Hungry

Whenever my husband and I collaborate, amazing things happen. True story. "The Geongxi Is A Vamp", "300 million: The Reconceptualization of a Conception" and now, "Hungry".

We've always been regulars in the Short + Sweet Musical Category. But this year, we teamed up again in Short + Sweet Song instead. We wrote somewhat of a one-song-musical about 2 ghosts, disgruntled about the food they are being served during the hungry ghost festival that did not match their tastes when they were alive. After all, the Short + Sweet Song festival coincide with the actual Hungry Ghost Festival month!

We never thought we'd win anything in a singer-songwriter competition because let's face it, we're not actually singer-songwriters. We are musical actors, who happens to be very experimental. We love the Short + Sweet Festival as it is our playground platform to experiment. We wanted a very traditional Chinese feel for the song but we both don't play a single Chinese instrument, nor could we find a Chinese instrument band in time. Instead we got help from a super talented musician singer friend, Jee Yan to arrange the backing track for us, which he did beautifully with the full glory of guzheng, pipa, dizi and all!!!

As typical actors, we were super excited about creating our characters Hu Ah Yew and Soo Fah Nee. We really went all out to look like actual Chinese ghosts for the performance and stayed in character during prize-giving and even backstage once our full costumes were on.

From left: Soo Fah Nee and Hu Ah Yew

As it turned out, we won 1st Runner's Up in the Short + Sweet Song competition this year. On top of that, we won the Glitz & Glamour Award too (that one was a no brainer, just look at our costume!).

A double award!

Other than the performance itself, we met many awesome people back-stage... newbies and oldies, comedians and other singer-songwriters. Oooooh, just think of all the possible collaborations!!! We also accidentally scared the shit out of an intern who thought she really had a paranormal encounter backstage. Sorry!

For all of you who missed the show, here's a video of Hu Ah Yew and Soo Fah Nee's performance!

Hungry (2015)

Lyricist: Alvin Looi

Composer: Karynn Tan

Musical Arranger: Choong Jee Yan

Then and now

Back in high-school, I sang in an a-capella group. First we were Karla Ryka, then Dejavu, then As If, then Citadel... yeah, we were indecisive. :-p We used to sing together in class after school & sometimes get "caught" by teachers or prefects thinking we brought a radio to class. On some Saturday mornings, we'd walk to school while singing, building our singing stamina. We sang in inter-school talent competitions and we made it for Asia Bagus once too. Those were the days.

1995 - Sri Garden Talentshow

17 years later... we had our reunion performance at our group member, Kim's wedding. Congratulations to Kim and Kelvin!!! A very beautiful personalized wedding... with a dedication from the bride to her groom. Romantic, kan? :-)

2012 - Kel & Kim's wedding

Short & Sweet; just the way I like it!

I know I've been quiet for a little while now. Well, that's because I had so much on my plate it was really crazy. Between my dayjob and Malaysian Girls rehearsal, I went and agreed to take on 2 pieces in the Short and Sweet Festival Malaysia. I took on a role in Short & Sweet Musical, in a piece called Oriental Takeout playing the role of an Oriental callgirl. And I took on a dance piece called Colourful Bollywood Repertoire in the Short and Sweet Dance.

Although I was up to my ears in rehearsal and was tired as hell, I pressed on with my many rehearsal after work and on weekends. Since this festival is a competition, none of us gets paid for these performances. Yet, I found the experience totally priceless and would do it all over again!!!

Through 28 Sept - 1st Oct, 10 Musicals were staged in klpac every night. It was completely sold out the the last 3 days of the show and the audiences were awesome, that's the energy that we performer feed on. I had the opportunity to work with an awesome team led by Kimmy Kiew, a resident director in klpac. It was amazing to see how her vision for Oriental Takeout slowly unveil and come to life! I never realized how important the director is until this competition. Not only did we have a great time on stage, Oriental Takeout won 3 awards that night; Best Overall Performance, Best Actor (Male) went to our team's male lead Nick Dorian and Best Actor (Female) went to.... teng teng teng... who would've guessed, me!!! Me! OMG! Never thought very much of myself as an actress before this. I was always a singer first, dancer second and actress well... somewhere down the line. I am truly truly thankful for what I have learnt from Kimmy and it was a sincerely rewarding experience to work with her. I still feel like I'm dreaming! A really good dream! :)

Many of the other plays were really good too, although I only managed to watch them only in videos after the festival was over... I really liked the 2nd one, A Taste of Love (Which won 4 awards: Best Composition, Best Libretto, Best Supporting Actress and Audience Choice) and the last one Float N'Sync: The Rise And Fall of The Bad Streak Boys (Which won best Musical Director & Best Glitz and Glamour). Both pieces had very catchy songs and very witty lyrics/script!! I ♥ ♥!!



Me & ma girls!



"Chow Mien no bareback!"
Photo courtesy of DustyHawk.net



"Ppiiiaaakkk!!"
Photo courtesy of DustyHawk.net



"This is wrong don't think I can do it"
Photo courtesy of DustyHawk.net

The whole Oriental Takeout team!!
Photo courtesy of DustyHawk.net

Best Actress & Actor yo!!! :D

Our 10 minutes of fame extended to some local print media as well;
~ News Straits Times
~ Selangor Times

The next festival was the Short and Sweet Dance festival from 5th - 16th Oct. Our piece got into the finals, the Gala Night but we did not win anything. But it was still a good experience to learn up some colourful joyous Bollywood moves in the process. I've always wanted to learn Bollywood dance as I've been fascinated with the "kemeriahan" of the Indian culture. And I managed to recruit a friend, Su Yee to accompany me in the making of this colourful, celebratory dance piece! Tis always more fun to do it with friends... although I made new ones along the way. :)
 


turn turn turn

Pose it!



 



The entire Colourful Bollywood team!

 

Su & I















Right now, the Short and Sweet Theatre festival is still happening... although I am not a part of it (2 is all I can juggle!!) hubby is in Week 1: Life Decisions and he gets to be beaten up and killed. How cool is that???

I really can't wait to be doing more of this and spend more time & effort on the growth & development in this passion of mine. This is obviously what I was made for, my calling. :-)

Miss Mis - A Celebration of Two Legendary Musicals

If you're wondering what Miss Mis is, it is the combination of songs from Miss Saigon and Les Miserables... the two beautiful melodious musicals with stories so sad, you'd cry everytime you listen to it all the way. I know I do. So beautiful, yet so so so sad.

Once again Broadway Academy has organized these monthly recitals for us to showcase the school as well as ourselves... muahahaha. All thanks to our wonderful music director Dominic. :)

This recital was different from all our previous ones because, ahem... so many of performance arts world's who's who were there!! Can you imaging the performers i.e. moi, being starstruck by the audience? Eh... terbalik nie... Joanna Bessey, Janet Lee, Michael Voon, some producer dude from Broadway New York, all were there!!! Stress right?? But sure was exciting, performing with us was also a celebrity:

Douglas Lim!! Besarnya mata in this photo:

Moi, Shahila & Soon Yoon

The one & only photo of my solo, blurrrrr!! Sad!!

Groupshot!

Crazee groupshot

Our beloved goddaughter Miaw also came to support us, never fail... every single recital she's there!! We'll miss her once she goes off to further her studies. :(


Isn't it ironic how we have 2 cat-kids with human names & 1 human kid with cat name??? Hehehehe

My debut wt Six2Eight!!!

Last Thurs nite was my first ever performance with Six2Eight!! :) :)

It was a corporate function so could not ask all my gang & fans to come support me. Muahahah. Anyway, it was pretty fun to part of the team!!

Sound-check! Douglas Lim was there for a stand-up comedy act

The super beautiful & bubbly Jojo Struys was the emcee

They must have one helluva budget with all da big names performing. In fact, methinks they kinda overdid the performances by having too many performers. Dancers la, acapella singers [us, of course ;)], stand-up comedy, drummers, and lots lots more. How to fit all in one night???? Takpe la, orang terlampau banyak duit kot? :p

Six2Eight awaiting our turn to perform & snacking...teehehehe

Backstage!! Eh, d fler taking our photo menggigil ke?

Theme of the nite was... Grease!!!

This ain't no Greased-Lightning?

Va-va-vrrrrrooommmmm

Anyway, our performance was cut short due to time constraints. :( Expected pun, they had toooo many performances lined up for that night. Oh, well... it was a wonderful & fun performance anyway. Loved "We Go Together" the most!!! Wap-bap-belubap-a-Wap-Bam-Boom!!!!

Life Overflowing

Just got back from a pre-Valentine's Day dinner with bf. We celebrated in advance as he is working tomorrow nite for the V Day theme classes.

Remember our little moment of glamour at the recording studio?

Well, the fruit of our labour is out!!

the Life Overflowing CD

And over-ripe already actually. It was out since Christmas but I keep forgetting to publicize it. The CD is actually produced by one of our church members, Susan Yuen but a few of us were featured in the CD as guest singers... and we guests were pretty good I must say!! Ahem! Get a copy and you can be the judge. You can get all Simon Cowell-esque on us ;)

All the songs in there are original compositions.

da songlist

"I shall sing" is my proud solo!! "You are my rock" is bf's solo!

If anyone is interested to purchase it, please do let me know. It's only RM35 and all the proceeds go to the needy and the poor. If anyone just wants to preview what the songs sound like, please do let me know and I'll be happy to lend you my copy!

Best new artist goes to...

During the 2nd day of Raya, we did not do any ziarah-menziarahi. Only did on the 1st day of Raya.

We did something else instead... decided to flex our vocal muscles instead of our other muscles at the gym.


Karaoke? Nope


My singing partner in crime since high school, Zwui

Just where were we headed?

DJW recording studio!!


DJW

Actually, we were not recording an album for ourselves. A lady from our church was recording an album and she picked us to sing in her album. Some solo parts here and there, and also back-up vocals. She spotted our talent during our wonderful Christmas presentation last year... and also all 3 of us are serving in the music/worship ministry at church... so, memang like it or not, she always nampak kita bertiga bernyanyi-nyanyi la.


I shall sing!


Alvin... lead singer of the chipmunks... where art thou Simon and Theodore?


There he is! Simon came to join us later.


Theodore? No la, he couldn't make it. It's Zwui!


D 4 of us learning up our parts

We had quite many songs to record; sometimes as the soloist, sometimes as the back-up vocals for each other, sometime in parts, some "oooos and aaaahhs", the usual stuff. We were there since morning we of course we took a break for lunch.


Right across the street was Canaan Church

What is there in Canaan Church?


Pastor Daniel and his wife, Karen.

They used to be in Revival Centre too and in the same homegroup as d 3 of us. He was also the one who led the music ministry so we were pretty close. We miss them a lot!! So lunch was a great opportunity to catch up with them.


After lunch, there was more work to do... we left there in the evening. Woooh... was very tiring but kinda fun. We'll be going back as there's still work left to do to complete the album. Will let you all know when it is out!!

We'll be stars! heehehe :-)

One of the 999,999

On Friday, I took a day off work to go for the One in a Million audition in Berjaya Times Square. Went with my bf and my sister. We were there super early at about 8am. From my experience of auditioning for Malaysian Idol the past 2 years, I'd rather be early than late as the crowd was ridiculous.

Surprisingly, there was no one there at 8am but us. We were well prepared! Not with our performance but with breakfast! Then gradually people began to come. We were one of the first few in line. We made friends with one girl who is from the music industry. She sings for theatre and stuff. She has an incredible and amazing voice that really wowed us! The other early bird was a ballet teacher. Oh wow! What talents! And I am but a mere karaoke and shower singer...

After registration, all of us waited in the hall.

Take me out to the ball game... eh no, it's just a TMNET ad gimmick

My sis and I

Even until then, I could not decide between the 2 songs I've shortlisted for my audition. Torn between All That Jazz and Menghitung Hari. Then we were finally brought upstairs to the auditioning room. I was in 1st group of 10, my sis in the 2nd 10 and my bf in the 3rd 10.

The fella briefing us for the audition told us all to sing two songs. Yikes! Two songs? Oh well, saves me from deciding which to sing anyway. I was the first to go in. I sang All That Jazz first. Didn't think it was all that impressive. I only had one day to prepare. Been too busy with work lately. Then I sang Menghitung Hari while playing the keyboard. My playing was crappy because I had only practised the song twice... just thought I'd position myself as the musician singer mah. Alas! The judeges were impressed and asked what did I do for a living and if I was a seasoned performer. Chewah! Ada chan la aku!

True enough, when we got to the result room, I was chosen to go for the next round!!! YAHOOOOOO!!!! I get to see the celebrity judges!

Oh, the waiting room for those who got through was terrible.

You can feel the tension in the room

When it was my turn to sing to Paul Moss and Syafinaz Selamat I was super duper nervous. I sang Menghitung Hari only with the crappy keyboard accompaniment.

Syafinaz: Oh, no. You look like you're not comfortable singing (shaking her head)

Me: Oh, actually I am a lot more comfortable singing than playing this...(pointing at keyboard)

Paul: I thought she sang quite effortlessly. I quite enjoyed it.

Syafinaz: No, no... you change registers very obviously.

Me: ??????? (but still smiling at her) Don't worry, I'll take your comments constructively.

Paul: But I want someone who can play the keyboard on the show! Ok, girl... you can sing, but your piano playing was terrible.

Me: Yeah I know (weird smirk) I just needed the key.

Paul: Ok, why not you try singing another song, without the piano, then we'll decide.

Me: ????? (brain blank) er, er...

~uncomfortable silence~

Me: Ok, I'll sing something by Kelly Rowland (I didn't name the title because I just couldn't think of what the song was)

Me: lalalalala....(singing I'm Beginning to See the Light)

Paul and Syafinaz looked at each other, shook their heads in unison.

Me: (alamak! gone case la)

Paul: Sorry, not good enough.

Me: Ok, thanx.

And I walked out the door with mixed feelings. Disappointed not be able to perform on stage on national TV yet quite relieved that I can't make it to be a big star. Coz I love my day job and I wouldn't want to be torn between the two. Singing and music shall remain my passion for leisure time.

But that doesn't mean I won't try again next year!!! Look out Malaysia! I will practise more and be more well-prepared next year!!