Tuesday, August 12, 2008

the re-visit!

It's been quite a long time before I get to open my blogspot again. First I have my laptop 'broke down' due to the mother board problem, second, I've forgot my passsword until I could open it again...

For almost three weeks continously we have been 'drilled' about Topic Sentence by Mr. Omid ( or what is the correct spelling, actually?).. I think most of his tutorials, he did tried his best to 'preach' about the thesis statement, commenting about the sentence structures and asking about what are we going to do about the rest of our selected topic for position paper.

Hopefully next week we'll have something much, much exciting to do...

Saturday, October 20, 2007

PYGMALION

My assignment partner- Wanira, had chosen the play Pygmalion as the subject for our micro teaching assignment. At first I did not really prefer the play, I prefer to do Antigone. My first review about this play, I did not really understand what is the message that the playwright was trying to convey through this story? When Dr. Edwin asked us to watch the Pygmalion movie, I was hoping to gain some interest in understanding this story. But maybe when it comes to be viewed in a very old version, I did look like the movie either.

But while working throughout to do the micro teaching presentation, I have found that this story is not really hard to be understood. Thanks to my partner for helping me to understand this story. But one thing that I still wondered about Pygmalion – is it really a romantic play, or rather a linguistic obsession play?

4.48 PSYCHOCIST – ARGH, WHAT KIND OF PSYCHO….

The last time I have watched a theatre ( not an actual theatre, actually) was when I was in my kindergarten, when our pre school teacher brought us to watch the children theatre entitled ‘ Selamatkan Rama-Rama’ during the Floral Festival at my place. I missed the moment very much. So, when my friends had informed about the Black Box Festival in KL PAC, it was like an irresistible invitation. Since our lecturer had suggested to watch an actual play for our better understanding of EDU 3217, so I think that it was a very good chance for us.

What came to my mind when I saw the title of the play that we were going to watch? 4.48 Psychosis? What does it signifies to? Never mind. I was imagined a play like the kindergarten time ( in matured vision, of course ) a play must full with the actors, colourful settings and backgrounds and also the loud and clear music. And definitely it was different with 4.48 Psychosis!

It was a very mind-blogging play, with a very simple characters of three-charismatic-psychotic-figures, played by the energetic Samantha Schubert ( don’t you think you have heard this name before??). Malik Taufiq and the famous actress Susan Lancaster. The stage was dark and simple, to portray the conflicts faced by the psychiatrist and the patient.

Was the play enjoyable? Erm, different people might have different views. I did not really enjoy this play very much. From the purposes of enjoying ( like kindergarten time…) and gaining knowledge, I have fulfilled the latter purpose much more. In my opinion this play gave us, the literature students to understand how to go deeply into a literary masterpiece, to see the actual setting of a play and also to take part with the people in the world of down-to-earth arts!

ANIKE..ANTIGONE....

When I was introduced to the text of Anike, I was very overwhelmed to be informed that it was the first of its kind to be published. Still it is the original text, with little things had been changed by the author from the actual written ones. I was informed that Wong Phui Nam is still waiting fro any responses in order to upgrade his story.
But when it comes to discern deeply into the contents, it was not much different with Antigone! Even the name of the characters - Ismene became Yasmine, Creon is called Maniaka and of course, Antigone is Anike.., only the syllables and alphabets are changed but not the whole characteristics, concepts and themes of the story. So my overwhelming of having an originality became doubt – is it an original copy or a clon from the Antogone play by Sophocoles?
Nevertheless my doubts is cleared by the explanation of Dr. Edwin, for actually Anike is the local version of Antigone. Yes, the main ideas of the story are same but not the setting and also concept of the story background. One special part of Anike is the cause of the crisis was taken from the history of Malacca’s warriors, namely Tuah and Jebat. In Anike’s version, their names were are changed into Sirat and Wira. The other differences in which Wong Phui Nam had decided to implement is the used of many local jargons and words, such as belukar, tosai, nenek moyang so that the Antigone readers would trace the differences or local literature lovers who just crushed into this masterpiece did not feel alienated from the local setting.
But, honestly, when I compared between Anike and Antigone, I would prefer the latter much, much more! Maybe because of the length, it is must shorter than Anike. ( I was told that our version of Antigone was the simplified one!).

Monday, July 30, 2007

mak yong and jazz dance

Since I come from Kelantan, Mak Yong supposedly Mak Yong would not be a strange tradition for me. But it happened differently, for not only myself but my parents will also felt alienated from any knowledge about Mak Yong. As long as I knew, it is a traditional drama dance which is originated from Kelantan. The combination of drama dance, comedy and opera made it became very unique and one of its kind, compared with the other traditional dance drama like Ulik Mayang, soap opera and so forth. Usually there would be many characters to be perfromed by Mak Yong's 16 traditional dancers. The person who played the 'Mak Yong' character definiitely will be the focus of attraction. Mak Yong performance is all about the story of a royal family, focusing on the price and princess. It involves battle, love story or sometimes it tells the conflicts happened regarding the royal family members.
Years ago when people talk about Mak Yong, ot sounds familiar and everybody willl surely know about it. Currently, since mak Yong is banned from being performed inside Kelantan, talking about Mak Yong is very strange became 'taboo' in certain situation. As far as I have beeen informed, Mak Yong is banned due to the order of the Islamic Law. In Islam, women are forbidden to show certain parts of their body as to keeop the dignity, and they are also forbidden from singing into the crowd. Since Mak Yong got two elements, so it is banned, including several other traditonal performance like Main Puteri because the latter also involved women, more over it's purpose is to cure the sick patients spiritually and using the power of demons. But some of the other traditional performance like Dikir Barat is not banned as long as it does not included any element which are forbidden in Islamic Law.
The other dance art form is the ballet dance. Ballet came from the western country but nowadays it had been taught and performed into many countries. Moreover it had been put into many international competitions. Some of us regarded ballet as an exersice, since the grafeful dance and flexiblilty of the movements involve parts of the body. In my opinion, the attraction of the ballet dance is the graceful dance, especially for girls and young ladies. As soon as you see the turned out feet, hair in a bun, and fancy arms, you know that you are watching ballet. Although it looks very simple but the training and practising is wuite painful, especially for the beginners. To be a ballet dancer, one should has the body weight which could match the need of the performance and also has to practice in 'softening' the movements of the body.
In my opinion, either Mak Yong or ballet dance, both have their unique and differences. Dances are art and not everybody has the similar ability to empower all types of arts. Soem are still preserved and glorified, and some had became very native and unknown to the current generation.