Search for lost childhood
Sunday Star - 2 May 1999
By Eddin Khoo
IF there is a single, consistent trait in the work of Marion D'Cruz, it must be the sense of community that she seeks to explore.
This is apparent in much of her solo work, where themes of identity and a stark social consciousness are dominant.
This aspect has become increasingly pronounced in recent times as D'Cruz has ventured beyond the realms of the solo setting to devote herself to collaborative work.
Much of this is not only inspired by a keen empathy, but also by the need to establish a tradition of Malaysian contemporary dance that traverses generations.
DANCE ENSEMBLE...D'Cruz with the dancers who will perform `Playground', which she created with Aida Reza (below right) |
This, in many ways, makes D'Cruz one of the principal protagonists of this form, an advocate of work that dares to venture beyond established boundaries while creating a mosaic that can accommodate a variety of styles and traditions.
At the centre of this diversity, though, rests a clear perception of the Malaysian sensibility in all its forms.
"Over the years, I have found it incredibly difficult to perform and choreograph at the same time," D'Cruz explains.
"Unless I am performing solo dances, I prefer, these days, to stay away from the actual performance and pay closer attention to the overall aesthetics of a piece of choreography.
"It is also because I have become increasingly interested in the process of creating a dance. I find that, in many ways, more challenging that the actual performance of piece.
"So these days I perceive myself as more a choreographer than a performer."
D'Cruz' concerns will be thrust upon the stage in the Five Arts Centre-Shakti Dances collaboration entitled Playground, which will boast an ensemble of 11 dancers.
As with much of her work, Playground will rest largely on improvisation and elements of devise.
The performance boasts a clear narrative quality with the dancers contributing personal stories to the creation of a comprehensive story-line.
As the title suggests, the performance will centre on childhood experiences, memories which promise to evoke sights, sounds and smells.
"Many of the dances for this performance will be choreographed for an ensemble. But within the overall ensemble, structure will be of several duets and triplets," D'Cruz offers.
"The first half of the show will be like looking through a kaleidoscope. The patterns will keep changing and the structure more complex.
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"The second half will deal with aspects of ritual and a return to a more holistic approach to life.
"Here, the dancers use elements of ritual that bring people together. The movements to this will be based on improvisations of the very personal rituals that each individual dancer brings.
"The performance is structured so that the second half becomes more harmonious, with a climax at the end that is almost cathartic and the dancers feel a sense of being purified.
"So, there is a rather clear logic to the performance. There is that element of looking for the lost of innocence and a yearning for a return through rituals. There is that progression from light, then dark to the final release," D'Cruz says.
Through the narrative strain and the process of improvisation, the element of "community" comes again to the fore.
It has served as an enduring concern and a challenge given the difficulties of collaborative work.
"The sense of community has run through my work from the beginning," D'Cruz confesses.
"Ever since my solo work in the 1980s and more so now, the whole choreographic process has always been collaborative for me. And I find the experience quite amazing.
"Collaboration is a constant process of negotiation ... a battle. But it is a formidable process if the collaboration is based on a respect and a belief in the work of the collaborator, as it is with Playground.
"I find collaboration a very healthy experience since it allows for an opening up of the self and a giving of the self too. It is this, I believe, which makes contemporary dancing so exciting," she concludes.
The Five Arts Centre's production of Playground, a dance performance by Marion D'Cruz and Dancers and Shakti Dances will be staged at the Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara, from May 6 to 9.
The performance, created by Marion D'Cruz and Aida Redza, will feature dancers Aida Redza, Anne James, Guna, Judimar Monfils, Michael Xavier Voon, Vernon Adrian Emuang, Petra Elaine Pedley, Azura Abas, Mohd Arifwaran, Gan Chih Pei and Briana Shey.
Tickets are priced at RM20. Showtime for performances from
May 6 to 8 is 8.30pm and the performance on May 9 is set at 3pm.
Tickets are available from: The Actors Studio Theatre (03-294
5400); Art Salon, Bangsar (03-282 2601). Details: Five Arts Centre
at 03-715 4858.
PLAYGROUND OF LIFE
Sunday Mail, 2 May 1998
Marion D'Cruz's latest work Playground, draws on childhood memories - the rituals of play and those of death, writes WILSON HENRY
The imaginative movements of childhood games, or the repetition of rituals can sometimes inspire a choreographer.
'When I saw the prayers and rituals of a Buddhist funeral, I was fascinated to see the repetition of chanted prayers and the rhythmic movement of the prayer beads, which, I felt could be translated Into dance movements," says contemporary dance pioneer Marion D'Cruz.
"Also, the games we played as children have movements, which if interpreted through dance, can be interesting," adds D'Cruz
"Such colourful rituals and games have inspired her latest dance - Playground choreographed in collaboration with Aida Redza and other dancers.
The playground is where some of life's simplest joys are experienced. It Is also where the harshest lessons are learned. Playground explores this idea.
"Themes of childhood, death and ritual are explored because they are closest to our hearts," says D'Cruz. "No emotion is quite as strong as childhood memory - invoking sights, sounds and smells that have an impact on us right until we die."
Which Is why, during the first half of the dance, the dancers share childhood tales. As the dance progresses the audience only hear's snatches of monologue, which blend with and complement the progress of dance.
Playground draws on dancers with varyIng dance styles and backgrounds. Some are trained in the Indian classical tradition, some in classical ballet and others in contemporary dance. The richness of dance backgrounds Is what makes the performance, and directing it, a challenge, says D'Cruz since all the styles have to be melded into a cohesive whole.
D'Cruz won't be dancing this time, she is directing the dancers who include Aida Redza, Anne James, Guna, Judimar Monfils, Michael Voon, Vernon Adrian Emuang, Petra Elaine Pedley, Azura Abas, Mohd Arifwaran, Gan Chih Pel, and Briana Shay. The dancers are mainly from Five Arts Centre and Shakti Dances with some freelancers.
Playground is on from Thursday till May 9 at the Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara, Jln Tun Ismail, Kuala Lumpur.
Tickets priced at RM20 are available from The Actors Studio.
For more Information call (03) 294-5400 or (03) 292-5927.
Playground of the mind
THe rhythm of daily life with its stories and rituals is performed by an exciting cast of Malaysian dancers. SHARIFAH HAMZAH reports.
The Sun on Sunday May 2, 1999
The past never really leaves you. You remember it, through memories. Sometimes, little things will jolt your memory and you recall things you thought you have forgotten.
This is what Playground is all about. Memories of the past, stories of the ritualsiIn life, and the thread of continuity that binds them to the present and the future are the focus of the Five Arts Centre's new dance theatre showcase.
Playground, co-choreographed by Marion D'Cruz and Aida Redza features some of the most prominent contemporary dancers of today such as Anne James, Guna, Judimar Monfils, Michael Voon, Vernon Adrian Emuang, Petra Elaine Pedley, Azura Abas, Mohammed Arifwaran, Gan Chih Pei and Briana Shay.
The challenge for Marion and Aida was to put together a harmonised ensemble of the best local talent, each with his or her own style, ego and philosophy.
For Instance, Guna is known for his Indian classical as well as contemporary dance forms, Judimar Monfils is a Venezuelan dancer, choreographer and teacher of modern dance, and Mohamad Arifwaran is a dancer and theatre student at Akademi Seni Kebangsaan.
Similarly, Marion and Aida had to work with and meld their own different styles and concepts. Marion, a pioneer of modern dance in the country is passionate about creating a contemporary Malaysian identity in dance and works that speak of issues, while Aida's forte is in bridging traditional disciplines and contemporary training in dance, and in drawing inspiration from direct contact with the natural. environment.
Together, they conceptualised an interesting structure the performance. On one level, as the dancers bring their own stories and memories, the context is very personal: and on another level, Marion and Aida use improvisation to make the stories more accessible and fluid. Sometimes, two stories are linked, or movements develop to further "dance" out the stories. Aida also weaves in and out of the performance as a dancer, whereas Marion does not have a dancing role, preferring to be the "outside eye
Aida who is seven-month pregnant adds that her presence is like a kind of symbol: "It is like a link through the past, present and future; also of hope, celebration, fear of the unknown -- all the emotions that we associate with new life or new beginnings.
"All of us participating in the performance bring our input -- our stories and our mind's eye into the performance; Aida and I are just giving it sense and pacing.
"Thus the two of us and the dancers are collaborators in Playground," says Marlon.
As the curtain rises, the dance theatre begins with a dance based on games including ones that many in the audience will recognise as familiar relics from childhood days. The movements then build around stories to be told. Some of the stories are the kind which are so simple, yet so potently emotional that their imprint is permanent such as Anne James' rendering of falling backwards into a drain in Alor Star, or Gan Chih Pei's excitement the first time the family moved to a double-storey house with its wondrous staircase.
The focus moves from stories to rituals in the next part of the performance. Marion and Aida feel that rituals, whether it be a domestic one like a family dinner, or community rituals such as wedding or feast are important to our sense of well-being because it brings people together, and forges an identity or closeness in shared beliefs.
The final part of Playground attempts to create a sense that, ultimately it is not all that difficult to return to the traits of life that really matter.
"As we enter adulthood, our lives become so complex that we have lost that unvarnished honesty and truth that we knew as children," says Marion.
"We also tend to forget to smell the roses, and enjoy life the way it is!"
Playground features these little things we hardly ever think about. It puts them all together in a series of movements to refocus attention on them. In doing so, it reveals another level of understanding - that the rhythm of life flows along with it.
Playground will be staged at Kuala Lumpur's Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara, Jalan Tun Ismail on May 6 to 8, and for a matinee show on May 9.
D'Cruz's stunning dance
The STAR
MONDAY May 3 1999
Compiled by JASON CHEAH
MARION D'CRUZ and Dancers makes a welcome return since its critically acclaimed Dance Tonpu 2 in 1996.
D'Cruz, Malaysia's contemporary dance pioneer has assembled the finest ensemble of dancers in the nation to present Playground, which runs from Thursday to Sunday at the Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara, Jalan Tun Ismail, Kuala Lumpur.
Together with Aida Redza, an exciting young dance artiste in the Malaysian theatre scene and artistic director of Shakti Dances, Playground presents a series of stunning dances based on the themes of the magic of childhood and the mysteries of death.
The stellar ensemble also includes Anne James, Guna, Judimar Monfils, Michael Voon, Vernon Adrian Emuang, Petra Elaine Pedley, Azura Abas, Mohd ArifWaran, Gan Chih Pei and Briana Shay.
Playground presents dance theatre focusing on childhood and other stories of the dancers with each dancer bringing his or her own tales into the rehearsal process.
D'Cruz and Redza play the important roles of co-choreographers in putting together the final product drawn from elements provided by the dancers.
Stories are woven in during improvisation to add different emotional layers to the dances.
Playground is organised by Five Arts Centre with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism.
Tickets are available from The Actors Studio Theatre - 03-294 5400/292 5927 and Art Salon, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, - 03-282 2601.
Showtime is at 8.30pm except for Sunday (3pm).
Matter of Life and Death
The Malay Mail
Wednesday, May 5, 1999
Gerald Martinez
It's an interesting collaboration that promises much.
Marion D'Cruz tends look east in her attitude to choreography, with elements often drawn from a folk base.
Aida Redza's work often has a sharp, urgent, and highly physical quality, reflecting her stint in American contemporary dance theatre.
The two are collaborating choreographers for Playground, a Five Arts Centre presentation from tomorrow to Sunday at Experimental Theatre, Komplex Budaya Negara.
However, both share a common ground in their extensive study of contemporary and Eastern dance and an open-mindedness and willingness to experiment.
Such is their stature in the local dance scene that they have managed to attract some of the best dancers.
Guna, Judimar Monfils, Mohamed Arifwaran, Michael Voon, Petra Pedley, Azura Abas, Anne James, Gan Chih Peh, Vernon Adrian Emuang and Briana Shay, are all well-known names with some heading their own dance groups.
D'Cruz and Aida had been talking for some time about working together with rituals of life and death as a possible starting point for collaboration.
Their discussions then progressed into childhood and the power of stories, memories and dreams - the child being the father of the man, so to speak.
The second half of Playground probes into the mysteries of death.
Since time immemorial, rituals and rites have always been a spectacle and often theatrical performance.
Aida and D'Cruz have been inspired by the colourful and sometimes morbid rituals to devise exciting dance theatre.
"The themes of childhood, death and ritual are explored because they are closest to our hearts," said D'Cruz.
"No emotion is quite as strong as childhood memories invoking sights, sounds and smells that have a significant impact on us right until we die.
"It is a common thread in all our hearts regardless of race, colour and creed."
The way D'Cruz and Aida work, the dancers are heavily involved in the creation of the choreography.
"The dancers are more true and convincing when they have input, when their movements come from feelings and emotions within themselves," said D'Cruz.
D'Cruz and Aida play the important roles of co-choreographers in putting together the final product drawn from elements provided by the dancers.
Not unlike a devised play in theatre, the dancers are put through a series of situations and games to tease out thoughts and feelings which are translated into movement and speech.
Indeed, the dancers have speaking roles where they look back and relate key incidents as they grew up.
D'Cruz's focus as a dancer and choreographer is to create a contemporary Malaysian identity in dance and to create works that speak of issues which she is passionate about.
She does this by constantly redefining dance, so much so that it has strong theatrical elements.
Her approach to dance is more of a celebration of the human spirit and continuation of the folklore tradition.
D'Cruz's style of dance and choreography has always gone beyond coordinated movements, well-timed steps and beautiful formations.
For her, dancers can be of any age, shape or size. Thus, movements don't have to be identical and each individual can bring his own styles to a certain move.
As with contemporary dance, she allows spontaneous physical expression in terms of gestures and movements which are inspired by the emotions of the dancers.
"I appreciate that people see a certain aesthetic beauty in the precise uniformity of movement and shape as in ballet, but it just warms my heart to see a diversity of people expressing themselves through the sheer pleasure of movement, in their own individual way."
Indeed, Playground has place for the very pregnant Aida in it!
PLAYGROUND, a Five Arts Centre production, is a joint production between Marion D'Cruz Dancers and Shakti Dances. It will be staged from Thursday May 6 to May 9. Tickets are priced at RM 20. Showtime from May 6 to 8 Is at 8.30pm and 3pm on May 9.
Tickets are available from The Actors Studio Theatre (03-2945400)
Art Salon Bangsar (032822601). Call Five Arts Centre at W03-7154858
for more information.
A 'Playground' in your mind
New Straits Times
Thursday, May 6, 1999
By Francis Dass
ALL the signs point towards one thing: an evening of fun and fond recollections for the audience.
Anne James, Michael Voon and Judimar Monfils were all in good spirits when they met up with Life & Times to talk about Playground, a new dance performance.
The trio, part of the group of 11 dancers who will perform it, were in turn revelatory and secretive about the upcoming show.
Looking tired but feeling relaxed and upbeat after a late night of rehearsals, Anne kicks things off by saying that, just because the performance is called Playground, "the audience should not go in and expect to see a playground.
"They (the audience) should go with the flow," not unlike how children are constantly caught up with the distraction of the moment.
Her two companions concur, adding that the audience will have to let go of preconceptions.
"What the audience puts in is what they take out," says Voon, elaborating on Monfils' comment that in contemporary dance, the audience takes out of the dance what they want.
"The whole performance is about identity, freedom, restrictions. All these are part of the performance which will take the audience to the second part of the show which deals with rituals," adds Monfils.
What identity? What freedom? What rituals?
Monfils, a Venezuelan dancer who now calls Malaysia her base, declines to elaborate, lending credence to the fact that Playground will be about discoveries of the self. A different discovery for each member of the audience, if you must.
The dancers promise that the audience is in for an evocative evening of childhood memories.
"The childhood memories are linked to the present which in turn is linked to the future," says James.
Monfils says that since rehearsals started at the end of February, each dancer has managed to find an image, or a motif, if you will, that helps him/her go through the journey of the performance.
Those interested in rekindling those carefree salad days had better make a date with the troupe.
Playground is a contemporary dance performance choreographed by Marion D'Cruz and Aida Redza, two familiar figures in the contemporary dance scene here.
The 75-minute performance (without intermission) will feature costumes by Guna and a collage of music that is both familiar and strange.
The dancers featured are Aida, Anne, Guna, Monfils, Voon, Vernon Adrian Emuang, Petra Elaine Pedley, Azura Abas, Mohd Arifwaran, Gan Chih Pei and Briana Shay.
The show is produced by Five Arts Centre and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism.
Playground will be staged at the Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara in Kuala Lumpur from May 6-9. Showtime is 8.30pm (May 6-8) and 3pm on May 9. Tickets are priced at RM20. Please call the Actors Studio (03-2945400) or Art Salon (03-2822601) for details and bookings.
Sand in the
hair, water in the air
artseefartsee review
by General (Rtd.) Houdini Farquhar
Playground is a dance performance whose ensemble is composed of movement, music, sounds, languages, speech, colours, lights, water and sand, and lest we forget, people. So embracing are the big living pictures created and unmade on the set that it is difficult to separate all the elements that come together. The ensemble emerges in each tableau vivant to give a strikingly beautiful, sad, frightful, or playful image. Just before the seduction of the senses is complete, it comes apart into at times wild and at others contemplative fragments. A mess of people, objects and tones fold and unfold with much energy throughout the performance.
Entering the world of dance, of movement, words take a back seat. No longer does speech form pictures in the mind and touch roughly, tickle, confuse or entrance the heart. So obvious it is to say that dance is free from talk. Yet it is always striking to the word-bound just how much dance is free from talk, and just how much it can say in ways that are not immediately intelligible.
Dance like poetry is a medium that most are not ready for simply because the breadth of the language of movement is still unfamiliar in daily life. The slightest hint of flirtation, anger, approval and so on are easily recognisable movements but not much more. Public behaviour is so tightly bound that gesticulations and movement beyond a limited space around the person arouse curiousity. The dance floor of a club is among the few liberated zones, but move here only to synchronised and graceful lines or be utterly embarassed!
Playground is a striking challenge to the word-bound world which so restricts the breadth and language of movement. Its dancers dance peculiar rythms that make human gracelessness into an art. When doing the tango, for instance, the familiar image of the tall (hopefully Latino lookalike) man leading a lithe woman disappears into obscurity. In place, wanton pairings of same sex, mixed sex, and incongruent shapes move to jagged steps with a grace of their own. The partner faces away and is nearly carried in the arms of the lead. And witness a woman seven months in the family way swiftly bare the shell of the life she carries. She dances with her baby to short steps and with caresses of her smooth and round belly.
In Playground, adults do not act out children in a nostalgic reliving of childhood play. The dancers in Playground are full grown adults who do not hide their form and being. But in the mess of people, things, tones and movements that confound and entrance, are the rhythms and explorations of childhood. Snatches of stories rendered in adult voices in Mandarin, Malay, English, and Spanish are children's stories -- about funfairs, ghost stories, and so on --- that bring to life the playground long left behind. They remind the adult of how much was heard, said and done in games and in haphazard ways that have been formative but displaced into another time zone.
All in all, the ensemble's efforts break the word-bound world of adulthood by the sheer movements in themselves. The whole sensation of the performance is the memory of playground, the reminder of the possibilities of play and solitude in the child's universe. It suggests that there is a playground yet for the word-bound adult. By the end of the evening, like good children, the beautiful set is a mess. The once perfectly shaped ring of sand in the middle has been untidied, and water from the long shallow pools that reflect light so beautifully has been dunked in and splashed about all over the place.
This Playground's no child play
The New Straits Times
Wednesday, May 12, 1999
By Francis Dass
The
idea of the abstract which underlied Five Arts Centre's Playground,
a dance performance, stared at the audience from the beginning
itself. Playing upon the idea of a circle in the sand - something
kids here are wont to do whenever they play - there was, instead,
a circle of sand on the dance floor.
Another favourite feature of childhood: water, was also played upon with two "puddles" (or rivers, if you like), done in the most simplest and most effective of ways in the performance area.
And completing this set up were 11 dancers who displayed, by turns, the vibrant play of children and the mysterious comprehension (and appreciation) of children of the world around them.
The highlight of the performance was surely the energy and enthusiasm displayed by the dancers as they frolicked with and amused each other in simple ways that children always do.
Childhood itself being a time of heightened senses, here it was that of sound and touch (taste and smell were somewhat overlooked), there was music aplenty and also playthings, like a tyre and a small wooden beam strung up as swings. Even shoes and slippers were transformed into playthings.
The dancers' sounds of excited screams as children was infectious, as testified by the chuckles and titters from the audience members.
And there were all kinds of kids, and their representation was interesting to note.
There was one who tried extremely hard to do things better than the rest, where falling meant falling harder than the others or climbing meant going higher than the rest.
There was the mysterious one, who at times led and, at others, existed merely at the periphery of the circle of neighbourhood kids.
Aida Redza, very pregnant but just as vibrant as the rest, was this lone soul. Would she grow up to be a demented serial killer? Or the highly disturbed poetess? No one would know. But jokes aside, Aida was quite riveting in the innocence she projected. Almost ethereal, if you ask us.
How fitting then that her unborn child would also be joining other children at the playground when the time comes.
But it was not all sweet candyfloss for the "kids" on stage though. Some of their memories are marred by violence creeping into their innocence.
Despite the moments of reckless running and child's play, make no mistake of it though: Playground's choreography was all grown up in nature.
This does not mean that the performance was not without its flaw. The adult narratives, somehow, served only to mar the show somewhat. The sequences during the second half of the non- stop one hour fifteen-minute performance was stretched a tad too long and fell just beyond the field of the audience's comprehension, and some were overheard saying, patience.
But these are minor points of contentions as the transportation of players and viewers to a bygone time was effective for the most time.
Playground was recently staged at the Experimental Theatre, Kompleks Budaya Negara, Kuala Lumpur from May 6-9.