The Dance Pilgrim

  Wong Kit Yaw is described by those who know him, have met him or have heard of him in many, many different ways. He is an artist who is a fount of knowledge, a disciplinarian, a tyrant, a gentle giant, dramatic, fun-loving, lovable, hysterical at times, and an always generous man. He is a choreographer, educator, director and a dance pioneer in Malaysia who entered the world of dance in a most unusual manner – leaving the passion for performance nurtured in high school in Teluk Intan for a career in construction and as a site supervisor in Singapore in the late 1970s. He then chose a path less travelled, and relinquished greater financial security of construction work for the love of dance. He enrolled in full-time training at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore in 1980. Here he underwent a comprehensive program of training in Chinese classical and folk dance, Indian classical dance, Malay folk dance and contemporary dance. Over the last decades, he has continued to en

Introduction There is a town (which is more like a village) named Khajuraho, which is a 13-hour train ride southeast of New Delhi, the largest city and the capital of India, that hosts the India’s oldest dance festival – the Khajuraho International Dance Festival every year since 1975. Why would a festival of dance take place “in the middle of nowhere”?   Fig. 1: Khajuraho Train Station. Photo: Author I was very privileged to attend in 2023 and arrived at the hot, barren, clay-filled and poorly-maintained train station and was overwhelmed by the heat and the smells of cow dung, goats, stray dogs, excrement and more – the smell of all poor rural areas in India, I assume. It was an onslaught to the senses and while it was not pleasant, it was an experience that I was anticipating. Although I am of Indian origin, I have hardly spent time in India, and this was my first visit to this place and this festival. As a dance artist, I have never studied and do not practice any Indian art for

The book Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka  published by Wesleyan University Press in 2020 details the complex location and representation of Bharata Natyam, a classical dance form accepted to have emerged from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The author, Ahalya Satkunaratnam is a professor of arts and humanities at Quest University Canada and a Bharata Natyam exponent with a diverse, multinational upbringing that is reflected in her approach to research and academia. Added to the lens of the postcolonial feminist scholar, this study on the practice of Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka is ground-breaking. She has researched and described in the most poetic, academic language, the intricacies that can be read into the practice of Bharata Natyam. What has made it even more fascinating, is that this foregrounds the civil war of Sri Lanka and the heightened religious and ethnic wars that have plagued the country. Satkunaratnam eluci

This edited article shares the journey of Malaysian dancers not of Indian ethnicity or Hindu faith who completed their Arangetram which is a solo debut performance that announces the presentation of the trained Bharatanatyam dancer on stage to the public. In Malaysia, dance is often viewed as the performative symbol of ethnic identity, and national unity, or as a tourist attraction. This is showcased at all government-sponsored platforms including global summits, sports spectacles, and state banquets. Against this social and cultural landscape in Malaysia, this article focuses on and highlights how the practice of Bharatanatyam by non-Indian, non-Hindu dancers trained at ASWARA, blurs boundaries of race and religion in embodied ways. Norbaizura Abd Ghani, Mohd Yunus Ismail, Mohammad Khairi Mokthar, Imran Syafiq Mohd Affandi, and Fatin Nadhirah Rahmat who are Malay Muslims; four Chinese namely Elaine Ng Xinying, a Roman Catholic, Kimberly Yap Choy Hoong, a Protestant Christian, Madeline

The Singapore Youth Festival (SYF),  launched on 18 July 1967,   was originally organized by Education Programmes Division to  encourage school-going Singapore youth to develop their artistic talents. Held each year in March and April,  the festival gained added significance in 1994, when then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong declared it a national event. Since  2012, its facilitation, and management have been led by the Student Development Curriculum Division of the Ministry of Education.                  Despite its national endorsement, the organization of the festival has not been smooth sailing. It has encountered challenges and resistance from a society driven by academic excellence and financial success, particularly in the 1970s, as a developing nation. The primary reason was many felt that devoting numerous hours to rehearsals and performances would keep the students away from their textbooks therefore affecting their grades, and jeopardizing entrance into prestigious universiti