Theatre Dance Visual Arts Music Young People's Theatre

Five Arts Centre has been committed to training programmes, workshops and performances especially designed to empower young people through the arts. Teater Muda, founded by Janet Pillai in 1990, is a 6-month integrated-arts training programme for children aged 10-16. The objective of the programme is to provide an opportunity for Malaysian children to gain a holistic exposure to the theatre arts - participants are introduced to the basic elements of music, movement, drama and visual arts. Professional artists facilitate the learning process through a variety of methods such as field research, improvisation, role-play, games and problem-solving techniques.

The 6-month programme culminates in a workshop performance, where participants draw upon their individual skills and interests acquired over the months to produce a short piece of theatre. There have been 11 phases of Teater Muda, working with over 300 young people and the programme has always been free-of-charge.

Five Arts Centre also does children’s theatre - performances by children for audiences of all ages, and these include Suara Rimba, Rama & Sita: Generasi Baru, Ne-Zha (which played open-air at low-cost city hall flats all over Kuala Lumpur) and Red and Gold Shoe, amongst others.

Over the last 7 years, Five Arts Centre has embarked on producing Theatre-In-Education (TIE), a form of theatre with an educational focus, performed by adult actors for young audiences. TIE begins with research on a current issue that causes concern among young people. Themes such as image making and emotional management are examples. Educational information related to the issue is processed into an educational pack which is executed in a classroom situation prior to the performance. This is to acquaint the audience with dilemmas or conflicts arising from the issue and the responses are processed into a participatory performance by the creative team. Participation during performance provides a platform for the young audience to become involved in decision-making and problem solving.

In 2001, Five Arts Centre collaborated with LUDUS Dance Company from the UK in a Dance-In-Education programme. In this programme UK and Malaysian dance facilitators workshopped for a week in 4 schools in Kuala Lumpur, working with 20 children in each school on the issue of conflict resolution. The project culminated with the 80 children performing in the professional dance production Clash alongside the LUDUS Dance Company.

Akshen are Five Arts Centre’s youth theatre group. Akshen is a collective of young people dedicated to generating original Malaysian work that is relevant, thought provoking and empowering. Akshen started out as part of youth group ARTicle 19 and performed their first public performance Kecoh in 2000.

Akshen’s first official production Lebih Kecoh, which took an alternative look back at Malaysian history, played to critical and popular acclaim in 2001. In 2002, Akshen performed Stadium in Kuala Lumpur and at the Contacting The World Youth Theatre Festival in Manchester.

The Taman Medan Community Arts Project is a project that was launched in 2002 with the aim of taking the arts into the community. The young people of Taman Medan were introduced to theatre, movement, visual arts and film. Using these skills and art forms the young people expressed their thoughts, ideas and feelings and told the stories of their lives.

The project culminated in the making of 4 short films which were written, directed, performed and shot by the children. The films dealt with the themes of truancy, sexual abuse and the story of a missing girl. The films were shown in an outdoor screening for the entire community, and have been screened at independent film showings. The project was initiated by Mark Teh with Gan Siong King, Imri Nasution, Jerrica Lai, Lim Chung Wei and Tan Sei Hon. Phase 2 of the Taman Medan Community Arts Project happens from June to November 2004.

In September 2003, a group of 6 Malaysian facilitators and 6 UK facilitators toured 6 cities (Kuala Terangganu, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Seremban, Melaka and Johor Bahru) in the ADA APA? arts workshops project. Using the arts to dialogue and explore issues of Malaysian youth and identity, the 2-week project involved 360 Malaysians between the ages of 16-19.

The importance placed on the ‘traveling’ nature of the event was to generate dialogue from the participants about issues affecting young people in the specific contexts in their cities/towns, and to move away from a Kuala Lumpur-centric perspective of youth issues. This project was initiated by Mark Teh with Fahmi Fadzil, Gan Siong King, Hari Azizan, Imri Nasution and Kitrhona Ramday.