The Big Picture

I don’t remember how I ended up in ballet class.

I was six at the time, and it was one of the most popular CCA options around.

One moment I was squatting by the drain after school brushing my teeth; next thing I knew I was tugging on pink tights behind a screen in a classroom, feeling faintly ridiculous.

I had to sprawl on my belly and touch my head with my toes.

I flapped my arms and, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, imagined myself a falling autumn leaf.

I put on a yellow frock for our year-end showcase and did a gaily pas de bourrée around other girls dressed as mushrooms.

(Pas de bourrée is a ballet move consisting of three quick steps. It translates into “Steps of the Drunken Lady”, which incidentally, is pretty much how I dance now.)

I must have had some fun in my one year as a ballerina, but mostly I remember the tears before and after every lesson.

So it was with a little trepidation that I went for the Singapore Dance Theatre’s special performance for preschoolers, for what repressed inner demons might it summon?

But I emerged pretty much unscathed, and well impressed by how much the kiddos enjoyed the show.

The trick, of course, is to keep things as interactive as possible.

So everyone was asked to stand up, jump about and twirl around. They’d learnt the steps in classroom workshops beforehand, so they knew what to expect.

(It made my job easier too, when I roped in some kids to help with a bit of filming afterwards.)

The show is a collaboration with speech and drama company ACTs of Life, and it even managed to incorporate the ballet pieces of French painter Edgar Degas.

So you got these preschoolers shouting “Degas! Degas!”, and calling out the name of his works, which is pretty amazing, if you ask me.

ACTs of Life’s Creative Director, John Cunningham, believes such shows will help pave the way for an “open, art-ready future of Singaporeans”.

If so, that’s all well and good. At the very least, it looks like a great way to learn while having fun.

And I certainly had fun, though I’m not ready to put those pink tights back on just yet.

Not so soon lah.

Tags: ballet

Alternative folk or ‘anti-folk’ music is an acquired taste.

And that’s the genre 25-year-old singer/songwriter Emma-Lee Moss a.k.a Emmy The Great excels in.

It’s a genre where the  politically charged notion of folk music from the hippydays is subverted.

Subverted into something that’s…well,….I’m struggling to find the words to describe it.

Let’s just say the lyrics tend to be a bit quirky and the recording leans towards that ‘small-room’ raw sound – like you’re listening to a performance in a dingy punk restroom in a New York  pub while the vocalist makes melodious refrains from the graffiti on the walls.

Ok, I over generalize. But you get the picture.

My first foray into folk music came about when I bought Greg Graffin’s American Lesion LP about a decade ago. That musical recording taught me that underneath every over-produced and auto-tuned monster of a radio-single lies a simple structure, which in a cheesy way, you can say is the core of the composition.

And Emmy says while she was into punkrock and grunge in her early days, she turned naturally to the simple structures of songs.

Well, it’s also because she only had an acoustic guitar in the beginning.

And it’s paying off well for the young woman who’s just begun her Asian home-coming tour.

Born in Hong Kong but pretty much raised in London, she adds there’s a part of her which remains in Asia and she’s pretty darn stoked that her ‘job’ allows her to visit this part of the world.

But I do wonder if she would have found this much success if she had stayed on in Hong Kong.

Sadly, I think the answer is no.

 I’m glad she went to London to live and craft her musicianship and go all the way to Glastonbury.

And to catch more of my interview with Emmy The Great – tune into Channel NewsAsia’s The Big Picture at 10.10pm on Saturday 11^th July.

The impression I have of hip-hop, based on experience, is a bunch of poseurs trying to sing and speak in a language they don’t understand themselves, and then get defensive when people criticise. Of course, I know there are exceptions, especially people who’re native to the hip-hop culture. I know I shouldn’t judge. What do I know, right? It’s not like I’ve made extensive studies on the cultural roots of hip-hop and its influences.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate hip-hop. I just hate poseurs.

In fact, my musical taste revolves around hip-hop, amongst other genres. These days, I tend to lean towards the chillout, laidback, jazzy, bass-y West Coast beats.

But I’ve always wondered about Asians’ fascination with hip-hop culture. I have Taiwanese friends who paid to learn how to ‘break’ aka break-dance. In Singapore, I’ve not seen a single grassroots community concert go without at least one teenage off-key hip-hop rendition. “Yo” “What’s up?” “For real” are just some of the hip-hop terms that are already entrenched in our lingo. And don’t get me started on the Asian music scene.

The irony is hip-hop lyrics, English ones, are typically not very kind to Asians. So how did Asia fall in love with hip-hop?

Masia (say “May” then the latter part of “Asia”) says it stems from the spirit of youth, and the desire to be heard and some found it in hip-hop, be it in the clothes, the music or the dance. She says, if anything, young people’s obsession with hip-hop keeps them off the streets. At least they’re not fighting, she says. It should be an educational tool, she says.

But from what I know, hip-hop is associated with and stems from gangsters, pimps, drugs – or ‘Ra-ra music’ in Masia’s mom’s words.

Then again, the same can be said for rock and roll, trance, techno as well.

My take is its all a matter of personal choice. In the case of Masia for example, she says she’s been asked to don a bikini and rap/sing in sexually explicit lyrics, an image hip-hop misogynists may approve of. She declined. She also chose not to curse in her lyrics. Perhaps that’s why she has been so inspiring to her fans. One of her songs talked about how Asians are portrayed in Western media. While it drew flak, praise came in heaps as well from young Asian women happy that finally someone is speaking up for them.

But while she proudly flies the Singapore flag everywhere she performed (google her name and you won’t find a single report which fails to mention she was born in Singapore, even tho she moved to Canada at a very young age and gained musical success there – 2 albums; 1 record label; multiple performances) the very country she calls home hasn’t exactly caught onto her music. She’s sore. But she tells me she’s a very patient person and Singapore will soon realise what it has been missing.

LA is her next itinerary, for work with Che Vicious. Those familiar with the industry would know the American hip-hop producer has worked with other artistes like 50Cent, The Fugees and Lauryn Hill. And did I mention, he’s a close aide to Dr Dre, only one of USA’s top hip-hop honcho?

I’m still not a fan of hip-hop, but I want to be Masia’s fan.

Tags: hip hop, masia

Imagine an “ang mo” woman walking around the streets of little india, like a garung guni man, looking for scraps of wood to make an environmental point through art.

Weird, right?

But Lucy Davis did just that.

The assistant professor teaching arts at NTU wanted to make a point about deforestation from illegal logging in Asia.

She told me she actually had two choices she could do with the wood she collected:

1) Send it to Double Helix to test its DNA and prove that in Singapore some wood that can be found from illegal logging.

OR:

2) Turn them into works of art and evoke an emotional response in people on fighting illegal logging.

Lucy said she chose the latter because she was not sure if anyone in Singapore would pay attention to the potential DNA findings. And also because she wanted to raise environmental awareness of where the wood comes from – whether it’s from illegal logging.

Her horrific inspiration

She was inspired by a horrific experience in Singapore. During the interview, she told me about her shopping trip for woodprint art. A shop offered her a block of Jelutong wood, from a tree that’s highly endangered. The store owners unknowingly made their selling point to this tree hugger, by saying that this block of wood is becoming rarer and rarer and that she should buy it now.

And so she began her crusade on illegal logging – by collecting wood in Little India at night. She said she found all sorts of wood on the streets from all sorts of people collecting cardboard, electronic items, tin cans – anything that can be sold for money. And good thing for her, wood is not a recyclable commodity. But I guess it’s not good for the environment though.

Wood and migrants in Little India

Amazingly, the artist in her managed to find a parallel of migration between the wood and the immigrants in Little India. And that’s how she got her inspiration for her stories in her exhibition, unfortunately the narrative on the artworks are in Latin for the larger works and Malay for the smaller works.

As she took me through her art works exhibited at Post Museum, Lucy, the curator explained that the smaller pieces of artworks depicted rolling pins, chairs and anything made of wood. And as we walked deeper into Post Museum and to the life-sized wood print artworks, the story of her exhibition entitled “Woodcut: Together Again” made sense. Wooden rolling pins, washing boards and chairs came from wood, then came to Singapore, and now return to their roots.

“Be the difference you want to be”

Abstract or not, Lucy’s artworks have made the point. And I guess her attempt at highlighting illegal logging can be summed up with Mahatma Ghandi’s famous line “Be the difference you want to be.” And may I add – whether you are doing something innovative, new, and even when it looks strange, non-conformist, as long as it’s something you strongly believe in, and doesn’t hurt anyone else (of course), but in fact, help people, then just do it without reservation of what people would think of your non-conformist ways.

I guess changing mindsets and conventional ways of doing things are what we need to fight climate change, pollution and other environmental problems the world is currently facing. Of course, we can argue that governments, institutions should think of ways and means to change the systems. But who are these governments and institutions doing their work for?

I’ve not interviewed many celebrities in my life. But so far, from my experience, and you may already know this – there are 2 extremes. One, the ultimate diva. The other, the really nice friendly media darling who obilges at every question and request. But the latter, I find, is not always the best. Nice doesn’t always translate to honesty, sincerity and most importantly genuineness.

Lady GaGa is in a class of her own. She’s confident, careful with her words but very expressive and honest. She’s either a polished celebrity or a very genuine artist. For one thing, she came across as someone who’s really into music and art. She knows exactly what avant-garde is and uses it in her clothes and music. I also came to realise that her OTT outfits are her second skin, not a stage personna – a point she stressed quite a bit during our 30-minute conversation. Call her an attention-seeker if you want, she doesn’t care, that’s the vibe I gather. For now, she says she’s “all about the music” and is not in it to buy a “beachhouse” She’s only 23, I hope she stays this way, because I actually do enjoy her music.

Here are some things said during our interview which didn’t make it on-air.

1. She went to a dentist in Singapore to clean her teeth. That came out when I asked her where else she visited during her short stay in Singapore. She also went to an Irish pub. She’s not sure of the name but she did say she loves Irish pubs in general.

2. She has over 5000 songs in her iPod. She says she listens to Neil Young when she’s sad; her own songs when she’s happy, and something called “Muzak” or “elevator music” in her own words, to fall asleep.

3. She designs the clothes she wears according to abstract shapes. She says she likes the clothes on her to actually have an outline of shapes.

4. She was evasive when I asked her how long it takes her to get dressed. “It depends” she says. But she did say she can put on a wig, red lipstick and she’s ready to go.

5. She paused for like a good minute with a cheeky smile when I asked her what’s her favourite “gadget” Her answer in the end was “disco stick”

6. And finally one for the album. We posed GaGa style.

Tags: lady gaga

Almost everyone I know has a Sarong Kebaya hidden somewhere in their closet. Maybe it’s the colourful costumes or the tasty food they have, but Peranankan culture has gained a slow but steady following in SIngapore. But the Peranakan craze has missed out on me somewhat. So i was quite excited about covering the exhibition about Peranakan jewellery. As they say, Diamonds are definitely a girl’s best friend. (Now if only i could afford them, both of us would be inseparable!)

Just look at that bling! The curator of the Peranakan Museum told me that in those times, Peranakan families were very rich, so much so they stored the diamonds in Milo tins!!! wow! Another interesting fact he told me was that diamonds used to be really cut roughly, so as you can see from the pictures,that’s why they look like they have a dark coloured backing.  They even had a special name for them “Minyak diamonds” otherwise known as oily diamonds or something along those lines…i was just so distracted by the gems to pay attention to the brochures. Ok ok, it’s a bit unfair to concentrate about the diamonds all the time, there were gold brooches, silver, pearls and jade.

Oh and here’s an old picture of me, doing a story on the Little Nyonya waaaaaay back when we were covering its last episode.  Just thought I’d add it in because this is the only time I’ve ever gone peranakan.In my defence, this top is my mom’s! And it was really itchy too! Too bad i don’t have any authentic jewellery to add to the overall look. Oh well, I guess at the end of the day I’d be really paranoid about wearing such expensive jewellery out on a regular basis. Plus it’d be a shame to lock up these guys and deprive the world of such treasures, don’t you think?

Hope you guys are able to catch the story when it airs on Saturday! If you guys want to find out more, just head over to this website http://www.peranakanmuseum.sg

- Cheryl

Welcome!

I’m assuming that you found out about us from watching us on the telly. Last Saturday’s episode featured Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls. And a blast from the past by Satish Cheney on glorious 60s Singapore music. Pearl Forss brought us an Arts Fest play that’s about women behaving badly or men who think women behave badly – u be the judge, really. And we round up some wacky artists who brought some laughs to the man in the streets during the Singapore Arts Festival.

You might find this page plain for now. We’re getting our act together. You’ll hear and see more of us here soon enough. Then, you tell us whether its been worth the wait. Betta still, tell us now what you think or what you wanna see or hear. We’ll try our best.

All we can say for now, is, we’ll try to bring big things to The Big Picture, and that will include the space here.

What can u expect? Freebies? Concert tix giveaways? We’re trying and we’ll keep you posted. No promises for now, but you can keep your hopes up.

Meantime, keep watching us on telly.

Missed the full version on Saturday?

We bring Nicole, 60s music, The Crab Flower Club and the wacky Arts Fest artists back on the channel at these times -

Mon-Fri 9.00am, 1pm, 3.30pm, 6pm, 9.30pm.

Hear fr u soon!

Val, Executive Producer, “The Big Picture”