By TOKL

How do you see the future of performing arts in Malaysia?
Kok Man: I think the young are very important to developing the art scene in the future. The problem is how we develop. How can we develop the audience and develop a quality audience to be involved with the arts? I think the government and the foundation is very important nowadays, because everything is about money. And sometimes the performances make you wonder if you are watching them just for entertainment. If so, then I'll just watch a movie – it's cheaper. So I think the government needs a system where they develop the arts scene together with the artists.

Marion D’Cruz: I think the other big, big, big gap in the country – and it affects everything – is the system of education. I think the system of education in the country is the crappiest it has ever been. Right from pre-school to university. Crappiest in the world. I really think so.

Ramli Ibrahim: I think that India is so progressive in the way it is taking education.

MD’C: Absolutely, even Indonesia now... they have all kinds of educational reform which is just amazing.

RI: But ours is focused on producing. And this is the effect.

MD’C: [Nods] And then suddenly at 25 they are doing dance or they are doing theatre and then you say “You have no intellectual rigour!” But it hasn't been developed from day one.

Jo Kukathas: So what creates a person like Mark Teh or Fahmi Redza? Because I think, to defend the youth for a minute, it's not that we are saying that there is nobody out there, but there isn't the volume that we noticed before. There are very few people taking on the larger role which is sort of a catalyst for other people. I think you [gestures to Mark] are one of the few people trying to be that. I think Kok Man is also trying to be that, and people like Nam Rom. But if you compare that to the volume of theatre that is being made now, and compare that to what was being made in the '80s, it is very few. So the question I ask is: what produces those people?

Mark Teh: I don't know. I guess I can only think laterally. We are losing people to film and video, because that's really exciting. So, even in terms of so called commercial theatre, even people who may be involved in ‘P. Ramlee’ and ‘Puteri’ Gunung Ledang’, I think they will end up in TV anyway. And I think the people who may be asking interesting questions or doing interesting work, I know a lot of them are trying to ask those questions in video these days. The indie scene, you know? But look at peers’ my age – just across the board – people who I think are doing really interesting work, are doing it in video.

Stephen Rahman-Hughes: But what about theatre and education in this country? We were discussing the sort of initiatives that are happening here. And which groups are doing that sort of work and where is it coming from?

MD’C: The most interesting theatre in education is being done by Janet Pillai in Penang. It is huge. Thousands and thousands of children every year [are] going through various kinds of programs, very good programs. Then, here in KL, there are a few groups who are doing various kinds of models.

MT: I think up in Penang they have PECC, the Penang Education Consultative Council, which was actually set up by the previous state government. And that is a really progressive kind of council that actually looks at introducing all these arts initiatives and not just theatre but across the board; visual arts, photography, dance and video into schools. I think if we wanted to look at a model for how to do theatre and education, I think Penang is a really good model. Because they started out approaching people like Janet, that kind of expert in children's theatre and they wanted to do it in the schools, so they brought the artists to the schools or they had artists in residencies in the schools. Then they realised that didn't work, because of this pervasive culture of the students, where they don't feel that it is a safe space where they can let go and explore issues that are relevant to them and not to the larger school curriculum. So I think that these education/arts activists then move out into heritage. So I guess Janet's work; she would call it arts work, but a lot of people identify it now as heritage work.

MD’C: Especially with Penang's new status (as a Unesco World Heritage Site).

Pang Khee Teik: I just want to say that, from running the Annexe, I sense there is a hunger among the young people for this kind of material. They come to the Annexe Gallery. Most of them are young, very young people. A lot of them are still in high school or college, and most of them are also Malay. And I think partly it is the frustration from the lack of material to challenge them to think or at least material to give a voice to their situation in their times. Which is one of the functions of the arts, but in Malaysia it is very much reduced because of a paranoia that puts out to the public that such voices must be tempered. So naturally, the education system is out to do that.

MD’C: To lobotomise everybody.

PKT: Yeah, to make people afraid of being too relevant. And one of the ways they do it is to overspecialise you. From very early they teach you that if you are dumb you go to the arts stream and if you are smart you go to science. And so we get dumb artists and soulless scientists.

Should performing arts in Malaysia be responsible to itself or to society?

MT: I think there's space for all that. I don't think it’s a binary. I think maybe the first generation of artists, in a search for this kind of national language, they probably saw it as a binary, art for society or art for art's sake. But all post-colonial societies go through that discussion anyway. But I think there is and there should be spaces for all sorts of different art. Art for art or for stuff that engages with very specific types of community issues, activist art if you will. I think most of the people here straddle these different spaces in their art anyway.

RI: You mean sometimes we have to be prostitutes?

PKT: Even a prostitute has integrity.

MD’C: I think there is no real thing as art for art's sake. Somehow or other, as long as you are living in a particular society and you are making your art, it engages with society at some level. So then it's a matter of the range and the levels.

RI: Whether it is good or bad art.

MD’C: Yes or whether it is something which is so beautiful, or whether it is something that is extremely politically engaging or social activism or commentary, so there is that whole range. But I really don't think art for art's sake exists.

PKT: The kind of artists who still think that art is completely about internalising and searching for your soul, where you close your eyes and paint, and whatever comes out is so pure. Which is a very modernist view.

MD’C: Well that's okay, if as an artist you need to do that it's good.

PKT: But then people assume that there is a dichotomy but actually there really isn't. It is a response to your situation. But then the danger is if everybody only believes in that kind of art.

RI: No, no, no. I don't think there will ever be that danger. Though some of the work is very political which at that moment seems to be so engaging, but ten years later…

MD’C: Absolutely.

PKT: A lot of places try to be activists, but then they only end up having one issue.

SRH: I think it always goes back to the individual and having a deeper connection with yourself, and having a deeper connection to what your voice actually is. I think we can all have political views, but if you are not in touch with what that is, especially in a society like this, you'll see a sort of brainwashing going on, a sort of propaganda that feeds into people. Teaching a boot camp the other day and hearing all the restrictions that people were up against, I thought that we have to go back to the beginnings of giving someone a voice.

MT: It goes back to a particular form. These forms get hijacked by politics anyway. Whether it's a traditional form or even so called modernist forms. We have playwrights like Nordin Hassan, an experimental playwright in the ’70s, and he created these bizarre plays, and people couldn't find the words to describe them. So they called them absurd and surrealist. But when the Islamic resurgence came in the ’80s, it became very easy to lump him into 'teater fitrah' which is a kind of Islamic theatre. So suddenly Nordin Hassan, overnight became an Islamic artist. It gets hijacked actually, so I think politics impacts on your art whether you are doing art for art's sake or art for society's sake anyway.

SRH: Can you create spaces where it's almost like a vacuum and you can avoid all that stuff? I don't know how you do it, but create a safe house where people can just let rip.

JK: The thing is, I saw the stuff. It was very accessible and very cheap. You go because you can afford to. Because performing arts was not considered something that you did to make a living, most people did other things. This was accepted and it was much more supportive of the arts in a way. Venues didn't charge you money, or didn't charge much anyway. I think as soon as art started to burgeon, it was like 'ok, it's a commodity, so it should be treated like any other'. But actually it hadn't arrived. I think the mistake that was made was that everybody started to claim that it was an arts industry. We weren't. We weren't ready to be commodified. The things that made it a commodity actually put it out of the reach of many people. So, how can you get inspired? How can you have people feeling that they can walk in? The other thing that happened was that things were curtailed. If you don't want to support something because it is 'dangerous' such as Indian classical dance or political theatre such as ICT (Instant Café Theatre), then you just don't allow it to be in a space which is accessible.

PKT: A lot of the major performance venues are rather inaccessible anyway. It almost seems deliberate by design that they put Istana Budaya with no LRT station, where it is not easily accessible by people without cars.

MD’C: And KLPac. It is a beautiful space. The gardens are beautiful, the black box is a nice space to perform in. But I feel it is so elitist for a young person who doesn't have their own car or bike.

JK: Or an old person, Marion. [Laughs]

MD’C: [Laughs] Young or old person, then you have to walk in if you take the bus. Then at 11pm at night, you have to walk out 1.6km in the dark in Sentul.

RI: I feel that the government, knowing that theatre performances are central to bringing the community together, subsidise a lot of rock music. I feel that, not to say that they shouldn't be subsidising, but that they should work it out into something more creative. Through the kementerian there is a lot of subsidy on performances of that genre.

PKT: I just wanted to add a note on art as social commentary. I got excited about the arts and decided that this is somewhere which is exciting for me, when I experienced work by 5AC (Five Arts Centre) and ICT (Instant Café Theatre) that really dealt with my life in KL. And then I would go and see some plays that would have nothing to do with that. And sometimes they are fun, they are entertaining as well and we need that. I think all that balance is really important as well. However, as we've been discussing, people are being taught to be afraid of saying things that really matter to them or even daring to dream for a future that is more open. I feel that arts these days do not deal with one element that I feel is the role of the arts to deal with: justice. A lot of them don't dare to.

RI: I don't think it is as much they don't dare to. I think it is also the futility of it because it is so pervasive. And if you look at the newspapers, I'm sure it is affecting people and they don't want to see a world which is so depressing.

MD’C: I think there are many reasons, as Ramli is saying. I don't think it is just that they don't dare to. Some of it is that they cannot change things. It goes back to what Stephen was saying, what is your individual voice? And the ones that are doing it, that is their truth, but you cannot make somebody else do it by saying 'this has to be your truth'. Then we begin to lose ourselves as artists. That's very dangerous. For some of us it is not a question of whether it can change or if it is futile or not, it is like we have to do this, because if we don't do this, I will just die. But for somebody else, the truth is 'Swan Lake' and if that is their truth, then that is their truth.

PKT: I just think that the amount of 'Swan Lakes' out there outbalance the amount of work about the swans being killed. [Laughter]

MD’C: It all goes back to a fear to engage and a fear in school, no safe space to think about these things and no space to think!

JK: I don't think it's fear though Marion. I think it's just that it is not in people's consciousness to do it. That to me is a greater problem; if people are merely fearful, then they are aware that they are not doing something.

MD’C: But you would be surprised though. You talk to 19-year-olds which I do in classes, and you say simple things, like 'you are artists, you have a gallery downstairs, so why don't you do this'. Some of them say ‘we never thought about that', that would be maybe two out of 20, and the other 18 would be like 'ISA and we'll be arrested.' There is a blanket, meaningless fear.

If there was more funding and sponsorship, would the performing arts scene in KL be better?

RI: Not necessarily, but it would help. Because I think intelligent giving away of funding is important. Looking at what areas need to be funded, whether it is infrastructure, promoting existing venues and maintaining as a sense of priority. These things are important. Money can be worked out.

MD’C: And it's not just funding, but intelligent, well-thought-out schemes. Arts housing, not just 'here's RM50,000 for you to do whatever you want to do.'

RI: Both in traditional and contemporary work.

MD’C: Yes, and accountability, transparency. You know, you give out RM50,000, you should know what happens to it. Where is the accountability?

RI: Traditional forms now have been hijacked, as Mark said, for some other issues. Real kinds of substantial, traditional forms are dead or on the brink.

SRH: My question is on the administration of arts in this country. I know Istana Budaya is an isolated thing but going there and talking to the people, it's like they don't seem to have any awareness of what to do with that space. There is no education, they are just there getting their money off the government. It doesn't seem to be thought out.

RI: There are a lot of people who have come out of arts management.

MD’C: There are? Where are they?

RI: Yes, there are. But there is no consciousness about the jobs, so I think they feel very defeated. One thing about the arts is that our morale is very high.

MD’C: We're not in there. No, it's true there are very clear examples of people who are very intelligent and motivated and then they get into the Ministry of Culture or Istana Budaya and within six months they are dead. And you look at the person and you go 'my God, are you the same person? What happened to you?' It's just pushing papers, you know.

JK: I think it's because it feels so futile. I think whenever we have meetings it's the same issue of government and transparency. I remember we had a meeting with the Ministry a few days after March 8. And they were stunned, because they didn't know what to do. They were bureaucrats but they had seen themselves as government people and government to them is UMNO. They could not see how to move forward and they said 'well, of course, there will be no art in Perak, and Selangor.' And one artist from Perak got very angry, he said 'I'm from Perak and I'm an artist, why would there be no art in Perak?' And they said 'Oh you know what happened in Terengganu last time, after they voted that way, we couldn't give them because they cannot have art.' And it is that mentality that we are dealing with. For some reason there is the will to bus in people to see a rock concert. I don't think that there is any real will from the government to support the arts. Not in any real way.

RI: Isn't that because of the karmic product of the education system, they do not see theatre, arts, visual arts and all that as part of nation building?

JK: I think it is part of a larger issue of identity and culture. Culture is the most contested area here, the most terrifying area here, because it is all about 'what is the culture of Malaysia?' And the National Cultural Policy is something that really people don't want to pay much attention to.

RI: But Jo, if it was just Malay culture, then you would see other culture come out.

JK: The problem is because it cannot be decided what is Malaysian culture; they cannot have an equal playing field.

RI: I think there is. Even last week, there were a whole row of Mak Yung performances. But they were all quite bad.

JK: No, you're not getting my point. My point is that in other countries, there are a lot of different kinds of culture and they all exist side by side. Some of them are counter to others, in terms of form and content, and some of them are hybrids, but they flourish. Here, there is such a fear about whose culture means what. Your culture actually has Islamic roots so cannot; your culture will make us feel this way, cannot. Lion dance was banned in the ’70s.

RI: But now it's ok.

JK: But it still has the same attitude that culture is a very dangerous thing. It is too dangerous for them to actually get their heads around it.

RI: But the lion dance has been hijacked also, so it is no longer viewed as dangerous.

JK: But it is Chinese culture and it should be seen as that. The same as yoga, people were really annoyed with this whole yoga thing and they were saying 'it's not Hindu'. It is Hindu, get over it. Malaysia has Hindu roots. A lot of our dances have Hindu origins. There's nothing wrong with it but we deny the origins of the country on many levels; Buddhist, Hindu whatever. Then what do you have left at the end of it?

Moderated by Rosheen Fatima and Sam Coleman

Transcribed by Rosheen Fatima