My Prerogative

Mood     : Happy                                        Music     : "Smack That" by Akon

Monday - Anne James’ CHARACTERIZATION & MASK exam. Puay Tin sat in to observe us perform our pieces. We had to perform 2 pieces of monologue from Spoonriver Anthology and The Coffin Was Too Big For The Hole. My character for Spoonriver was called Alfonso Churchill. Basically, the goal that we need to achieve is to show two very distinctive characters using any methods we have learnt throughout the semester. At the same time, we gotta make sure that there is very minimal of OURSELVES in the characters we portray.

Tuesday - Marion D’ Cruz’s MOVEMENT exam & Prof. Ghulam’s CLASSICAL EASTERN THEATRE exam. Puay Tin recorded our movement exams for documentation. This exam was broken down into 4 parts. The first was a test on how we do our warm-ups individually and correctly from head to toe. The second was an ENSEMBLE MOVEMENT piece which was built on our blind exercise. Our piece was called THE ANCIENT TRIBAL NEW YORKERS! The third piece was our solo performance which was built on floor patterns and animal exercise. The underlying theme for my piece revolves around TIME. The last one was a surprise exam. We had to spontaneously improvize our movements to Marion’s specific instruction that combines every single elements of movement we learnt throughout the semester. In the afternoon, we had a 2 hour theory exam on Classical Eastern Theatre. I basically read up on Indian & Japanese Theatre. Totally, did not have time to go thru the dynastys of Chinese Theatre.

Wednesday - Ray Lagenbach’s Performance Study exam. We had to present our various findings on our research in class. Basically, we were asked to research on any social performances outside the arts scene and do a connection on how it is related to performance studies. I did my research on Traffic Jams asking whether is it a performance or a ritual. Of course, we need to write up a 2000 word report on our findings.

Thursday - Puay Tin’s Voice exam and Ray Lagenbach’s social structure observation. Voice exam will test our skills on BREATHING and ARTICULATION while performing 3 very different genre’s of text. The first would be a poem and then a song and lastly a short story. I’ll be reciting my poem from Spoonriver Anthology, sing my favourite song Through It All and read a short story by Henry O’ called Can I Feel your Pulse Now? At nite, 11pm, we are all suppose to go to Maizon Club at Heritage Road to do our final observation assignment for Performance Study unit. Can have some fun but the main purpose is to observe why and how performance is taking place and what is driving it.

Mood     : Entertained                        Music     : "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado

"HIBIKI" performed by da Sankai Juku essemble was ok for me. I really admire their focus strength and da way they slow down their "body clock" to a point of zen-ness. And da intricate details of their body parts, admire the way they use it. Nevertheless, towards da middle part of da performance I have to admit, it did kinda put me to sleep cause it was stuck at some monotonous rhythm and tempo. Thank goodness for da "blood" piece and da finale. That got my energy up again. I’ll give them a 7/10.

As for CASINO ROYALE, I’m happy with da new bond. At least I can confidently say that they finally manage to bring back da essence of James Bondness in this episode. Less of technological advancement and loads of bond. This bond is sooooo human and sooooooo stern (not really da best word) and sooooo manly (sounds gay)!

But yea, da storyline was absolutely intriguing and fantastic but I do think da ending was rather abrupt. Not much of a balance and pretty quick. Quite lucky I know how POKER works. I could actually follow da game closely and understand what was happenin or what should happen. Oh, and we know how bond loves to start it’s show, with da whole song sequnce and montages of women in fire or water or petroleum. This time round there is a huge twist to the whole opening sequence. Watch out for that! 8.5/10 for CASINO ROYALE. A NEW SIDE JAMES BOND, is a good change.

Mood     : Happy                                    Music     : "Call On Me" by Janet Jackson

"STEP UP" plot and storyline is like any other movies that revolves around dance. What is special bout these movies are their exceptionally cool dance routines. So yea, expect da same thing from STEP UP. Loads of cool and happenin dance moves. This time round, they combine ballet & hip hop, smacked into one sizzling hot performance. Chereography by Anne Fletcher

And of course, do not forget bout da bergayaful actor Channing tatum as well as Jenna Dewan. Pretty good-lookin onscreen couple. Gotta give them credit for making the dance routines look so effortless. Watch out for Mario’s film debut as well. He doesn’t dance at all. Instead, he is more to remixing musics and plays mr. nice guy. And lastly, please get your hands on da movie soundtrack cause da songs and music remixes are bouncy and strong to da max…

A MUST WATCH for those of us who just love to DANCE our hearts away. Whle waiting for da movie to start, I managed to get meself a pair of silver crocs. Even up till today, I stil lthink da shoe is UGLY. What made me want it was da comfort and da ugliness. Is so ugly that you gotta have it!!! ahahahaha….:p

Mood     : Entertained                  Music     : "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndy Lauper

I enjoyed da play. Pretty hillarious as it comes from da other gender’s point of view of life. Bernie Chan’s performance was da driving force of da play, in my opinion. And that scream of hers…gosh, I hope she did not strain her vocal chords. Powerful giler.

Neil Simon’s script was remarkable in the sense that he covers a lot of issues regarding the female gender and a lot of it is pretty much up-to-date. Da way he seperates the characters for instance, the neurotic (Samantha Schubert), the bimbo (Elaine Daly), to the highly sexual (Sarah Shahrum), the workoholic (Chermaine Poo) and the independant but lonely (Bernie Chan), made da play colourful and fun to watch. Da dialogues were fun and farney. So easy to relate and was light on the audience.

I have to say, sometimes they speak so fast it was rather hard to digest what they are trying to say. Nevertheless, me and Dao managed to get the whole idea of da play lar. Pretty light and entertaining although it can be quite heavy on the mind if we apply Langenbach’s way of seeing things into this play. For now, I chose to leave Odd Couple just da way it is.

Mood     : Heated                                        Music     : "El Nin Yo" by Tata Young

What an awesome evening! She was absolutely gorgeous and her legs were never ending. Unfortunately, it was such a short evening. Everybody were there by 7 and VJ UTT did not come out until 8.30pm. Da waiting did bring da ppl’s energy down but when he made his appearance, everybody was up and going again.

Incidentally, Malaysia was given the priveledge to get a sneak peek of Tata Young’s upcoming "Temperature Rising" tour and also, our country is the very 1st stop for their publicity campaign. Da live performance at Ruum’s Bar & Club was recorded and will be aired on channel 71, MTV astro on Dec 2. I wasn’t with the crowd downstairs cause me & ShaRmila got invites to the VIP lounge upstairs. We had a good view of the whole performance though.

Her songs were catchy and feet stomping. Every song was a FUN dance number and it really got our temperatures rising BUT it went str8 down when she announced that her 6th song will be da last for da day. It wasn’t a full fledge concert but rather a sneak preview of what’s to come. So that was kinda dissapointing lar. Din’t even stay back for an autograph session. Luckily VJ UTT was nice enough to come out and take pictures with some of da people but was quick to leave himself.

And Malaysians…tsk tsk tsk…so dissapointing man you all. Tata Young leh…sneak preview leh…free invites leh…could you all at least let yourself go and shake or dance to her music? Most of da audience downstairs were standing there like logs. Maybe they were interested or amazed at Tata’s you know wat lah, so thats why all standing there terkaku. At least there were some hope of light up at the VIP’s lounge. People were moving here and there.

Anyhow, I enjoyed myself and wanted more from Tata. Thankz SHARMILA for coming along. Da nite was extra special and fun with your presence. 

Mood     : Headache                                Music    : "Only Love" by Trademark

Da place was perfect for a family gathering. Uncle Taniguchi loves typical chinese restraunt settings. Aunty Joanne definitely chose da rite place for our "reunion"! Da food absolutely tickled my tastebuds. We had:

- cold dish appetizers with baby octopus, jelly fish and those fish cakes wrapped with seaweeds
- sweet & sour fish
- abalones with 4 types of mushrooms
- prawns with special plum sauce
- fried rice
- OH…ROAST DUCK!!!
- speciaty taufu
- 4 heavenly kings vege mix
- longan & sea coconut hot desert.

Uncle Taniguchi as usual, followin da Japanese culture thinks da nite was still so young so Mommy decided I should bring everyone to REDBOX for a family karaoke session cause he loves singing and drinking beer. Thank goodness they have a wide selection of Japanese songs for him to sing. Quite shocked to see my aunties so sporting. Sang all da catchy tunes of da oldies with all their hearts. I myself got to sing my specialty hitz. An interesting evening if you ask me.

Side note: He smoked twice in da karaoke room giving me a headache now as I’ m typing my blog.

Mood     : Indifferent                                Music     : "Perfect" by Simple Plan

Guess it is safe to say that I’ve reach "celebrity" status liao huh. Here, that a look at my planner (as if I have one):

Friday: Gotta skip Whassup again cause got DINNER with Uncle Taniguchi in some fancy restraunt.
Saturday: Noah’s Ark practice from 4-6 AND Tata Young’s Live Performance at Ruum’s Jungle from 7-12am
Sunday: After church, watching Odd Couple at Actor’s Studio from 3-5 with Dao. At nite, shoppin with mom.

And I thought weekends were meant for relaxation…(shake head)!

Mood     : Inspired                                Music    : "So Excited" by Janet Jackson

My mom calls me a chameleon (earth lion) because she sayz I adapt easily to any kind of environment or situation. Thats da positive side of things. On the other hand, I’m also known as a chameleon to her cause I pandai change colours, change until dunno what I am liao…ahahaha…!

Anywayz, that was NEVER the reason why I chose to observe a chameleon during my holidayz for Marion D’ Cruz’s Movement class. On Saturday, I was in 1Utama with mommy. She went to cut her hair while I stayed at Pets Wonderland for minutes to observe da chameleon cause I thought da reptile was quite intriguing and interesting for presentation. Went online to learn bout da reptile as well. Few fun facts. They can’t hear cause they do not have ears. Relies on da tongue and body to sense vibration. Has very cool eyes as it sees a total 360 degrees angle of its surroundings.

So I captured da essense of da lizard and did it in our movement class. Most of them including Marion thinks my portrayal of da animal was interesting and quite close to it. So happy to know that cause it was definitely not easy to handle da animal cause after all, I am HUMAN!!! Aahahaha…For me, da essense of da chameleon lies in its stillness and it’s eye focus. And lastly, the whole intention of blending into my surroundings and try not to be seen. That was my formulae.