Post Modern Wayang Ramayana: November 2005

1920's Jazz Musical Animated Ramayana?!?!

It's true

hey all

as the weather turns cooler, and the skies gloomier, i can't help but think how fortunate we were to have met with perfedct skies on our performance day. Especially since there was this huge downpour before starry night one week after our show. Then I remembered reading a line from somewhere while getting ideas for the script, which says "it never rains on the Ramayana".

but that was just something trivial. The real purpose of this blog is to publicize
FOOD TRAIL 101: the non ang moh guide to the best eating / drinking/ chilling and whatever else places in singapore.

All the lonely planet, footprint etc guides for singapore are not tt great really. I mean for one they dont list ambrosia at arab street so they have to be lousy. So i have decided to come up with an original food trail. Guests of honour are Brian and Emilio of course, and the date is Dec 4 after exams, evening time cos that's when all the good stuff opens right?

Send me suggestions through email as to the places to go yeah? Fifi, tell me where to eat tulang. it sounds dodgy but worth a try. Easties, tell me more about your side of the island cos i never go there. northies and southies and westies also. then i will plan the route and we will stuff ourselves silly yeah? ill also tell u all the estimated budget once i get the places.

woohoo! k see you guys soon. good luck for your portfolios and other papers.

Sue Jan

If I can take something from this production:

The new friendships I fostered.

Daniel

This is a shoutout to all who made Wayang Ramayana a success. What can i say, you guys are just unbelievable. The Puppeteer musketeers were just awesome, sound crew and lighting, magical, props, costumes and make up, you make ugly people like me even uglier. lol. Thanks! actors and backstage, they play came to life with your presence. FOH, omg, love the settings. dont you guys think so? it was amazing and even the judges were impressed with the atmosphere even before we started the show. love you guys to pieces and hope to get something sleep after this. We deserved this. RAMA!!!

ja
blessed

Mission Accomplished

I can't believe that it was only 3 days ago Tracy, Jac and I were freaking out over the costumes and makeup of the cast while now as I am typing away, 20 hours had past since our show last night.

And what a show it was! Sitting amongst the audience (I know I know, I'm fortunate so don't hate me!) watching each and everyone doing their part from ushering to acting, lighting to coordinating, I've never felt so proud of a class I'm in before. 20 hours later, I'm still receiving congrats and high praises from friends and family who were there last night and even those who missed the show have heard how successful it was and congratulated me

Mita gave me goosebumps last night when she did her dance, Jason's solos were 'shiok level 10' and the puppeteers, I love love love the movements of the eagle and the deer! I think I am very blessed to be in a class with such a huge pool of talents. Now, I can't imagine what things would be like if I had bided for theatre next semester instead of this.

We took Ramayana, added our flavor (Fifi and Guofeng, I saw you two's battle of scissors-paper-stone), gave it our best and in the end we have a production which we can proudly call our own.

The production is over but the ties we've built shall remain. This is only the beginning. Love you guys, THAROO3 ROCKS!

Are we transgressing on sacred ground? Wayang Kulit is an ancient, revered tradition.. are our attempts at it a mockery of the whole thing? We're not even using the proper puppets and a PhD on Wayang Kulit from Havard is going to be watching the show.

Are we out of our minds? Are we committing sacrilege? Or are we right to perform it as we see fit? Maybe we're doing the tradition a favour?

When we were talking about putting the jeans on the actors, some of us raised that it might be disrespectful to the whole epic and the rest of us agreed with it. Why? We've seen Ravana in sport shoes and we're going along with other modern touches. Why are some things okay and others not? As we put in our own cultures and feels to something so ancient and epic (religious even), we might feel that we're tainting something pure. Is this feeling of tainting justified, wrong, okay, confused? Other countries and ages have successfully adpated and assimilated the story of the Ramayana into their cultures and traditions. Can we do the same and justifiably add in our modern cultures (which we all know is western influenced)?

questions questions questions.

Notes from the Course Instructor

Theatre for a business university? But of course, for what is a theatrical production but a business project: Students have to come up with a creative vision which they must realise in a marketable product. They have to win over an audience (customers). They must raise funds and work within budgets. Theatre is about team effort and leadership. And theatre is about total communication – using the body, the voice, words, and images.

But our Post-Modern Theatre Studies is not just about putting up a show. The course concerns itself mainly with an interrogation of social and cultural behaviour based on the premise that all in life is theatre. For example we have investigated gender roles, and the shaping of public taste. In the making of theatre, we are not concerned with dramatic craft. Instead our theatre explores strategies such as alienation, subversion, transgression and ritual to communicate ideas and meanings. A well-made play is not the objective of this project. The emphasis is on process rather than end-product so that work-in-progress as much as the final show is scrutinised.

In Wayang Ramayana the students have chosen to use the idioms of traditional Javanese wayang kulit (shadow puppetry) and wayang wong (human theatre), but to distort the performance perspectives through the prism of their youthful (and largely Anglo-American informed) imagination. I hope the students will interrogate this clash of cultures and the tensions between traditional and modern theatre in post-production reflections.

Interculturalism is a “hot” topic. Do we celebrate a people’s culture when we “borrow”, or do we appropriate and so reduce authentic identities? But is there ever a “pure” cultural product? And what of the political subtext. Is hybridity a colonial discourse on the exotic Other? In the first place, is the notion of “the traditional theatre of wayang kulit” just a figment of the imagination of Dutch colonialists? The Europeans discovered an intriguing village theatre and exalted the tradition into “high art” by sponsoring schools of puppetry. But the very essence of wayang kulit is personal interpretation by individual dalangs (puppeteers) who were ritualists as much as entertainers; storytellers as much as political commentators.

For the majority of the 38-member cast and crew of Wayang Ramayana, this will be the first time they are taking part in a theatre production. Not a single person has seen, let alone performed wayang kulit or wayang wong. Does this fact dilute the authenticity or authority of their production?

Thank you for coming to our show.

Dr Margaret Chan

Dear THAR003 peepz!

Hey I just wanna thank everybody for coming down today, even was a friggin public holiday. A quick shout out to a few people:

BEE LIAN - For sewing the wonderful screen and side curtains: YOU ROX GIRL!

GUOFENG - For being interim HOT today (stands for Head of Transport) and for the wonderful boxes!

MICHELLE - For coming down so friggin early today to try out the Puppets

KELI, JAC and CARRIE - For staying all the way to the end even though you knew you could go home if you wanted.

YUWEI - For fearlessly leading the sets peepz, and now the puppeteers ;)

FIRDAUS, LIU YUE, SIN GEK, BEE LIAN, KELI, EMILIO, DARNIE, GUOFENG - For putting up those screens and curtains at the rehearsal space: BLARDY HARD WORK WOR!

JINFU AND GERARD - For running all the way to Sim friggin Lim to get plugs and light bulbs.

To EVERYONE! - For coming down and joining us at various times throughout the day. Really glad things are coming together already, and wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of everyone, whether you were doing Marketing or FOH, wrapping/spraying boxes, sewing costumes or playing with puppets. Means so much to me... *Sobz*

Keep your chin ups y'all, 10 more days to go, we can all make it ok! [Insert random THAR003 cheer here]

Blue_Nanchakus aka LN

Event Day Roles

Hi guys, I'm putting this up here for your reference. - fir

SM - LN
ASM - Jinfu
Costume Props 1 - Jaclyn
Costume Props 2 - Tracy
Costume Props 3 - Carrie
Costume Props 4 - Zhen Shen
Light Op - Keli
Sound Op - Gerard
Puppeteers - Michelle
Puppeteers 2 - Yu Wei
Puppeteers 3 - Emilio
Puppeteers 4 - Yong Hsian
Gamelan/ Music - Jamiel, Daniel
Projectionist 1 - Denise

FOH - Derek, Mira, Jillian
FOH Helper 1 - Melanie
FOH Helper 2 - Pamela
FOH Helper 3 - Bai Bing
FOH Helper 4 - Kai Hong
FOH Helper 5 - Tina
Command Centre - Jovina, May
Presenter - Su Jun

Ravana - Jason
Hanuman - Fir
Jatayu - Mita
Chrous (7) - Guo Feng, Brian, Sin Gek, Bee Lian, Liu yue, Sue Jan, Kenny, Varsha

Red sari + attire for soorp (if the peacock feathers look cacat, we will use gold hair accessories from the Indonesian Embassy..with a little vintage feel i reckon..Shimmery factor: 3.5 bling blings)

monkey king --> head gear to change? +vest.

for fifi . to be cut into scallops (think little mermaid scales. fifi to bring own white t-shirt)

ravana (problem: suit--> too "current/now" ! Has a contrasting effect with the other costumes -traditional and post modern

rama--> reunion/hugging scene

rama's collar piece, batik waist sash, head gear (Very chic!)

jatayu's wings (Joanna/nanas from Stage it to help sew) , Batik skirt --> to make allowance so Mita can dance in it. Shimmery factor: 4. 5 bling blings!