conducts education training programmes. Her interest in Chinese Muslims has led to research, conferences, and publications on various aspects of the topics, most recently Southeast Asian Chinese and Islam (in Mandarin),  paper presented at the International Symposium on Southeast Asian Chinese Culture in the Era of Globalisation, Singapore, September 2006, Hui, Ho, and New Brothers: The Chinese Muslim Diaspora in Maritime Asia. 2007, in Chinese Diaspora since Admiral Zheng He. (ed.) Leo Suryadinata. Pp. 227-245. Chinese Heritage Centre, Singapore; Vanishing Legacy: Chinese Muslims in Penang, paper presented at the Inaugural National Conference: Penang Peranakan Chinese and Chinese Muslims, Reflections and Visions, Penang, February 2008.

Venue: The INSTANT CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Date: 19 May 2010 (Wed)

Time: 8.30 pm.

Entry by minimum donation of RM10
CHAI Wallahs enter for free!*

* For more information on CHAI Wallah, email chai@instantcafetheatre.com

Get KLued in!!!

http://klue.com.my/articles/3051-Interview-Jo-Kukathas-on-Instant-Cafe-Theatre-turning-21

Ooh, a lovely white wall…

Background

Deepak K. Menon was born in 1979, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Deepak graduated from Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia in the field of film and animation in the year 2001 and is currently pursuing his Master in Business Administration (MBA) studies @ MMU.

Deepak currently teaches media production, film and animation at the same university. His credits in film include as writer, producer, director, editor. Deepak is a principal photographer and has future aspirations to write, play and hopefully make decent music.

What Drives you to be a Movie Maker?

Self Actualization, Personal interest in Social Science and Cross Cultural Diaspora Research and Current Issues.

What was your first step on becoming a movie maker?

To research, gather information, build network, build community, seek like minded individuals, write, realize ideas and be open to critics and ideas. Seek enlightenment by sharing and caring.

When was your first task? And what is it?

Borrowed a DV camera from a friend. Within less than 24 hours; wrote, produced and directed my very first short film over night, a one minute short film titled “Jalan Tun H.S. Lee.” The film made the opening film at the Film Festival University Science Malaysia in Penang in 2001. It was my first experience in a plane. Air Asia ticket to Penang was RM19.90. The airfare trip to Penang was sponsored by the festival. I found out, I just might have some hidden talent to explore.

In 2007, my second feature film “Chalanggai” (Dancing Bells) won Best Digital Film Award at the 20th Malaysian Film Festival programmed at the same venue in Penang.

What was your biggest achievement on your line of career?

My mum always insisted that I should have been a doctor. In fact, she booked me a seat to study medicine abroad. I was in the vein of the arts. Years later, when my first feature film released on silver screens January, 13th 2005. It received rave reviews, won several awards, released in cinema with a full house audience.

The film was a story about a girl from the rubber estate who wanted to have higher education. It was based on my mum’s teen life story. The film title was “Chemman Chaalai” (The Gravel Road). My mum smiled and told me that she was very proud to have me as a son. Nothing beats blessings from your parents.

What was the biggest problem that you’ve faced? And how did you solve it?

My biggest enemy is myself. I constantly listen to my whining heart and alerting mind. The heart is like a child who throws tantrums if not attended to. The mind is reasonable but at times unbending. But without a heart, the mind is oblivious!

What were the best things that happened to you in making movies?

Travel. I have a passion to travel. My films have traveled more than a dozen countries. It enables me to meet inspiring people, learn, discover, reignite my thirst for life and find myself.

What type of movies do you prefer making? (Horror, comedy, romance, etc.)

Humanity, Social Science and Family. I only make films that are timely, necessary and close to my heart.

Besides movie making, what are your personal interests?

Meeting inspiring people, Reading, Photography, Music, Travel, Academic Research.

Why did you choose movie making over other careers?

I didn’t choose it. It chose me!

What do you think about Malaysia’s movie makers?

I’m yet to be in a position to comment on my comrades. I’m an eager student. Perhaps, you’d have something to share that I’d love to learn about!

Do you think Malaysians support our own movie industry?

Absolutely! Malaysia is ALWAYS the AWESOMEST!

Who do you think is the best movie maker right now?

Filmmaking is not about being the best. The world is big enough for all forms of works and audiences. Love what we do, respect others and hopefully we achieve self actualization together. Humility and sincere hard work never goes unnoticed.

What is your future plan?

Become a Millionaire, Learn dancing, to complete my MBA, to complete my feature film script “The Coconut”. To be a National Geographic Travel/ Culture Photographer, to complete my debut music album “Rainbows and Butterflies!”

To pursue self actualization and most profoundly to smile more! ,)

Favorite quote?

Work hard, Study hard, Play hard and Love HARDER!

http://www.deepakmenon.info/index.html

Sex Money Scandal  – The Pandemic

Jo Kukathas

Missing jet engines. Mansions. Murders. Things that go bump in the night. Malaysia is full of scandals. And sequels. Join multi-faceted Jo as she takes on YB Deputy Minister, Ribena Berry, Puan Cannot, and Judge Mental Singh as she and they struggle to spin, handle, and react to Malaysia’s latest outbreak of scandal. It’s a pandemic.

Starring Jo Kukathas joined by Edwin Sumun, Junji Delfino, Zalfian Fuzi, and Maya Tan Abdullah with David Gomez on keyboards.

Sex! Money! Scandal! The Pandemic is written and devised by Jo Kukathas, Na’a Murad, Kam Raslan and Zalfian Fuzi with Edwin Sumun, Junji Delfino and Maya Tan Abdullah.

DATE: 15^th May 8.30p.m

16^th May 5p.m & 8.30pm

VENUE:  PJLA Theatre, Jaya ONE

TICKETS: RM45.00, 20% off individual show admission until   25^th April 2010

WEBSITE: www.instantcafetheatre.com

BOX-OFFICE & RESERVATIONS, 12pm – 8pm daily (Mon – Sun):

OVER THE COUNTER- (Add – Ground floor, Block K, Jaya One, Jalan Universiti, beside IACT Office

TELEPHONE- (03) 7960 0439, 12p.m – 8p.m Mon to Sun

EMAIL- boxoffice@pjla.com.my

*Reservation is allowed and closes 1 week before the show.
*All unpaid reservations made are held up to 3 days from reservation date. Paid reservations can be collected 30 minutes before the show.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/instantcafe/

Here’s a map to PJLA (JAYA ONE):

Map to PJLA (JAYA ONE)

SEE YOU THERE!

]]> http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/chai-masala-tea-only-at-delicious-restaurants/feed/ 1 http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/aging-disgracefully-instant-cafe-turns-21/ http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/aging-disgracefully-instant-cafe-turns-21/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:01:13 +0000 Jo Kukathas http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/?p=10 Aging Disgracefully: Instant Cafe Turns 21
by Jo Kukathas

Instant Café turns 21 this year. Rather than celebrate with balloons, cake and vodka we thought it was time for reflection on the nature of art and art making in Malaysia.

For this reason we’ve begun by opening our new space Instant CAFÉ’s HOUSE of ART and IDEAS or CHAI in PJ and by opening our BLOGSPOT on your desktop. Both can be reached by some kind of highway – super or slow depending on rain, shine or your bti.

Why have we done this?

Perhaps because we live in tough times. Or perhaps because we think that a theatre company should do more than put on plays. Or perhaps because Instant Café has always seen itself as more than a theatre company – we’ve seen ourselves more as an IDEA, and a way of looking at who we are.

Over the years it’s been a tavern, an inn, a koiptiam, a hotel, a home-stay where various individuals have stayed and left and left behind their indelible mark on us and on the KL arts scene. It was not a place of brick and mortar – except for a brief period in the late 90’s – but like Bob the Builder our intention was to make something with walls and a roof where people could gather to meet and drink and talk and make things together. A kind of House of Art which was also a House of Ideas.

Peter Brooke in his book The Empty Space has some interesting things to say about theatre as a place where people gather.

“The rough theatre ….It is always [this] popular theatre that
saves the day…the theatre that’s not in the theatre….audiences
standing, drinking sitting round tables, audiences joining in,
answering back…Of course it is most of all dirt that gives the
roughness its edge; filth and vulgarity are natural, obscenity is
joyous; with these the spectacle takes on the socially liberating
role for by nature the popular theatre is anti-authoritarian, anti-
traditional, anti-pomp, anti-pretence. This is the theatre of noise
and the theatre of noise is the theatre of applause.

This all concerns the appearance of roughness but what is this
theatre’s intent? Unashamedly to make joy and laughter… the
theatre of delight…and any theatre that can truly give delight has
earned its place. Along with serious, committed and probing work
there must be irresponsibility. The strongest comedy is rooted in
archetypes in mythology in basic recurrent situations.”

Satire and Café Society

Instant Cafe was formed in December 1989 because it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a rough time. The country was in the midst of a repressive crackdown and ideas were dangerous. We decided to use humour to subvert our situation. Freedom of Expression was high on our agenda. Our intention was to make political theatre that challenged the way we as Malaysians thought about ourselves and our country and also to challenge how and why we made art. And we wanted to be funny, joyous and subversive about it. We had to laugh because things in our country were – and still are – far too tragic for any other response.

We liked how John Milton described satire.

“For satire as it was born out of tragedy so ought to resemble
his parentage to strike high and adventure dangerously at
the most eminent vices among the greatest persons, and not
to creep into every blind taphouse that fears a constable
more than a satire”

We tried to follow his advice by making our political satire adventure dangerously – our rebellious black comedy struck a cord with some audiences and a nerve with others. But it did get us a following. The following year we decided that political satire was not the only prism with which to view ourselves so we collaborated with Sutra Dance to do A Midsummer Nights Dream in the open air juxtaposing Odissi with baju kebaya and Shakespeare’s text with our subtext and context.

Stirring It Up

Since then Instant Cafe has sought to keep challenging itself as a company that makes theatre and to challenge audiences about how and why we make art.

It organised an outdoor festival of arts [Out in the Open 1995 ] and an indoor festival of Art and Ideas that raised the roof on how and what makes art, dance, music and theatre. [Raise the Roof 2003].

It staged multi-lingual plays [adapting Accidental Death of an Anarchist 1998) and created multi-lingual collaborations [Pulau Antara/The Island in Between 2000 and Break-ing/Si-Poh/Ka-Si-Pe-Cah 2005/6].Their next collaboration – The Meaning of Malaysia is Open For Inspection is now underway.

It opened an eclectic arts space The Theatre Upstairs in 1996 and closed it in 1998.

It curated Art Exchanges that made people think out loud [International Women Playwrights Exchange 2007, How to Make Art in the 21st Century 2007] and work that made people laugh out loud [Laughing Wild 1995, Mass Hysteria 2001].

It continues to create its trademark political satire biting the hand that feeds and nurturing an ever evolving multi-ethnic ensemble of writers and performers [Bullish on Bouncing Back 1998, Millennium Jump 2000,The Bolehwood Awards 2003/4, Kurang Manis 2007].

It champions the development of new Malaysian writing with its rigorous FIRSTWoRKS program challenging writers to construct alternative narratives of the nation [Flies and Foreigners 2003, Air Con 2007/8, Hero 2007].

At the same time it continues to stage foreign texts both contemporary [Death and the Maiden 1993, The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde 2001, Happy Days 2006] and classical [Twelfth Night 1998, The Merchant of Venice 2000].

Soon we hope to stage the major work of Malaysian playwright Wong Phui Nam whose powerful new works Anike, Aduni and Darkfall combines classical forms with contemporary Malaysian issues and ideas.

CHAI and Empathy

In August 2009 Instant Cafe opened CHAI simply because we thought it was a good idea at the time and because we believe KL needs more good ideas and more places for good ideas.

We call it CHAI.

It’s a small house with big Ideas.

CHAI – is a space for artists and audience to create, meet, discuss, and engage with each other. It’s a space for experimenting and for inter-disciplinary encounters. It is a house for humour and for sober but not sombre reflection. It’s also a house where sobriety is not a virtue and where turbulence and irresponsibility has a place. It’s a place for talking, thinking, drinking, dreaming and making art. You can come to watch and listen, take part in interactions or stay at home and access art and ideas on-line.

This is our hope.

Our long-term aim for CHAI House is to help create an alternative version of the traditional cultural “institution” – often a stuff-shirted, batik/lounge-suited heavily marbled edifice. The desire is to create a more ‘rough’ space where those who walk in and out feel free to experiment with ways to integrate culture into the everyday lives of people, neighbourhoods and cities.

Every season, CHAI House will celebrate one of the great themes of modern life : HOME, HISTORY, FOOD, MIGRATION, TABOOS, BEAUTY, DEATH, CLIMATE, TRAVEL, HERITAGE – these are all words on our list and lips.

The programme ranges from art exhibitions to performances, readings to installations, new music to old dance, contemporary wayang to historical film, virtual reality to total theatre immersion experiences, video art to art for schools, rehearsals for new works to demonstrations of old work, debates to conversations – anything that generates ideas. Our house will open to its doors, real and virtual to an eclectic group of guest curators who each season will bring with them unexpected guests, alternative opinions, and animated conversations.

These are our hopes as we turn 21. Now crack open that vodka and let’s eat cake.

Jo Kukathas is the Artistic Director of The Instant Cafe Theatre Company.

You’ve been coming to CHAI and discovered it was just your cup of tea.

Or you’ve heard about CHAI and you’ve thought – how refreshing.

You’ve made various tea and café jokes with your friends, had a good laugh, been a bit provoked and been a bit provocative without anyone calling you names.

CHAI has now been open for 8 months, and so far we’ve had quite an eclectic program.

In order to continue providing better ART and better IDEAS, we now need your support.

Your contribution can also help us continue our program and improve our facilities.

We need our own sound system (HEARING AID), better documentation and archiving facilities (BE AN ACTION POT), a Hedge Fund to make our garden grow (GIVE US A HEDGE FUND) and we need more computers (CHAI TEK).

You can see where your money will effectively go.

Become a CHAI Wallah from only RM 50 a month!

To us, this means more than a simple membership. This place is also yours. Be a CHAI Wallah and come here enjoy this open house – lower entry donations, exclusive events, boasting privileges…

Please fill in this quick form and e-mail or give it to one of our housemates. We offer different payment facilities & let you decide the amount from RM50 and ABOVE.  (ABOVE is GOOD.)

ART IS EVERY DAY!

Your monthly donation RM …… (min RM50)

Your payment preferences

1. CHAI Annual payment:  amount :………….                                            (min RM600)

2. CHAI Seasonal payment (every 3 months): amount :……………… (min RM 150)

3. CHAI Monthly payment: amount :…………………..                                (min RM50)
- by cash

- by cheque to : The Instant Café Theatre Company S/B

- by bank transfer : RHB Bank Berhad, A/C No: 2 – 14035 – 0013306 – 2

Membership code (we’ll fill this in) :

ARE YOU A MÉCÈNE?

What is a Mécène? A mécène is a French word meaning One Who Supports Art and Artists.

We’ve always been a nation of givers and takers. We’ve given the West – compound (from kampong) godown (from gadong and amok (from amok) We’ve borrowed from Tamil (bumi, negara, jiwa) Portuguese (gereja, jendela, nenas) English (telefon, gostan, deblardigarmen), Chinese (tapau, mempersiasuikan, syiok, kongsi) Arabic (faham, hikayat, Allah) Sanskrit (buat, bahasa, manusia) and Dutch (aksi).

So in the spirit of continuing to be citizens of the globe we’d like to introduce this word to Malaysia!

If you would like to support us more substantially and become one of our Mécène please contact us at chai@instantcafetheatre.com

]]> http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/chai-wallah/feed/ 25 http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/deepak-menon-film-showing-and-conversations/ http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/deepak-menon-film-showing-and-conversations/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:51:04 +0000 CHAI http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/?p=770 CHAI celebrates MIGRATION this season!

Next Up, we have…

DEEPAK MENON FILM SHOWING AND CONVERSATIONS

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 and some of the cast most of whom were amateurs.

DAY 1 Chemman Chaalai The Gravel Road
Synopsis
Chemman Chaalai is a drama set in the 1960s in a rubber estate in Malaysia. The story revolves around a rubber tappers family living in the estate. Shantha comes from a poor family. She lives in an estate, where higher education for women is near impossible. Shantha aspires to leave the estate and further her studies. However, due to many unfortunate circumstances this dream becomes a difficult one to achieve.

“Just as in his first film, Menon draws a beautifully realistic and detailed portrait of a family that has to survive and above all has to maintain its dignity. The film was shot entirely on location in Brickfield and the cast is made up of local amateurs. This makes Dancing Bells not only authentic, but also emotional. These are real feelings of real people portrayed in a realistic way.” – Gertjan Zuilhof, Film Programmer, International Film Festival Rotterdam

Venue: The Instant CAFE’s HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]

Location: 6, Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Date: Friday 7th May
Saturday 8th may

Time: 8.30pm- 10.30pm

CHAI celebrates MIGRATION this season!

Meet the Author – An Afternoon with Imran Ahmad

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’.

The author will give a personal account of his experiences growing up in the Cold War era, dreaming of being a writer, and the profound changes he experienced after 9/11.

Imran discusses the ‘lazy tribalism’ which drives us towards polarization, dehumanization and demonization, and the need for a ‘re-humanization’ of the relationship between the Islamic and Western worlds.

His hilarious account of his journey to publication reveals how the motif of ‘Islam vs the West’ is very hard to break – especially when it’s profitable. Also, how following your dream entails doing the necessary work and getting some good luck along the way.

Last year, Imran embarked on a 14,000 mile drive around the United States in a hybrid car, conducting 41 speaking events in 39 cities, as part of his ‘re-humanization’ mission.

Unimagined — a Muslim boy meets the West was selected by three major newspapers (The Independent, The Guardian, and The Sydney Morning Herald) in their books of the year lists, and was the Number One bestseller at the recent Byron Bay Writers Festival 2009. The Indonesian version will be launched at UWRF 2009.

www.unimagined.org.

CHAI in conjunction with READINGS.

Entry: by donation to CHAI, min RM20

CHAI Wallahs enter for free.*

*For more information about CHAI Wallahs, check out http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/04/chai-wallah/

Venue: The Instant Cafe House of ART and IDEAS (CHAI)

Location: 6, Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Date: 24th April 2010

Time: 5.30pm- 7.30pm

Autofocus/Burma Days

with Sharaad Kuttan as Guest Curator

Hmm... Am focusing on India now.

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.

His is an account of travel to India, the homeland of my ancestors, made complex by notions of conflicting notions of “home”.

This is followed by a showing of a full-length documentary by British film-maker Lindsey Merrison.

Her work, “Our Burmese Days”, made in 1996, is an examination of “biculturalism wrapped up in an extraordinary personal odyssey”. The documentary is introduced by Kerry Phyo Win Latt, a Burmese scholar, resident in Malaysia.

Venue: The Instant Cafe House of ART and IDEAS (CHAI)

Location: 6, Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Date: 17th April 2010

Time: 5.30pm- 7.30pm

Entry by minimum donation of RM10
CHAI Wallahs enter for free!*

* For more information on CHAI Wallah, email chai@instantcafetheatre.com

POETRY, MEMORY AND THE FAMILY ALBUM

MIGRATION SEASON AT CHAI

MIGRATION SEASON at CHAI begins with

poet and journalist Eddin Khoo’s exploration of his family album.

BLOOD LINES: Poetry, Memory and the Family Album.

Eddin Khoo's Family

“What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto…”

(Michael Ondaatje)
What is the nature of a family memory? How is that nature evoked in the encounter with a photograph? What do family histories conceal and how are family myths constructed? How is literature crafted from an unraveling of these?

For a decade, the writer has been collating photographs that piece together the family memory for a series of prose and prose poem remembrances.

In BLOOD LINES: Poetry, Memory and the Family Album, he shares examples of photographs from his family album, explains the methods of use, reads excerpts from his assemblage of prose and prose poems and discusses the curious nature of memory and autobiography.
Eddin Khoo is a poet, writer, translator and journalist. Founder-Director of the cultural organisation Pusaka, he most recently collaborated with the late, critically acclaimed artist Ibrahim Hussein to complete the artist’s autobiography, entitled IB: A Life ~ The Autobiography of Ibrahim Hussein.

Entry by Donation to CHAI: Min RM10

CHAI Wallahs get in for free*.

Venue: Instant CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS (CHAI)

Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Date: April 1^st 2010 (Thursday)

Time: 8.30pm – 10.30pm

*For more information about CHAI Wallahs, contact us at chai@instantcafetheatre.com

2008 BBC National Short Story Award winner Clare Wigfall came to Malaysia to do research for her next book set in British Malaya. As well as lay people many Malaysian writers, critics and editors attended the event. She talked about her new novel.

“It’s fictional, but is loosely based on the story of my grandmother who grew up in Penang and about her mother who left her when she was a small baby.”

She spoke about her work and about her latest project – her novel a disturbing yet moving story about memory, childhood and family. The informal discussion with other Malaysian writers that followed allowed her find to leads for researching her story further.

Clare’s debut collection of short stories The Loudest Sound and Nothing was published in 2007 to critical acclaim.

She did a reading from her collection of darkly provocative stories.

In collaboration with READINGS.

THE ORIGINAL KAMPUNG BARU FOOD AND CULTURAL WALKING TOUR with Conceptual Artist Ise

Roslisham Ismail aka Ise, conceptual artist, founder of Parking Project, an artist run collective in Kuala Lumpur and self-appointed Prime Minister of the “Republic of Pandah Indah” is one of Malaysia’s most famous “cultural ambassadors” whose hospitality is routinely enjoyed by international artists and curators on transit in Kuala Lumpur.

This affable artist took a group of 15 hungry Malaysian culture vultures on a visual and oral tour of Kampung Baru.

Anthony Bourdain, eat your heart out.

And I wonder why I have such headaches…

The art of resisting food

Buka Mulut / Open Your Mouth Performance Art Event

Another month, another art space opens. Another night, another art opening. But how open and accessible is Malaysian art? Can it be as appreciated as Nasi Lemak or Char Kuey Teow?

Buka Mulut moved art out of the gallery and into the public realm of the Malaysian stomach. Two nights of daring performance art in a shopping mall restaurant – was the public going to eat what artists have to offer? How digestible were their ideas? What’s the fiber content? Vitamins and minerals in a candy coated shell? Artificial seasoning or the hard-boiled truth?

It was a time to open your mouth. But did the audience open theirs?

Food for thought.

Ray Langenbach speaks...

Buka Baju / Take IT Off: Discussions on performance art in Malaysia and elsewhere

‘Buka Baju’ was an entree to the main meal, ‘Buka Mulut’ – a performance art event which was held at a restaurant the following week. What is performance art? Is it a dance to music you can’t hear? Is it when artists take their clothes off and make love to chairs? Is it using fake or real blood and shocking an audience that is half-afraid and half-fascinated? Is it an art movement that began in the west a few decades ago and then spread across to Asia and the rest of the world? Is it stuff you see at current performance art festivals? Is it confusing your audience to the maximum level? KO! Powerup! Is it politics? Is it protest? Is it freedom? Is it giving out flowers to the public on the street or is it giving a pillow to the Prime Minister? Why is the art scene so boring right now? Can you get arrested doing performance art? Naked! Naked! Naked!

Buka Baju whet our appetites by uncovering all this and more. There were presentations, talks and open forums on performance art – what it is,what it isn’t, what people have done, what people would like to do,what is possible and what is just… like dat.

People kept their clothes ON.

Closer and Closer

Below the Lines

Mirror Mirror on the wall...

GPS Global Playwrights Series – Germany: The Ugly One by Marius von Mayenburg

Jo Kukathas, Zalfian Fuzi, Naa Murad, and Zahim Albakri got together to explore Beauty, Identity, and how to get ahead in Life.

I look like dog food. – Lette

The Ugly One is a scalpel sharp comedy on beauty, identity and getting ahead in life by German playwright Marius von Mayenburg.

This sharply funny play deals with appearance and identity which so obsesses those living in the 21st century. The inventor Lette is thought to be too unattractive to sell his own invention at a convention in Switzerland that is until he undergoes cosmetic surgery.

However, who is it who owns Lette’s new face? Is it Lette or Scheffler the surgeon? When clones of Lette’s new face start appearing in town, it gets complicated.

Meet the Author – David T.K. Wong: CHINESE STORIES in TIMES OF CHANGE

Author David T. K. Wong addressed the question ‘Why bother to write fiction?’ Is it for money? Unlikely. For fame? It’s fleeting or posthumous. Or is needing to write like being in love? Is it a kind of madness? People who came were writers, would-be writers, readers and book lovers. David answered questions about his work and about writers and writing.

David is the founder of the annual David T. K. Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, UK for a work of fiction set in the Far East in the English language. When quizzed why he set up such a Fellowship he explained: “ You can’t take it with you.”

David Wong’s latest collection of short stories, entitled ‘Chinese Stories in Times of Change’, has just been simultaneously published in England and Singapore.

In collaboration with READINGS.

FIRSTWoRKS EXCHANGE 2010 VOL 2 PLAYWRIGHTS WORKSHOP WITH BEN PAYNE – UK

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. It looked at how to structure stories dramatically, how to create individual scenes through some playful collaborative writing exercises as well as some individual ones and how the playwriting “mind” works. The workshop explored the idea that performance is a form of writing and writing a form of performance.

By the end of the workshop, participants ranging from filmakers, actors, producers, teachers, directors, and students had some useful tools about how to approach and sustain the process of writing a play and had lots of fun through readings, acting demonstrations, and dialogue exercises.

Ben Payne is a writer, director, dramaturge and programmer with broad experience of theatre and writing for, with, and by young people and interdisciplinary practice. Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow 2006-2008. He is a workshop leader and a qualified action learning facilitator and professional coach.

In association with The British Council.

Cheese!

Mr. Puah Chin Kok

Do Photographs Lie? Looking at Puah Chin Kok’s Title of the Piece

Puah Chin Kok’s site-specific installation work “Title of the Piece” consisted of 10,000 random photographs collected from various photography studios in the Klang Valley & 9 of the now infamous photographs of lawyer VK Lingam on holiday with the former Chief Justice of Malaysia.

A Panel Discussion with Sharaad Kuttan, Liew Kung Yu, Shooshie Sulaiman, Puah Chin Kok, and video link-up with Malaysian curator Roopesh Sitharan in London on public and private lives.

With a Special Appearance by Judge Mental Singh
Who put the Artist on Trial with his Judgments on Art, Theft and The Morality of Appropriating Other People’s Private Memories for Public Art?

Is the NATION a FICTION or a REALITY? And who creates the NATION? Who creates the fiction of a nation? Who dreams these things up?

Theatre is one place where alternative realities of a country are imagined and therefore created. It is a country of Gold Rain and Hailstones. A Country which dreams of Atomic Jaya. A Country where the Death of a Patriot is not the death of a Patriot and where you cannot **** Mr Birch. It is Brickfields, The Sandpit and Bolehwood, a place where Pak Dogol, Tok Perak, Athan and Ang Tau Mui live out their lives in the margins of the main narrative.

In this Exchange between Malaysian and Japanese theatre makers and researchers we ask how theatre can and should create strong alternative fictions.

His work Pudu Jail’s Graffiti: Aesthetics Beyond the Walls of the Prison Cells pays respect to history, philosophy and photography. Being a photographer is perhaps a convergence of all his other roles as archaeologist, technologist, academic and artist.

As he spoke that afternoon, Pudu Jail, a dominant feature of KL for 113 years was being demolished to make way for a mall.

His images capture expressions of frustration, longing, religious piety, humour and anger and are both moving and powerful.

Semangat Menggosok!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Air Con by Shannon Shah

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Directors: Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi

With Amerul Affendi, Dara Othman, Firdaus Che Yahaya, Hazarul Hasnain, Nick Davis, Ryan Lee Bhaskaran, Zahiril Adzim, Nam Ron, Chew Kinwah and Na’a Murad.

Breathtaking and Provocative

Family. Death. Politics.

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Hero by Arun Subramaniam

Directors: Jo Kukathas & Zalfian Fuzi

With Indi Nadarajah, Anne James and introducing Ley Shahrwind.

Amir Muhammad took us on a tour of early Malay movies showing us how the world depicted in them might be different from our own. Amir’s humourous and pandai tour led to a discussion about film, history and how the Malaysia portrayed in many mainstream films today may not be a Malaysia any of us know. Will the real Malaysia please stand up?

Gopal Krishna Rampal has been mapping Hindu Temples in Malaysia from 5th century onwards by commissioning Malaysian artists to paint them. His passion takes him all of the country.

Yap Sau Bin is utilising Google Earth to document the history of Kuala Lumpur art spaces including the latest, CHAI.

The play looks at women issues by bringing together famous real and fictional women in history together for a dinner party. Through the story of Pope Joan, Isabella Bird, Dull Gret, Lady Nijo and Griselda we find out how much or how little history has changed.

FIRSTWoRKS The History Conference Part 2:

An Interactive Play Making Session with Jo Kukathas, Zalfian Fuzi and Shanon Shah in which audience members created their own plots for Malaysian plays they’d like to see. Invited to choose important or seemingly insignificant female characters from Malaysian history and fiction audiences had a lively interactive session with the actors, directors and guest writers.

As a historian he is all too aware of his personal involvement in the many events that shaped contemporary Malaysia. This led to a debate with the audience on the role of the historian and the importance of knowing our histories.

Emeritus Professor Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim is one of the foremost authorities on Malaysian history. Author of numerous books and essays, he is most noted for his seminal work The Western Malay States.

Eddin Khoo is Founder-Executive Director of the cultural organisation Pusaka. The son of Professor Khoo Kay Kim, he is presently collaborating to complete Khoo Kay Kim: An Autobiography in Conversation and is principal editor of the publishing project Khoo Kay Kim and the Writing of Malaysian History.

Historical walking tour of Kuala Lumpur with Kam Raslan

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?

Kam Raslan took 30 participants on a walking tour around the streets of old KL to rediscover and re-imagine these buildings and our past. No Knights Templar, no albino monks and no air-conditioning but there were stories of power, intrigue, architecture and Empire.

Kam Raslan a writer, film director, author of the best-selling novel “Confessions of an Old Boy” and has a column in The Edge weekly. He is presently writing a sequel to Confessions and a non-fiction book on Malaysian histories.

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. Grappling with matters as particular as aspects of narrative in Wayang Kulit to issues as expansive as the influence of politics and religion on performance, and the travels of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in the Southeast Asian region, this conversation offered insight into the many vast and curious facets that shape the contemporary culture of Southeast Asia.bjb

Matthew Isaac Cohen is senior lecturer at the Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of the acclaimed study of popular theatre Indonesia Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theatre in Colonial Indonesia 1891- 1903 (Winner of the Harry Benda Prize).

Eddin Khoo is Founder-Executive Director of the cultural organisation Pusaka.

How to Make Art in the 21st Century

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

David Pledger: My Writing/Kinds of Writing

A dissection of the writing of NYID and the creative process.

The Meaning of Malaysia Workshop

In conjunction with CHAI’s inaugural theme of HOME David and Peter spent a week with Instant Cafe meeting writers, directors and theatre makers as part of the research phase of a 2-year international collaboration: The Meaning for Malaysia is Open for Inspection. This site-specific work will be presented in 2011.

Supported by the Australian High Comission & the Australia Malaysia Institute

I’m not saying that my decision to become a transvestite was inspired BY that Badul film. I can’t even remember the film’s title, so it can’t have been THAT memorable — but the scene in question certainly was.

This is all it was: Juwie coming out of her house and tempting the hero with the words “Nak epal?” while showing the fruit she was eating. (Was this a biblical reference? It wasn’t set in a garden but a housing estate, which might, come to think of it, have been a Taman something.)

The scene worked because we recognised Juwie. Not just some anonymous cross-dresser, but a celeb! When I saw it at the Coliseum, people laughed at that moment; so did I. Sure, most people laughed with a kind of disgust: ‘eee!’ As in: as if anyone would want to bite into that!

But my laughter was mixed with a kind of relief. Because there was someone who represented me or, at the very least, someone I wanted to become. So what if it was a slapstick temptress who was visibly nervous (I don’t think Juwie ever acted again after that cameo), she was OUR visibly nervous slapstick temptress, if you catch my drift.

The image of the apple stayed with me, and along with it the ideas of temptation, of male and female, even of performance.  I didn’t pursue the same path as Juwie. But this morning, when I addressed a board meeting while feeling the whispery cling of silk against my gebu thighs, I caught sight of the fruits that were in the bowl on the oak table. My boring colleagues would never know that it wasn’t just the fourth-quarter profits that made me then smile — and I wasn’t nervous at all.

***

Featuring Ahmad Fuad Osman, Hayati Mokhtar, Ivan Lam, Justin Lim, Liew Kung Yu, Paiman, Roslisham Ismail (ISE), Shooshie Sulaiman Sidney Tan, Vincent Leong, Wong Hoy Cheong, Yee I-Lann.

In conjunction with the opening of CHAI, an exhibition entitled HOME brought together 12 leading Malaysian contemporary artist- all of whose works hinge on the narrative as a story telling device or means of expression.

The exhibition was an exploration into the meaning of HOME through the use of media as various as painting, drawing, video, digital images, installation and objects creaing work that is in turn subtle, clever, subversive, emotive and humorous.

Tarik!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Instant Cafe Kurang Manis

Director: Jo Kukathas

With Alex Subryn Luis, Amerul Affendi, Ayam, Azrul Zaidi, Chew Kin Wah, Edwin Sumun, Gan Hui Yee, Jo Kukathas, Kam Raslan, Maya Tan Abdullah, Na’a Murad, Reza Rosli, Shanthini Venugopal, Tria Aziz, Willie Rebano, Zahiril Adzim and Zalfian Fuzi.

Stuck in 'Happiness'?

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Happy Days by Samuel Beckett

Producers: Sabera Shaik & Susie Kukathas

Director: Chris Jacob

With Jo Kukathas and Terence Swamipillai

CHAI’s official opening was celebrated by visual artists, directors, playwrights, academics, writers, bloggers, media, curators, cultural organizations, diplomatic corps, lawyers, NGO activists, public intellectuals, designers, architects, actors, comedians, dancers, poets, musicians and long term corporate partners.

VIP guest, YB Deputy Minister presided over the tree planting ceremony.

CHAI was hailed as a welcome and necessary addition to KL’s arts and culture landscape.

Road Trip at Park Royal

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Road Trip

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

With Jo Kukathas, Sean Ghazi, Patrick Teoh, Shanthini Venugopal, Edwin Sumun, Nell Ng, Ghafir Akbar, David Gomes, Junji Delfino, Soefira Jaafar, Sandra Sodhy, Allan Perera, Indi Nadarajah, Harith Iskandar, Andrew Leci, Afdlin Shauki, Jit Murad, Zahim Albakri, Paula Malai Ali, Ida Nerina, Ari Ratos, Chae Lian, Reshmonu.

Buzz Buzz Who's Boss Now?

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Flies and Foreigners by Ridzwan Othman

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

With Ghafir Akbar, Soefira Jaafar, Farah Ashikin, Margaret Gan, Stuart Payne, R. Thiagu.

Raise the Roof!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Raise the Roof! Festival!

Producers: Adeline Tan & Susie Kukathas

Artistic Director: Jo Kukathas

Flies and Foreigners by Ridzwan Othman workshop and preview

Musical Chairs showcasing songs from a new musical by Shanon Shah, songs from a musical by Adam Farouk and musical direction and choreography by Sean Ghazi.

Film Screenings of The Big Durian by Amir Myhammad as well as forums, discussions, spotlights, workshops, lectures.

Boleh!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

The 2nd First Annual Bolehwood Awards 2002

Producer: Adeline Tan

Director: Jo Kukathas

Assistant Director: Sean Ghazi

Writers/Performers: Jo Kukathas, Sean Ghazi, Patrick Teoh, Shanthini Venugopal, Edwin Sumun, Nell Ng, Ghafir Akbar, Soefira Jaafar, Maya Abdullah, Manesh Nesratnam.

Survival!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Survival!

Producer: Adeline Tan

Director: Jo Kukathas

Assistant Director: Sean Ghazi

With Sean Ghazi, Nell Ng, Patrick Teoh, Harith Iskandar, Michael Voon, Elaine Pedley, Jo Kukathas, Rashid Salleh, Ghafir Akbar, Edwin Sumun.

Waltz with three

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel

Producers: Adeline Tan & Jo Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

Hysterics!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Mass Hysteria

Producer: Adeline Tan

Director: Jo Kukathas

Writers/ Performers: Jo Kukathas, Patrick Teoh, Shanthini Venugopal, Junji Gomes, David Gomes, Nell Ng, Maya Abdullah, Reshmonu, Manesh Nesratnam.

Gross Indecency

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moises Kaufman

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Rey Buono

With Jit Murad, Chowee Leow, Patrick Teoh, Chacko Vadaketh, Rashid Salleh, Edwin Sumun, Shamser and more.

Hajimemashite!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Pulau Antara: The Island in Between by Jo Kukathas and Kam Raslan

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

Composer: Saidah Rastam

With Chowee Leow, Zahim Albakri, Mano Maniam, Arifwaran Shaharudin, Foo May Lyn, Gene Shahruddin, Hosachi Mori, Chikara Watanabe, Katsumi Muramatsu, Fumiko Shirao, Daiko Ishimaru, Miyako Kurotani.

"Would you like a cuppa tea?"

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Tea by Velina Hasu Houston

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Edwin R. Sumun

With Elaine Daly, Christina Orow, Jerrica Lai.

Purchases

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Directors: Jo Kukathas & Rey Buono

Musical Director: Saidah Rastam

With Patrick teoh, Ramli Hassan, Paula Malai Ali, Iskandar Najmuddin, Jit Murad, Jerrica Lai, Kama Kadir, Mano Maniam, Edwin Sumun, Shamser, Rashid Salleh, Nell Ng… among others.

2000

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Millenium Jump & Millenium Jump: Yet Another Millenium Approaches (2000)

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas & Rey Buono

Musical Director: Saidah Rastam

With Patrick Teoh, Ramli Hassan, Paula Malai Ali, Iskandar Najmuddin, Jit Murad, Jerrica lai, Kamal Kadir, Mano Maniam, Edwin Sumun, Shamser, Rashid Salleh, Nell Ng… among others.

Happy 10th birthday ICT!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

I Have No Gun But I Can Spit
A series of the best of the last 10 years

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

"Objection! Says I, Judge Mental Singh."

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Double Vision: The Instant Cafe’s View from an Orange Box

Producer: Susie Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

Writers/ Performers: Jo Kukathas, Jit Murad, Paula Malai Ali, Patrick Teoh, Shanthini Venugopal, Sandra Sodhy, Sukania Venugopal, Jumawan Lipraxedes.

Death+ Anarchist= Accidental

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo

Producer: Indra Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

With Huzir Sulaiman, Zahim Albakri, Patrick Teoh, Zaibo, Ida Nerina, Abang Joe, Lee Swee Keong.

Love Child

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Love Child by Joanna Murray Smith

Producer: Indra Kukathas

Director: Jo Kukathas

With Sukania Venugopal and Paula Malai Ali

Pop goes the Buto!

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Cafe Teh or Buto?

Producers: Indra Kukathas & Susie Kukathas

Collaborators: Palani Narayanan, Ana Barbour, Janette Hoe, Sam Chan, Michael Xavier Voon, Marisa Ng, Chitra Nadarajah, Andrew leci, Jo Kukathas, Patrick Teoh.

Don't tell me if I'm Wrong, teacher.

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Oleanna by David Mamet

Producer: Indra Kukathas

Directors: Jo Kukathas & Wilson Wong

With Paula Malai Ali and Roger Hulme

Men

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Quid Pro Quo by Indi Nadarajah and Allan Perera

Producer: Indra Kukathas

Directors: Indi Nadarajah & Allan Perera

With Indi Nadarajah and Allan Perera

Had a Nightmare?

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

An Actor’s Nightmare by Christopher Durang

Producer: Indra Kukathas

Director: Andrew Leci

With Jit Murad, Sukania Venugopal, Jo Kukathas, Paula Malai Ali.

Tis' the Festive season

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Out in the Open

Producers: Indra Kukathas & Norina Yahya

Artistic Directors: Jo Kukathas & Andrew Leci

including
An open air production of

Musical Director: Saidah Rastam

With Paula Malai Ali, Huzir Sulaiman, Charon Mokhzani, Sukania Venugopal, Andrew Leci, Kurt Crocker, Diong Chae Lian, Eric Roslee, Ari Ratos, James Schubert… among others.

Caught in a Laughter

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang

Producer: Norina Yahya

Director: Andrew Leci

With Jo Kukathas and Huzir Sulaiman

Such Happy Family Members

*Click on the photo to see more pictures on ICT’s Flickr*

Happy Families by Ann Lee

Producer: Norina Yahya

Director: Ann Lee

Choreographer: Lena Ang

With Foo May Lyn, Pia Zain, Lena Shaza, Kudzia Kahar, Celine Almeida, Firuz Zamri, Lane Crockett, Sebastian Ho

]]> http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/03/happy-families-1994/feed/ 1 http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/03/eurasians-make-the-best-tarts-2/ http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/2010/03/eurasians-make-the-best-tarts-2/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:24:18 +0000 admin http://blog.instantcafetheatre.com/?p=169 Eurasians Make The Best Tarts
by Kathy Rowland

“…and there’s Maxwell, spends his time running after Eurasian tarts.” George Orwell, Burmese Days

Someone once said that the very rich care about how food looks, the middle-class cares about how it taste and the working class cares about how much of it there is.  To that I would add, the chattering class seems to care most what it means.

It’s become de rigueur to structure books on food as archeological digs, each ingredient or recipe unpacked to reveal a tale of dislocation and relocation, improvisation and innovation. Indeed, a cookbook can reveal grand narratives of trade routes, imperialism, migration, war and occupation embedded within the measures of fresh chilies, pepper, tapioca and Coleman’s Mustard Powder it calls for.

Food is political, when we consider the extremes of excess and starvation in different parts of the world. Offered up to the gods, it becomes an act of appeasement or worship. A simple carrot, when organic, becomes a signifier of one’s social conscience, or equally, of privilege.

As one of several minority groups in Malaysia, Eurasians are mostly an invisible part of Malaysian society, occasionally breaking through the Melayu-China-India hegemony during a Miss Malaysia beauty pageant.

After generations of inter marriage, being Eurasian in Malaysia is arguably, little more than a European family name, a version of English as our mother tongue, and Catholicism.

It is in our food perhaps that being Eurasian finds a specific cultural coherence.  Eurasian cuisine, a mix of Portuguese, English, Dutch, Malay, Chinese, Indian and Siamese ingredients and techniques combined, is a fitting metaphor for the Golden Chersonese. And it’s bloody tasty. The cuisine predates the tired trumpeting of fusion food the world over, and has retained a hearty, home-cooked personality. From the humble cincalok to the elevated fruitcake doused in brandy, the cuisine traverses not only the cultural roads that mark our land, but also its economic fissures.

Not surprisingly, in Malaysian cookbooks, Eurasians seem to grow in stature, enjoying a prominence, and print space disproportionate to their numbers in the real Malaysia. Most feature the mainstays of Eurasian food, the devil curry, the ox tail stew, the shepherd’s pie and, the pot roast, ox tongue, semur, salted fish pickle, feng and spicy lamb stews in their repertoire of recipes.

While a given cuisine allows us to extrapolate arcs of conquest and influence, agriculture and economics, recepies, handed down from parent to child, tell more intimate stories.

Whenever I make my grandmother’s fried chicken, (chicken marinated in Ideal Milk, chili powder, thick soya sauce and vinegar) I recall the “chicken story”. My grandfather was a harsh father, as was common in those days. While he was comfortably well off, he kept his family on a meager diet. Occasionally, my grandmother, in a fit of rebellion, pique and perhaps desperation, would get one of her sons to bludgeon one of the family chickens. When my grandfather returned from work, they would present this victim of “road kill” and my grandfather would have little choice but to sanction an evening meal of fried chicken.

Eurasian women (and some men, as the indefatigable Nigel Skelchy of Just Heavenly proves) have also traditionally prided themselves on their baking skills. It is this fluency with an identifiably Western technique that differentiates traditional Eurasian cuisine from its nearest relative in hybridity, Nyonya food. Amongst cakes and cookies associated with Eurasians, the pineapple jam tart holds a special place.

Christmas for me really begins the morning my brother-in-law makes a trip to the PJ Old Town market, returning with a load of prickly sweet pineapples. It marks the beginning of the tart making processes: the hours spent cooking the fruit into jam, the pastry making according to a closely guarded family-recipe. Unlike say, baking bread, which is a solitary act, the crafting of each little tartlet into a mouthful – no more, no less – is very much a communal affair. Every family member is required, every pair of hands put to task rolling, cutting, filling, pinching, baking and cooling.

The food as metaphor trend has of course been guilty of more than a few lackluster books and some unsavory clichés. Wise is the writer who resists the temptation to force meaning upon cupcakes or chicken noodle soup. Sometimes a heirloom tomato is just a tomato, not an empty signifier. I am a glutton for punishment however, and, as the evidence stands, given to cheesy puns. In my defense, the pineapple tart is rife with symbolic meaning too juicy to resist. Really.

There is, firstly, the fact that it is more accurately a tartlet rather than a tart. Once could argue that it’s fitting, given the outsized personality of these little beauties. It’s a misnomer nonetheless, birth from slippages that happen as language is transferred across lines cultural, ethnic, class and locale. This is a perfect example of our persistent use of the language of the colonizer, remade into our own special patios, serving as both a link to, and a break from, our now-distant European heritage.

The tart, like the Eurasian, is a child of two worlds, the perfect marriage of Western and Eastern techniques and ingredients. There is the pastry base – milk, wheat flour, eggs, and butter – which speaks its origins for itself. The pineapple jam in turn, is a sublime combination of the ridiculous and the inevitable. This iconic tropical fruit, abundantly available all year round, is subjected to a cooking technique designed in milder climes to preserve the transience of summer fruit into the barren winter months. And yet, infused with the scent of cloves and cinnamon, and cooked to golden perfection, it’s hard to imagine any fruit more suited to jamming.

Then there is the thing itself, which always reminds me of an old Serani aunty, circa 1953, dressed up in Sunday best with gloves, jaunty hat and veil, attending mass at St John’s Cathedral, in the sweltering heat. It is fussy, and delicate and faintly ridiculous, with its fluted shape and tiny flowerette in the centre. Yet endearing and very, very good.

The pineapple jams tart, now mass-produced and marketed as the Nyonya or Malacca pineapple tart, is an abomination. Its many sins include a pastry that is dense and tasteless where it should be moist and buttery, a spot of pineapple flavored goo in place of the full-bodied fruit jam, and an aesthetic sensibility that reflects “cookie cutter” at its most dire. Once only available during the festive seasons, it now stares at you from every supermarket and flea market shelf year round.

We still make the tarts by hand every year, and only at Christmas. In an age where time is a precious commodity, and abundance is no longer reserved for special occasions, the coming together of every family member to make this once-a-year treat, is an act of affirmation, of history, family and food.

Ends.

To be honest the last thing I want to do is write an essay about food. All you need to know about food you can learn from cookbooks, your father, your grandmother, Asian Food Channel, or just… eating it. Anyone who wants to deconstruct a char keuy teow instead of savoring those slippery folds, moist with grease, between their lips, must be bereft of some common virtue.

Furthermore, food is one of those last Malaysian frontiers where we are as confident in our identity and as sexy in that confidence as an Italian in a perfectly cut suit. We may not know what it means to be truly Malaysian, but damn, we know our food is shiok. When it comes to food at least, we’re comfortable with who we are. This lack of self-consciousness is becoming all too rare in our culture, and I don’t want to defile that sacred ground with identity politics and cultural theories. I don’t think my parents sponsored four years of tertiary education abroad so that I could come home and write about nasi lemak in ways they can’t understand.

When I was still in school, my parents took their life savings (including their childrens’ education fund) and started a restaurant business. For a few years my terrace-link home in Taman Tun was a commissary cum warehouse – the rooms were taken over one by one until at one point all five of us (myself, my parents and two other siblings) were sleeping in the master bedroom. Eventually, the ‘Proudly A Malaysian Discovery’ Dave’s Deli business took off, and we moved into a bigger house and a relatively comfortable life. Interesting trivia: many people around my age have told me that they had their first date and similar rites of passage in a Dave’s Deli outlet, usually over the 1/4 Roast Chicken with gravy and mash.

Although they couldn’t be prouder now, in the early days I know that I disappointed my parents by choosing an art career instead of the family business. Putting food on the table literally involved putting food on tables, so walking away from the communal rice bowl affected how I related to food, wealth, and the family unit. It taught me alot about independence – on the one hand, the guilt of abandoning a life-time of values and the terrible shame of asserting individual freedom against collective well-being; on the other, the discovery of the full range of yourself, the useful strengths and humiliating weaknesses, as in a golf swing or a muscle. Malaysians have been taught that merdeka is a joyful business, all parade and celebration, because we (?) well someone, anyway, achieved it. Oh yes, but independence applied at the personal level is also a painful business, and that pain makes it undeniably ours – because we practice it.

Back to food. Five years into this profession, I wish that art was more like food. I wish that ideas in this country were more palatable, more sedap in the making. I wish I could slurp art down in 5 minutes at a kopitiam during lunch, that we could gather together around it, arguing about where to find the best this or that, and make plans for outstation trips just to try some far-out speciality. My brain hurts over how we can extend culture as a form of open, universal hospitality, instead of the invite-only feasts offered in galleries or art spaces. For years, my family has been coming to my exhibitions. Once or twice they even did the catering! I think it’s time to change things up a bit, hence my plan to organize a performance art event over two nights at Dave’s Pizza Pasta & Wino, which is a fine dining restaurant in 1Utama shopping centre, where Darren, my older brother, is head chef.

It is an attempt to test out new audiences and new spaces, to see how artists and public interact in an unfamiliar setting. If artists continue to present their ideas to the same limited audience of art enthusiasts, we are doomed to stagnation and self-indulgence – like the cook who makes the same dish over and over because she knows it will go down well.

And also… after some time poking around in the wilderness, perhaps I long to bring back to the family table, and offer in the spirit of humility, my search for independence. I hope it’s good eating.

Until I was the age of sixteen, I ate to live. Food was a mere necessity – I approached mealtimes with the same dispassion I approached brushing my teeth. I had yet to experience the uncomplicated joy of a perfectly cooked steak or the complex powerful mix of emotions – pleasure and guilt in equal measure – that a bowl of curry laksa could inspire. Chocolate cake was just chocolate cake and not a well-aimed salvo from the Devil to tempt me.

All that changed when I was dispatched to a boarding school in England. On my first evening, our dinner consisted of stringy cabbage, a piece of something laughably described as “cold meat” and fluorescent green peas. While the rest of our table – jolly hockey playing English girls who pretended I didn’t exist – tucked into the meal, me and the other two new girls – Ayesha from Lahore and a German girl unfortunately named Ines Koch – stared at each other across our plates in outrage. It was obvious in the next few days, that that first meal was not an aberration but the norm. For the next few weeks, I would call my parents on collect call complaining how I was slowly, systematically being starved to death.

In our family, food was the accepted currency of affection. We did not believe in sentimentality – we expressed love through backhanded compliments, gentle mocking and gigantic servings of chicken biryani and chocolate mousse cake made from scratch. We may not have uttered the words “I love you” (for fear of being laughed out of the room) but it was evident in the feasts that my grandmother used to cook up when a daughter or grandson returned from overseas and in the elaborate birthday cakes my mother used to make for us from her Betty Crocker cookbook, painstakingly iced to resemble a slightly misshapen giant beetle or a Humpty Dumpty perched precariously on a yellow buttercake wall.

Everything cold, alien & unfeeling about my surroundings seemed to be encapsulated in the plates of scrambled eggs unlovingly made from powdered egg or the overcooked cod tasting not of the ocean but of the unwashed hands of the kitchen staff who had battered and fried it to a point that its own mother would not recognize it.

If music – a certain pop song – can take you back to a certain period in your life, then food too can carry its own associations. The smell of cabbage for me, unappetizing at the best of times, carries with it memories of homesickness, loneliness, abject misery.

For the first time in my life, I started to dream of food. Visions of Lake Club popiah – plump and juicy, bursting out of its skin – danced in my head and I would wake up ravenous and depressed that I was exactly where I was seven hours ago – hungry, cold and desperate for a sniff of belachan. Two months before the holidays, I would write long aerograms back home with a list of everything I wanted to eat – my mother’s minced lamb cutlets, tamarind fish curry, curd rice – just as soon as I stepped on Malaysian soil.

Unlike university hall life where you could call out for a pizza or walk to the nearest take away, the strict boarding school rules meant there was no reprieve – you either ate what you were given or you starved. I soon learnt to be creative at our mealtimes – mixing pepper in the tomato sauce for a substitute “chilly sauce” and camouflaging the taste of the very dubious sausages with the ubiquitous baked beans that was served with every meal.

Once I settled into school and began to enjoy life there, I learnt to take the good with the bad – I looked forward to Tuesday evening suppers because they always served fish and chips and soon developed a taste for stodgy English puddings with truckloads of lumpy custard. I would never have believed it on that very first evening I sat in our school dining hall but twenty years on, boarding school food has certain nostalgia for me.
To this day, I have a weakness for baked beans – the tinny, slightly cloying sweetness brings me back to a very particular time in my life. It reminds me of being young, of being carefree and of believing that you will always have everything you want, just by the very act of desiring it.

Location: Meet at Kampung Baru
Type: Party – Dinner Party
Date: Thursday, March 11, 2010
Time: 8:30pm – 10:00pm

Roslisham Ismail aka Ise, conceptual artist, founder of Parking Project, an artist run collective in Kuala Lumpur and self-appointed Prime Minister of the “Republic of Pandah Indah” is one of Malaysia’s most famous “cultural ambassadors” whose hospitality is routinely enjoyed by international artists and curators on transit in Kuala Lumpur.

Join this affable artist as he leads a tasting tour through some of the best food places in Kampung Baru. Places are limited to 15 participants, please register by emailing chai@instantcafetheatre.com.

There is a registration fee of RM15. Payments shall be made to Rahel Joseph on the day of the walk. Walkers/strollers – pay as you eat.

Click on the link below to read the article.

Philosopher of taste
By Edward Cody, from the Washington Post Foreign Service