Drawing interest to Mak Yong

IT WAS a book launch unlike any other.
Among the attendees were kindergarten children who were totally captivated by what they were seeing at the swanky art space at the PJ Trade Centre.
It was a Mak Yong performance, and after the show, the children were allowed to touch the beautiful shiny costumes and traditional musical instruments such as the rebab, serunai, gendang, and gong.
The Mak Yong performance by Universiti Malaysia Kelantan's Kumpulan Mak Yong Bunga Emas Seri Temenggong was held in conjunction with the launch of the illustrated children's book, The Girl Who Loves to Dance.
"The aim of the book is to introduce and promote Mak Yong to Malaysian children," explains Low Ngai Yuen, the president of online creative arts platform Kakiseni, which published the book.
This is the second book in Kakiseni's Hikayat series, launched last year to promote the traditional performing arts through books, workshops and performances.
The first book in the series was also an illustrated book entitled Shadows, about a young boy who sets out on an adventure with a prince in the Land of Shadows.
The book has references to the traditional puppet performance of Wayang Kulit.
Kakiseni brought storytellers to five different schools in the Klang Valley to tell the story of Shadows.
It even held a Wayang Kulit performance and workshop at a British international school in Kuala Lumpur.
"Many of [these children] had never heard of Wayang Kulit, let alone seen a performance," says Low, adding that Kakiseni intends to introduce the new book in a similar way.
"We would like to bring a Mak Yong performance and workshop to the schools and expose the children to this art form ... If we do not know our past, we cannot move forward."
The Girl Who Loves to Dance is written by Arisha Akhir, a spoken word poet, children's book author and storyteller, with illustrations provided by digital graphic designer Serah Boey.
The story centres on Nana, a young Malaysian girl who wants to learn the joget, a Malay traditional dance.
However, she faces peer pressure from her classmates who think joget is uncool and boring, unlike ballet.
Nana is torn between following what her heart desires, and what her friends want her to do.
She turns to her grandmother for advice.
Her grandmother then tells her that when she was a young girl, she was captivated by a Mak Yong performance and wanted to become a professional Mak Yong dancer.
Everyone felt she should pursue that as hobby and not as a profession, but she refused to listen to them.
She eventually became one of the most well-known Mak Yong dancers in the country.
"Do not let your friends tell you what to do. Only you know what is best for you," her grandmother advises Nana.
Arisha explains that the relationship between Nana and her grandmother is loosely based on the real relationship between her seven-year-old niece Layla and her 70-year-old mother (Layla's grandmother) Ungku Hanim.
"They are best friends, and I just love looking at [the interactions between] the two of them," she says.
The book also deals with the issue of standing your ground and fighting for what you believe in, and not giving in to peer pressure.
"It is not wrong in wanting to express yourself and wanting to learn your culture," Arisha says.
Boey agrees. The graphic designer admits that she had never seen a Mak Yong performance before agreeing to illustrate the book.
But once onboard, she carried out intensive research on the dance form, first by seeking advice from well-known Kuala Lumpur-based Mak Yong dancer Zamzuriah Zahari from Kelantan, as well as by catching a Mak Yong performance of the retelling of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream which was performed early this year.
"I really enjoyed myself," says Boey. "I wanted to get my facts right before drawing the characters."
While Mak Yong has been declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco since 2005, this dance form which originated from Kelantan has been banned in its home state since 1990, on the grounds that it contains anti-Islamic values.
"I understand the importance of religion," Kakiseni's Low says, "but one must not ignore the importance of culture and tradition.
"We need to debate on this issue more intensely and find a middle ground [in which] Mak Yong can be performed in [its state of origin]."