The Dance Pilgrim

I am Dean of the Faculty of Dance at the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage Malaysia, (Akademi Seni Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan) better known by its acronym of ASWARA. This sentence is still sometimes hard for me to utter or believe because this journey has been completely unexpected. I never intended to become a dancer or choreographer or pursue a career in the field of performing arts although I began my involvement in the arts from the age of 10. My teacher at La Salle Primary School, Petaling Jaya, Celine Vincent organized end-of-the-year performances in the classroom. During these sessions, we had to draw, paint, practice elocution and create little skits which nurtured our creativity. However, I suspect that this was primarily designed to keep 45 boys occupied and out of mischief! This exposure to the arts grew to become a large part of my school-life and I indulged in public speaking, acting and directing plays with a passion that I think, was driven by my need for attention.

My early formal education focused on the sciences which eventually lead me to a degree in Mathematics from the University of Malaya. It was during these years at the university (which I refer to as my dark years although I made incredibly good friends), that I realized that I needed to do something else that was more fulfilling and rewarding – however I did not have a clue as to what it would be. I considered medicine, law, architecture, marine biology, journalism, and every profession in the world since I had a wide range of interests. The strongest influences in my life up to that point were my math teacher Sebastian Vincent (who was coincidentally, the husband of the aforementioned teacher), the headmaster of La Salle Petaling Jaya, Bro. Felix Donohue, and the Jesuits priests, Fr. Peter Kim Se-mang and the late Fr. Steve Subramaniam. All of these gentlemen had wisdom and the ability to relate to the youth that was unmatched. Even in hindsight, I am astounded by their generosity of spirit to spend time to talk and to nurture. One underlying truth that I learned from these inspiring individuals was to have a dream – and not just any dream, but a big dream of the grandest life possible. Using many different strategies of simple conversations,  or over cups of coffee, these great men of faith taught the youth to question, reflect and discover their full potential, to be the best that they could be, and in the pursuit of this dream, to never be afraid of failure. We were reminded that everyone makes mistakes, and not to dwell on them but rather to regard mistakes as an opportunity to learn. These formative years were filled with a diet of inspirational films and music such as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, or John Lennon’s Imagine, so on. I was part of a generation that met frequently with these spiritual leaders and I realize how special those years were.

            I am the youngest of 10 children that my father had, and 7 that he had with my mother. However, since the age difference between my closest brother and I is 10 years, I was developed meaningful relationships with classmates, church friends, nephews and nieces. During my early 20s, most of my closest friends left to pursue tertiary education overseas and this left me feeling very empty. Perhaps it was this loneliness that made me want to travel to the experience new places and cultures. Nevertheless, the financial situation of my family only allowed for trips to Morib, as children, and on a few occasions to relatives in Singapore (which were great) but I wanted more. This was when I discovered that KESUMA (Kesenian Universiti Malaya), a traditional dance troupe performed regularly overseas. Up to this point, aside from a few forays to local discotheques, and the 70s trend of house parties, I had never danced…I loved to perform, being an active member of drama, public speaking and debating teams as mentioned earlier. I enjoyed being in front of an audience, loved the attention but it was never as a dancer! Still, with courage and perhaps in a moment of madness, I went to the KESUMA audition. This was the first moment of divine intervention in my life. There I was told that I was brilliantly talented (which I completely did not believe), reminded everyone of one Mohd Ghouse Nasuruddin, the esteemed dancer-scholar from University Science Malaysia, which, of course, offended me! At that silly age when we imagine there can be no one else like us and we are individuals, unique, special, etc., I was appalled to think that I was like someone else. Nonetheless, I was accepted to the group, and in 6 months I was off to Thailand and then Hong Kong. My dream came true. I was travelling. Incidentally, I was given lead parts in many productions but I did not appreciate, understand or even cherish them (some choreographed by Mohd Anis Md Nor, and Norliza Rofli, who was one of the members of this group who is mentioned here because of the serendipitous way they resurface in my life later) and the lack of photographs of myself in dance poses at that time, is testament to the fact that we lived in a less digital world, and that dance was, at that time, merely a means to an end. I reiterate – I was traveling.

In this time a group of dynamic English majors at the University of Malaya - among them Leslie Leon, Gilbert Almeida and Gerald Martinez, wrote and staged a musical called Spirits of the Night. I auditioned and was cast as ‘The Student’ where I had to sing and dance. They called in a choreographer but after one rehearsal, I arrogantly thought I could do a better job of creating a dance piece for myself, and I did! In hindsight, I wonder what the writer-directors thought of my attitude. Nevertheless, it was probably an awful dance routine but I loved it and was consumed by the process of creating. It was at this time, that my KESUMA dance teacher convinced me that I may have something extra and that I should try ballet, jazz, and modern dance. This was very impressive forward-thinking for a 65-year-old Malay man, Malaysian legendary traditional dancer-teacher, the late Said Manap. I was open enough to humiliate myself into wearing tights and dancing with 10-year-olds in the Frances Ballet Academy in SS 2, run by Frances Teoh, who was one of Malaysia’s pioneers of modern dance and had achieved success as a ballet dancer. When Teoh left Malaysia for a few years, her classes were taken over by another mentor Suzan Manen who had returned from London after training at the Royal Academy of Dance. It was also here that I met the iconic Ramli Ibrahim and suffered through several rehearsals with him. I was not ready for Graham contractions and dancing contemporary dance to P. Ramlee's music. I then transferred to the Federal Academy of Ballet where at the tender age of 24, I took my Grade 4 ballet exam and obtained an Honours mark under the tutelage of Elsie Mak. It was an unbelievable feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. By this time I had started performing regularly on television, backing up recording artists such as Francesca Peters, Sahara Yaacob, Salwah Abdul Rahman, and so on. 

I strengthened my training in jazz and Broadway styles by learning from the most popular and successful teachers at that time – Peter Choo and Lydia Loo. I worked hard and loved every minute of it but still did not think that this would a lifelong career as I was still going through my university course. However, I carried on with my dance exams, passing everything with flying colours which was also possibly due to a shortage of male dance candidates. Among my classmates were Vik Sivalingam, Choo Tee Kuang, Low Ming Yam, David Lee and Ungku Abdul Majid (who is known professionally as Unku) who all went on have long and rewarding careers in dance and theatre, both locally and abroad. In the mid-80s, when Malaysia suffered a recession, most university graduates were not getting jobs and thus I grabbed the only job I got – dancing as a professional in Malaysia’s first full-time jazz dance company, the St. Moritz Gold Band Dancers. We performed challenging repertoire of Broadway classics and jazz routines that were choreographed by Tan Pek Khuan, fondly known as Piggy, who had graduated from Laine Theatre Arts in England.  

After the year’s contract was up, I knew. I decided that if I was going to be better at this, I would have to train with the best. There was no point and no sense of achievement in being a big fish in a small pond. I wrote hundreds of letters, prepared a portfolio, and promo photographs, did my SATs and TOEFL exams, and managed to obtain a place in an American university with a partial scholarship as well as a trial in England with a recommendation from Lee Lee Lan. I choose England and had to prove in one month that I deserved a scholarship. I ended up staying for 3 years and the value of that education was approximately RM 100,000. At that time, my family tried to dissuade me from pursuing what they thought was a frivolous past-time but I was stubborn and adamant. Interestingly, I believe that it was my parents’ drive to see their children succeed through hard work that would be their legacy and the only pity (for them) was that I did not choose a path that my mother (my father passed away on the eve of MCE or Form Five examinations) approved off. However, the principles of dedicated hard work served me well. I acquired numerous certificates in musical theatre, tap dance, European folk dancing, ballet and contemporary dance, teaching courses, and dreamed of dancing with Dance Theatre of Harlem, a ballet company that hired coloured dancers, or the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, in New York. I was probably never good enough but this dream was never given a chance to be realized due in part that I was unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States while a student in England. My performance career also ended without ever being able to work in any ballet company. However, always one to set goals and ever the dreamer, I wanted the next best thing for me which was to perform on a West End stage and achieve this by the time I was 30 years old.

There were many experiences in this period that were painful. The quest to find employment required being in and out of auditions every week, sometimes being asked to leave only after standing in line with 400 other auditionees, getting near the end as the numbers were reduced, feeling hopeful only to have hopes crushed, is an incredibly traumatic experience. It seemed to require superhuman strength to get up and do the very same thing the next day. This kind of experience will never be understood unless one goes through it. Being in these situations where I constantly doubted myself as an artist, questioned the wisdom of the choices I made thus far, being made to feel invisible and not to mention being penniless, has served to make me strong. The agony of rejection has made me what I am. Not many Malaysian artists have been through this and I know now, that nothing will ever crush me. I seriously recommend this for all artists. I will not elaborate further, suffice to say that I did eventually get a job in Ronnie S. Lee’s West End and UK National Tour production of The King and I, and signed the contract before I turned 30. 

I was over the moon. I cannot imagine how I did 8 shows a week of the exact same repertoire for more than a year, keeping the excitement and motivation - explaining this again leaves me dumbfounded. It was an unbelievable time and it seemed that all that pain was washed away. The show was choreographed by Yuriko, one of the pioneers of the Martha Graham Dance Company after Jerome Robbins, and to receive instruction and praise from these in the history books of dance made all the earlier challenges worthwhile. After doing a few projects post-West End, I decided to return home to Malaysia, due in part to an aging mother and having a sense of fulfillment. In 1992, I began teaching at the Federal Academy of Ballet. It was a wonderful job, as I taught children to adults everything from ballet to jazz. I used every opportunity to choreograph and worked with the first group of full-time diploma students at the school extensively, and slowly began to create a name for myself as a choreographer.

However, ever the restless spirit, I realized that I wanted more from life. Financial stability was never the main issue but there were so few opportunities to perform artistic work and I was getting older. I was desperate for new challenges and applied for numerous jobs. I landed two part-time jobs in television and radio, reading the news and presenting sports programs such as the English Premier League, which could have been a global first for a dancer. My great love, sporting family background (my sister was a SEA Games gold medalist and my brother-in-law was a four-time Olympian playing hockey for Malaysia), and knowledge for sports stood me in good stead. This part-time career included Talk Radio, Sports Saturday, the World Cup of Football, the Olympics, the Winter Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and many smaller events. Unfortunately, at FAB, I was getting increasingly frustrated and aware that in dance, this was not the future I saw for myself.

Here possibly another defining moment in life occurred. I believe that the hand of God led me to take a drive down nostalgia lane. I ambled aimlessly through the University of Malaya where it all began. I walked into the KESUMA studios again which were desolate, fondly recalling those times but so in doubt of my own life’s paths and decisions, again! Walking back and forth I bumped into Mohd Anis Md Nor. His words were, “Joseph, I have been looking for you!” He explained that the Government of Malaysia wanted to establish a full-time academy of performing arts and asked if I would like to be one of its lecturers. A week later, I was in his living room discussing the syllabus for dance education with Sunetra Fernando, Suhaimi Magi, Aida Redza, Ridzwan Salam, and Lena Ang with Norliza Rofli was the first Registrar.

So it is 2015 and here I am…45 years after my first play…20 years since the establishment of ASK/ASWARA…still on a journey…embracing the highs and lows...  

P.S. On 18 August 2016, I began service as Head of Academic Studies/MFA Program at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Ever the dance pilgrim ... grateful for new experiences.