I DIDN’T live through the racial clashes of 13 May 1969. I was born a year after. And yet, throughout my childhood and into my adulthood, just mentioning “13 May” evoked whispered warnings and an unnameable fear. What is it about 13 May that gives rise to fear and suspicion that fellow Malaysians might re-enact [...]

Performing in Bunga Manggar Bunga Raya; Five Arts Centre, 2007 (Pic by Phillip Craig; all pics courtesy of Mark Teh) INTRODUCING Mark Teh with a short sentence is not easy. The director-educator-producer-performer-researcher says he tries not to place his various pursuits in a hierarchy. “I suppose I function more like a historian, more than anything [...]

AS part of the programme to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Five Arts Centre presents Conference of the Birds, a contemporary opera directed by Chee Sek Thim. This workshop production is an interpretation of a poem written in Persian by 12th-century poet Farid ud-Din Attar, describing the journey of a group of birds in search of [...]

PLAYWRIGHT and performer Leow Puay Tin has been involved in the theatre scene for more than 20 years. Working alongside the late, renowned Malaysian director Krishen Jit, she devised Tikam-Tikam: And Her Grandmother Said in 1983, and later wrote acclaimed plays, Three Children (1984), Ang Tau Mui (1993) and Family (1995). A common thread running [...]

CHEE Sek Thim used to be based in Petaling Jaya, shuttling back to Penang on a monthly basis. But over the past one year, the reverse has been happening after he moved back to his family home. Chee, a theatre practitioner and art educator, is rediscovering his home state of Penang. The shift to Penang [...]