2007 is here. It may be productive, as we float in the euphoric haze of a new year, to sober ourselves with a sieve-through of the successes (and failures) of the last. We proceeded through an overview of Malaysian theatre, film and literature last week; this week I present a select (and subjective) study of 2006, the Year That Was: for music -- both formal and independent -- and dance.

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Malaysian Epics

It was a year of epics: 2006’s largest stage productions came early, with the Tiara Jacquelina confection Puteri Gunung Ledang: the Musical opening in February and Saidah Rastam’s M! The Opera a month and a half on its heels. One was the pop retelling of a beloved myth; the other went through several permutations before settling into fashion-influenced tragedy.

I was part of the cast of M!. That out of the way, I don’t really have much to say. At this point, there isn’t much that has not already been said. Almost every paper, magazine and media portal with coverage of the performing arts has made comparisons between the two. The facts are this:

Unlike its film incarnation, the Zahim Albakri-directed Puteri Gunung Ledang the Musical was unanimously well-received. It featured strong leads (Adlin Aman Ramlie, West End star Stephen Rahman-Hughes, AC Mizal), enough numbers in its supporting cast to populate the stage, and rousing -- though unexceptional -- music by Dick Lee and Roslan Aziz. The musical was restaged in August, due to overwhelming demand. It is now set to tour in Singapore.

M! The Opera also had an extensive cast and great performers in lead roles. It had a dream creative team -- Jo Kukathas as director, with Jit Murad for text, and Singapore’s Goh Boon Teck and Dorothy Png for a minimalist but effective set design -- and Saidah Rastam’s ambitious music: atonality, a mix of different vocal styles and cultural inflections. ‘Ambitious’ was how most critics described the opera. Conclusions were mixed, however; many felt the gluing-together of the performance’s component strengths patchwork and poorly executed. Since its staging in March, there has been talk of touring -- as of today, these have not translated into reality.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of the two blockbusters is their demonstration to audiences -- and would-be sponsors -- that big-budgets can pay off in real ways: both had budgets in the vicinity of six figures (the highest of any of the performing arts, this year), both ran to full houses in the chronically empty Istana Budaya, both became events in the larger social consciousness. Others would later try to emulate the scale and lavishness of these productions, such as Dama Orchestra’s Butterfly Lovers -- the Musical and KLPac’s Broken Bridges.

We saw the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s first full year under the baton of Maestro Matthias Bamert -- the ensemble’s repertoire and continued existence is exemplary. The week-long KL BBC Proms 2, held from October 31st onwards, was a blemish to an otherwise steady record: In stark contrast to the less stuffy festival in 2004, this year’s Proms had no relaxed dress code, and a projection in KLCC Park of the Last Night of the Proms performance -- which drew hundreds of viewers two years ago -- was cancelled on account of the haze.

It was a beautiful Saturday evening. A last-minute broadcast set up inside the Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (so last-minute that journalists weren’t aware of its existence until that very afternoon) demonstrated just how much music lovers, those who could not afford the Proms’ extravagant prices, were an afterthought.

The orchestra has been bourgeois territory since its inception, but our MPO redeems itself through dogged efforts at outreach and education. These intensified this year -- most overtly in the revitalisation of its youth programme in the form of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in Mid-January onwards, designed to accommodate 14- to 26-year-olds and inundate them with masterclasses and workshops. The ensemble, led by MPO associate conductor Kevin Field, has over a hundred members. - ZS

The Malaysian Scene

We have to backtrack to New Year’s morning, 2006: TV3 and Harian Metro tag along for a police raid of hardcore straight-edge punk gig This Year’s Final Threat at Paul’s Place, and subsequently brand the 380 youths at the show devil-worshipping Black Metal fans. It was pure fiction: a media performance via live TV interview, distorting the words of straight edge kids before they were officially questioned by the police who hauled them. First there was a goat, a Holy Quran and a sex party; then there it was illegal alcohol sales and drug abuse -- but finally all the authorities could pin on the event were just matters of license and permit.

What a way to begin the year.

Never mind that the presence of embedded ‘journalists’ in this midnight expedition demonstrates the worst sensationalist excesses of some quarters of the Malaysian press. Despite coverage from more supportive media and an immediate media rebuttal from music collectives, the fear these actions caused took effect. Apart from Street Roar 2006, an annual indie music festival by prominent label Soundscape Records, there were almost no gigs at all for the first four months of last year. Regular venues and organisers were warned and threatened -- both officially and unofficially. Even No Black Tie, the one venue normally deemed ‘safe’, was given a warning by MPKL just days before a gig.

But like any contemporary independent movement, the scene never died. In fact, it came back -- with a vengeance. The later half of the year saw gigs happening as frequently as socio-political flashpoints, with loads of new bands showing up. Veteran ones got better. Older venues left us, but new places to play were discovered: The Curve’s Laundry Bar, the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall’s MCPA Theatre, KLPac.

The year also saw various international and regional acts stopping by to play -- most notable among them the Australian post-rock band Dirty Three, and twee pop ensemble Architecture in Helsinki; New York outfit We Are Scientists; Japanese hardcore group FC Five; Singaporean trio Astreal, and the ‘oriental nu-wave’ Force Vomit; and Jakartans Goodnight Electric (electro-clash) and Peter Pan (alternative pop rock). A small sign, perhaps, of real globalisation for music in Malaysia, apart from the usual pop acts?

Local media (with exceptions, such as the aforementioned Harian Metro) also showed a great deal of support for the scene last year. The launch of regional music magazine Junk was a positive sign for better -- and, perhaps, more comprehensive media coverage for music, beyond mere entertainment and ‘support-local-music’ perspectives. The time for comprehensive, critical media coverage is at hand, if real progress is to happen for both the scene and its audiences.

Relative socio-political instability is a catalyst for the progress of contemporary culture. As the Malaysian climate changes, will the current progress in the indie music scene have an indirect influence to its culture? Or are we really just a bunch of kids making music? Rock The World 7, the largest indie music festival of 2006, on December 16th, was an important milestone in the history of Malaysian indie music -- with 50 bands on a number of stages -- but it wasn’t an all-encompassing Woodstock.

There are still no certainties. Will there ever be a Glastonbury or Live Aid equivalent here, in Malaysia? Only time will tell. What I can do, now, is provide a roll-call of independent bands to look out for as 2007 rolls around: KLPHQ, Bittersweet, Deserters, Lightcraft, Killeur Calculateur, Nao, Oddity, Ferns, Deepset. - PKH

Malaysian Dance

Malaysian dance education has always been intimately intertwined with its practice: take the Akademi Seni Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan Dance Department’s annual Tapestry and JAMU events, for example: the former representing the institution’s dedication to the perpetuation and evolution of traditional Malaysian dance forms, the latter a testament to an effective syllabus -- with a superstar-choreographer line-up (Umesh Shetty, Loke Soh Kim, Aris Kadir) and strong dancers.

The ASWARA school and Sutra Dance Theatre are probably the Klang Valley’s most prolific dance organisations -- Kakiseni listed eight performances in this year’s Ramli Ibrahim-helmed Under The Stars series. Traditional forms, especially Indian classical dance, had a strong showing in 2006.

Nothing out of the normal, actually. Having been present at MyDance Alliance’s Malaysian Dance Festival last year, which featured international forum panels, workshops and a multitude of original performances, this year struck me as being mundane, in comparison. There were few attempts at ground-breaking -- the Marion D’Cruz-directed Choreography for Non-Choreographers at Central Marker, part of the Krishen Jit Experimental Workshop Series, had writers and filmmakers trying to dance -- but, overall, it was a fairly normal year. That it was strong bears witness to our practitioners’ dedication to their work, and to the secure place dance has within the sphere of the Malaysian performing arts.

The biggest issue afflicting Malaysian dance, however, lies not with the dancers and their choreographers, but with the artform’s observers.

Kakiseni has had a long-time shortage of dance criticism -- in the wide range of cultural conundrums we have examined over the years, none are more puzzling than this, the most inscrutable of the performative arts. It’s not just a Kakiseni issue, either. Inscrutability is the problem: how does a writer, having to work in a form intrinsically narrative in nature, translate the visceral experience of a dance performance -- say, Lee Swee Keong’s Green Snake in Butoh (he’s been playing the serpent for a decade, now) or last December’s Lapar Lab collaboration Five Alone -- into words?

Conventional theatre and film trade in stories; even music describes arcs of complication and resolution. But movement is even more primordial a language than language itself -- it speaks to us on an instinctual level. This is true even when we ignore contemporary dance; the traditional forms, tasked with the telling of a particular culture’s most fundamental tales and myths, have come to invest individual gestures with a multitude of meanings -- many of which are dense and convoluted to unravel, if one doesn’t already possess the vocabulary.

The people who would know how to do this best, the dancers themselves, are all busy dancing -- which is a good thing. But not so good for the number among us who, having seen a dance unfold and felt it grip our hearts, now want to know why. - ZS

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Expect In 2006 - Pt. 3 next week.

Zedeck Siew is Associate Editor. Phang plays the synth for post-rock / dream-pop / shoe-gazing Citizens of Ice-Cream.