The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Yayasan Sime Darby to host its first ever arts festival Posted: 29 May 2014 08:37 PM PDT The Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival, taglined "A Malaysian Community Project" is produced in collaboration with The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (klpac) and will feature Malaysia's varied traditional and contemporary arts. Specially tailored pre-festival activities for all age groups will also be held in the run-up to the two-day finale taking place on the 13th and 14th of September. Yayasan Sime Darby chairman Tun Musa Hitam said the celebrations, featuring the rich and traditional heritage from all over Malaysia will be the first ever arts festival organised by the foundation. Speaking after the launching of the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival at klpac, he said: "The Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival is going to provide the public with the rare opportunity to immerse themselves in the very best of our traditional and contemporary arts, and cultural heritage from around the country." "We want this event to be a catalyst to set the bar high for the arts scene in Malaysia. Though we are rich in our diversity, tradition, arts and heritage, not much attention is paid to promote this segment. We hope that through the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival, we can invoke the interest and support of the masses and give recognition to those who put their hearts and souls into the arts," he added. The launching ceremony was held in klpac, which will also be the venue for most of the events including the two-day finale. The event was also graced by Sime Darby Chairman Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman. From now until September, the public will be encouraged to participate and be players, protagonists and partners instead of being mere passive spectators. "We want this festival to be significant and reflect the undying perseverance and talents of our fellow Malaysians to conserve our rich history and heritage while developing new modes of expressions for the current times and generation," said Tun Musa. A roll out of several community projects drawing on the talents of everyday Malaysians is also on the card. This will include a painting competition for schoolchildren in and around the Sime Darby Plantation estates, a photography competition for university students, and a drum painting and mask making project. The drum painting project will culminate with a drums parade which will be held during the last two days of the festival in September. Other activities include a series of theatre workshops for trainee teachers and a dance project for senior citizens that will revolve around Sime Darby's five pillars of support – Education, Environment, Community & Health, Youth & Sports and Arts & Culture. Meanwhile, the last two days of the festival will feature an exciting array of performances, workshops and activities across all genres featuring hundreds of artistes. One of the key highlights will be a traditional showcase specially curated by Pusaka, the cultural centre for Malaysia. This showcase will bring together the best of what Malaysia has to offer on the traditional front from each state and render a rare opportunity to watch authentic and captivating performances such as the Kuda Kepang from Johor, Boria from Penang, Wayang Kulit from Kelantan and the Sumazau dance from Sabah, to name a few. Datuk Faridah Merican, klpac's Executive Producer, said: "It is an unprecedented move for a corporate foundation like Yayasan Sime Darby to initiate and fully fund an event of this kind and scale. Nowhere else will you be able to experience the breadth and depth of the arts and this is what excites us. The engagements from now until September holds much promise and the best part of it all, it is 100% accessible to everyone, with no admission fee." Callen Tham, the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival Director, added, "Imagine, you can watch a rock band on the main stage, head over to the experimental stage to catch an avant-garde dance piece, then stroll out to catch a 100% authentic traditional performance on the Kampung House not before taking in some other cool installations and acts along the way. And all of this will be totally free of charge, thanks to Yayasan Sime Darby." This festival is an illustration of our commitment towards developing the arts scene in Malaysia. The festival will be in sync with the foundation's objective to invigorate the vibrancy of Malaysia's multi-cultural society that encourages traditional heritage preservation. Yayasan Sime Darby believes that art is all about crossing boundaries and building cultural social connections, and the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival is expected to be a true testament of this belief. Arts and culture, one of the pillars of Yayasan Sime Darby's philanthropy, has seen support for a wide variety of arts organisations and initiatives, including klpac and the National Dance Tour by the Aswara Dance Company. Other sponsorships include productions like the 11th JB Arts Festival, the 8th Kota Kinabalu Jazz Festival, Supermokh The Musical and Tropfest South East Asia 2015. Yayasan Sime Darby encourages the preservation of historical heritage through its support for the revival of The Royal Press, one of the oldest letterpress printing companies in the world which will soon be turned into the nation's first of its kind living museum. – May 30, 2014. |
| John Lennon’s manuscripts, drawings to be sold at auction Posted: 29 May 2014 06:17 PM PDT Eighty nine lots, ranging in price from US$500 (about RM1,600) to US$70,000, produced for the 1964 book "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works", published in 1965, will go under the hammer. The event coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance in America on the Ed Sullivan show. "This is the most substantial collection of original artwork and manuscript and typescript material by John Lennon that has ever come up for auction," said Gabriel Heaton, a specialist in the book and manuscript department of Sotheby's in London. "It is one of the largest bodies of non-musical work he ever produced," Heaton said in a telephone interview. Lennon was 40 when he was shot in 1980 in the courtyard of his New York home. The collection, which is expected to bring a total of US$850,000 to US$1.8 million, is on view to the public at Sotheby's ahead of the June 4 sale. Other works featured in the auction include an introduction Paul McCartney wrote for "In His Own Write" and a sketch of a guitar player in front of a music stand. "These items are produced right at the height of Beatlemania," said Heaton, adding that the text for the first book was submitted before The Beatles trip to America and published on their return to England. Heaton described the manuscripts as short pieces, some in verse and some in prose, that are comic and written in a strange language of puns and word play. "No word is ever quite what it seemed," he explained. "It is heavily influenced by the nonsense tradition of English literature." Texts include Lennon giving his own brief biography and McCartney remembering the first meeting with Lennon. "You've got several pieces that are quite revealing, in an indirect way, of his state of mind at the time, which is not as quite straightforwardly happy as you might expect of a young man who has just conquered the world, pretty much," said Heaton about Lennon. The illustrations are distinctive, amusing and sometimes powerful line drawings by Lennon, who in addition to his musical talents was a trained artist. Some of the sketches accompany the verse and others are stand-alone art works. "It is a sale with a large number of wonderful pieces," said Heaton. "This is an unusual chance to acquire significant and substantial manuscript material by one of the great creative forces of the post-war period." The collection is being sold by Lennon's British publisher Tom Maschler, who persuaded him to write the books. – Reuters, May 30, 2014. |
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