Songs and stories of Kinabalu and Ranau

A year after earthquake disaster, music house produces video to showcase the mountain and the community.

VIDEO INSIDE

KUALA LUMPUR: A year after an earthquake in Sabah that killed 18 people on Kinabalu mountain, a local music production house has published a video that tells the stories of the Ranau community and their connection to the mountain.

The video, entitled Songs & Stories: The Kinabalu Call, is a joint initiative between singer-songwriter Juwita Suwito and author Gina Yap Lai Yong and produced by Four Forty Records.

Speaking to FMT at the launching, Suwito explained that the idea for Songs & Stories came up after she and Yong decided to bring “communities together and highlight our differences and similarities” after realising that Malaysians did not know much about each other.

They first climbed Mount Kinabalu to gather stories from the local community after the earthquake disaster and later brought together a team, which included fellow singer-songwriter Tony Leo, to document the post-earthquake restoration stories.

Asked what they brought back from their experience in scaling the mountain, Suwito said she found it touching to learn how the Ranau community was intertwined with the mountain.

“After the earthquake, they were the first ones there. I live in KL but if anything happens to the Twin Towers I don’t think I’ll be the first one there.”

Yong echoed the sentiment saying that the love for the mountain resonated within the people there. “When I saw it in them, it was really touching and amazing,” she said.

For Songs & Stories, they also produced a music album and a booklet containing songs and short stories from the episode and put on a performance for the community after coming down from the mountain.

The video is currently available on YouTube.