CAN you capture the melodies of a city and its people in a grand symphony? Armed with creativity and energy, Orang Orang Drum Theatre is aiming to do that in LaguKu 2.0, set to be performed next month.
It has been four years since theatrical percussion group’s LaguKu, but the troupe has been busy touring as well as performing original works. Founded by Chew Soon Heng and Leow Sze Yee, Orang Orang Drum Theatre aims to create its own unique works and transform the Chinese traditional art form into a multicultural genre of performing arts in Malaysia.
The group sees drum theatre as a new arts genre, as it offers drums, music, theatrical elements, movements and tales of Malaysian society.
Orang Orang Drum Theatre wowed new audiences during an August tour of Eastern Europe, including one of the most famous music festivals in Budapest, called Sziget Festival. The group’s performances, five workshops and four parades were well received and drew lots of positive feedback.
“We introduced Malaysia to lots of people who had not heard about Malaysia before through our music,” says Leow Hui Min, co-production manager for LaguKu 2.0.
The upcoming 90-minute LaguKu 2.0 show at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre will maintain percussion as the main ingredient and incorporate different elements.
Says Leow: “This piece turns the observations and attitudes in life into a feast for the ears and eyes. This new piece continues to capture the hidden loneliness in the chaos of the prosperous city, releasing it in a cacophony of rawness. It blends the everyday life of the grassroots of the society into the framework of the symphony, sometimes keeping in step, sometime completely throwing all structure out of the window, as is life in this city.”
LaguKu 2.0 will also offer some folk songs from Sarawak. “Other than music, you will also experience ‘drum theatre’, mask performances and physicality during the show.
“How can these two elements, drum and theatre, combine? It will be one of our main experiments in this performance.”
There will be 20 Orang Orang Drum Theatre members performing on stage, together with a guest artiste from Sarawak, who is the group’s vocal and sape teacher, Rosemary Colony Anak Joel Dunstan.
“That’s one of the highlights of the performance. We have studied with Rosemary since October last year, when she conducted a series of vocal and sape workshops with us. She taught us some folk songs from Sarawak, and these songs had been re-adapted into our percussion together with Rosemary’s vocals.”
That experience was the group’s initial approach with music from Sarawak and Sabah. Their foray in what was called LaguWalk, held in July, was a community project where group members shared some of their work in progress, previous works and did collaborative projects with some local musicians.
Meanwhile, music instruments also caught their eye and since collecting such instruments has always been an interest of the team, they came away with different elements in their composition whereby kuling tangan from Sabah become one of the music instruments in their composition.
From such experiences come LaguKu 2.0, with some old folk tunes revitalised and layered with drums and theatricality, all revolving around three elements — City, Character and Music.
LaguKu 2.0 will be staged from Oct 4-6 at DPAC in Petaling Jaya. Tickets are priced at RM68 and RM48 (Concession for students/senior citizens/disabled). For more information, call 012-3622939 or 03-40650001/0002