Local dance organisation MyDance Alliance will present the sixth MyDance Festival from June 3 to 25, with the theme this year being “Unity in Diversity”.
The purpose of the festival is to reunite the dance community in Malaysia following the disruption of the pandemic, to enjoy live performances and to celebrate the diversity of local dance culture.
The festival also aims to encourage stronger collaboration, partnership and growth in the local dance community in the future.
“It’s been 10 years since our last MyDance Festival. It is time to reconnect with each other in this unique platform for dance in Malaysia.
"The purpose of the festival is to reunite the dance community in Malaysia following the disruption of the pandemic, to enjoy live performances and to celebrate the diversity of local dance culture.
“The festival also aims to encourage stronger collaboration, partnership and growth in the local dance community in the future,” said Wong Jyh Shyong, president of MyDance Alliance, in a press release.
MyDance Festival is MyDance Alliance’s flagship event which will be held with support from the Tourism, Arts, and Culture Ministry.
Explaining the long hiatus to Malaysiakini, Bilqis Hijjas, secretary of MyDance Alliance, said that MyDance Alliance is a volunteer organisation and all their committee members are dance professionals with their careers.
“As the MyDance Festival is our biggest event, it requires us to pool all our resources and invest significant time and effort. In the last 10 years, we haven't been resting.
"MyDance has started a series of mentored choreographic training events, raising the capacity of young choreographers to create solos, duets and short dance films.
"We have also continued our long-running Dancebox performance platform, brought our numerous online publications, and offered many other smaller opportunities for audiences and the dance community alike,” said Bilqis.
She added that they are happy to have a committee right now with the skills and experience to handle a MyDance Festival.
“It's an opportune time: Covid-19 has reminded us that life is short, and the times we can come together on stage are precious.
"There's a renewed hunger for live performance and lots of missed opportunities to catch up on, especially for younger dancers,” explained Bilqis.
Speaking about the pandemic, we enquired if things had gone back to normal.
Bilqis said that many dance teachers were able to continue making a living by teaching online during the pandemic.
“But as wonderful as Zoom and other technological advances are, nothing replaces the experience of learning to dance face-to-face in a studio.
"The crucial learning years of a whole generation of younger people have been disrupted; this has been the case in dance as in all other fields. This young generation may never truly recover from this setback, but perhaps they will evolve their ways of being resilient, curious and creative as a result," she said.
She noted that government funding in Malaysia is highly variable and unpredictable, regardless of whether there is a pandemic or not.
“There are always boom and bust years, and Malaysian artistes have long since learnt to be nimble and flexible: to thrive through the lean years and to take advantage of windfalls of funding whenever they appear.
“For example, Cendana, the country's Cultural Economy Development Agency, has recently been downsized and will cease to offer the substantial funding opportunities it did before the pandemic.
“We are grateful to have received funding from the Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry to support this festival, but what we need as an arts community now is what we needed before the pandemic: reliable, transparent, repeated rounds of grant funding, to enable us to plan in advance and to grow, slowly and sustainably.
"It's not about how much money there is. What is more important is how it is managed and disseminated over the long term,” elaborated Bilqis.
The arts scene in Malaysia does not get nearly as much love as it deserves.
When asked why it is so important to give the art scene its due importance, Bilqis said, “The rise of easily accessible artificial intelligence is bringing a crisis to mainstream education.
"We believe that only the arts offer an avenue to train children to become creative, imaginative, resourceful future citizens, the kind of people who can turn AI to their advantage, and not be overcome by it.
"This will only become more evident over time and is a crucial reason to bring the arts into our schools as required subjects at every level.
“Only concentrated political will can reform our education system, which has not been fit for purpose for some time. If we are a truly future-facing nation, we must acknowledge that our future needs the arts.”
Bilqis hopes that this festival will correct the misconception that the art scene in Malaysia is languishing.
“In reality, our arts are thriving, full of inventive vigour and young energy. Our theatres are full of dedicated performers and delighted audiences every weekend.
"Come and witness it at our festival! I think everyone will be impressed and amazed at the high level at which Malaysian dancers perform in all genres," she added.
Bilqis said that she hopes the Malaysian dancers who are participating in the festival will also have their eyes opened by watching their peers.
"Dance in Malaysia, like much of our culture, tends to be siloed by ethnicity and language groups. We hope that this festival can allow us to transcend boundaries and truly come together on a single stage.
"Here is a splendid chance to delight in each others' beauty and skill, and to gain a deeper understanding of everything that goes on in this fantastic, diverse, and surprising community that we call home,” she said.
The festival will present four different programmes across various art spaces in the Klang Valley.
The Festival Opening Gala will be held on June 3 and 4 at Petaling Jaya Performing Arts Centre (PJPAC) and will highlight some of the most accomplished Malaysian dance companies, including Temple of Fine Arts Kuala Lumpur, Dua Space Dance Theatre, ASK Dance Company, and Kenny Shim Dance Collective.
The gala will also feature students from the dance departments of local tertiary education institutions like the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Sultan Idris Education University and Universiti Malaya.
Traditional dances from Malay, Indian and East Malaysian cultures will grace the stage, alongside contemporary dance works. - Mkini
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