Best of 2015: Performing Arts (Editor’s Choice)

What a year it’s been, folks.

The Daily Seni in 2015 made an effort to spend more time indulging in local performing arts. We began by telling people to watch the performances we thought deserved your precious, rapidly-devaluing RMs throughout the year.

Along the way, we managed to review theatre, musicals, comedy, and even dance; it’s been a steep learning curve but one we aspire to continue hiking. For the times we’ve got things wrong (sorry Joe Hasham, the follies of Taste of Water was in fact not your doing!) we sincerely apologise and promise to keep on learning.

Due to our efforts, we got to experience the highs and lows of local talent. We’re glad to say however that we were mostly touched (at times even overwhelmed) by the passion and creativity that Malaysians have to offer on the stage,

These are five of our favourite performances from 2015 in no particular order, with excerpts from accompanying reviews from our editor.

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Jalan Primadona

The Actors Studio Seni Teater Rakyat
16 – 20 December | Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre

Still fresh in our minds is one-woman musical monodrama Jalan Primadona, which took to KLPAC recently. With her son, husband, and his accompanying family members supporting her on stage, Zamzuriah Zahari was the only woman under the spotlight in this self-written and self-directed semi-autobiographical depiction of an artist’s life and struggle with spirituality.

Jalan Primadona was meant to be Zamzuriah Zahari’s last performance on the stage, but we surely hope not — who knows what this 33-year old lecturer at the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage (ASWARA) is capable of in the future if she continues at this rate?

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Love & Information

Theatrethreesixty
25 – 29 March | The Jewel, Damansara Performing Arts Centre

This immersive staging of Caryl Churchill‘s bizarre play had a somewhat polarising effect on audiences. Some were lost in the madness — which took place about an incomplete office floor — while others were blown away by its non-linear structure and random nature.

As you can tell, we belong to the latter camp, having developed new beliefs and woken up from strange dreams after watching this particular play. Despite top-notch subsequent productions, Love & Information remains, for us, Theatrethreesixty‘s quintessential 2015 staging thanks to its devotion to new ideas outside the black box theatre.

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Kenduri

Lighters
5 – 6 December | Teh Tarik Place, Shah Alam

Coming out from nowhere was this interactive, site-specific performance which pitted audience members against some difficult people — the sort of guests you’ll meet at your typical kenduri.

Set in a cordoned-off section of Teh Tarik Place in Seksyen 7, Kenduri went as far as to include complimentary (and exceptionally tasty) mihun goreng and sirap for guests.

At the venue, attendees were escorted to one of four tables — each came with a family member of the bride or groom, who rotate between tables. All the while, wedding planner and makcik Mak Cah fuss about making sure things go smoothly.

We started off on particularly harsh terms with Yusof, a young man who obsessed over a woman’s subservience. Half an hour in, we’ve gone through his passive hostage of a wife, Shikin, and the black sheep of the kenduri: modern Malay woman Ireena who harbours some secrets of her own.

Soon enough, Mak Cah — who has been hovering about tables — loses her shit and starts accusing her relatives of zina and mengangkang.

As you can see, we don’t have a review of this one yet, so we’re doing it here.

Kenduri may seem set in a bizarre universe in which its loud, determined characters acknowledge the misery of having to nikah in a venue like Teh Tarik Place, but it doesn’t take long until viewers realise things aren’t that far-fetched after all.

Thanks to the level of sheer commitment displayed by its mostly-unknown batch of actors (praise must go to Tengku Suhaila who gave Mak Cah a frightening ferociousness during our attendance), Kenduri gave audiences an experience of a lifetime as they mingled through a crossfire of messy breakdowns and a whole lot of family fracas.

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Tepak Tari

MyDance Alliance
3 – 5 September | Auditorium DBKL

A star-studded bill of choreographers and performers didn’t clue us into what to expect from Tepak Tari, a smorgasbord of dance styles curated by Bilqis Hijjas. The first dance performance we caught in 2015 (yes, we don’t have a particularly rich history of attending dance events) also happened to be one of our most memorable performing arts moments of the year.

As you can tell based on the review, our editor was slightly overwhelmed by this performance. In splashes of light and colour across various tempos, Tepak Tari made us take serious note of the Malaysian dance scene.

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Malam Terang Bulan

Khazanah Nasional Berhad
20 – 22 November | Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS

Right off the bat, we knew Malam Terang Bulan was going to be a shoo-in for EOY lists. No surprise then that it managed to make Star2‘s top five of the year. This extremely special show brought Malaysians closer to their land in a one-of-a-kind lecture-concert hybrid backed by a full-blown orchestra.

Malam Terang Bulan was one of rare few ventures by Khazanah Nasional Berhad into the performing arts, and we sincerely hope it signified greater things to come from the government investment body.