Tra-la-la-ing!

My my it's been ages since this blog has been updated. People must be wondering what the cast of Ismail has been up to. Instead of blogging we have been licking wounds, healing muscle aches, nursing bruises and tending to our voices by ensuring we stay away from chocolates, durians, peanut butters and anything that can cause phlegm (like soya bean)...

We have already started learning the Ismail songs... it's been 2 weeks since we had words like "Pa-da-pa-da-pa" (is that even a word), "Come outtttt, you cowards" and "Allllllllll deriddddeeeddd" thrust into our brains. "Come out, you cowards" is the opening song of Ismail and is a battle-like song, so by the time Mervyn, our musical director is done with us... we'd probably be ready to go for war singing a song. With one or two of us bobbing our heads as we go along. "Come outtt *bobs head*, you cowards *bobs head*".

You know what I mean *wink*.

The girls have also learnt a second song in a Zapin tune called "Kekasih". Beautiful tune, romantic lyrics *does the kiss fingers and go muah! like ze French*... However, the very first time we sang it in our soprano voices, Mervyn's face screwed up like a shrivelled prune. You know-lah, girls nowadays are all about girl power and women strength... where got like last time, all soft and lembut and lemah-gemalai!!!

Anyway, under his steady directions, we kinda found that old malayish feel, so now we sing "buihhhhh-buih" with that lil twang. Kakakaka.. we sound so good! *perasan-ing*

...

When it comes to movement rehearsals... Lax our dance captain is da bomb!!! He makes the dances and choreography so interesting with the different movements that we never tire doing it like 10 times. Everyone loves dancing to Saturday Night Fever and pretending to be John Travolta in his shiny white jumper and struting. Oh----yeeaaahhh!!! C'mon baby lets move that asss~~~...

And everytime we finish our dance, Lax stands behind Joe (our director) jumping up and down with joy or pretending to snap pictures with his invicible camera.

Like at the end of each dance we usually have to pause and pose-lah for like a few seconds or so... so with Lax doing his damn funny antics at the front, how to keep a straight face like that? *pengsan* A few will burst of laughing, a few will try to tahan the laughter and saliva comes out instead and some will be so focused (or blur) that they dun notice Lax in front at all... Then Joe will stare at us.

We also learnt the Zapin, Joget and Inang... but I don't want to talk about these dances because most of us still can't get the 'feel' right (especially the guys)~~ Waaaaahahahahahahahhahahahaaaha.... Don't kill me yall. *smiles*

Ok, I'm done. Dunno what to say dy. I think I'll start compiling a list of "Funny Things People Say at Rehearsals" very soon. It will probably be enough for a book and be a best seller. Crazy people we bunch are, I tell you.

MiNiMiNLi signing off! xoxo

Rehearsal Day 2

Right on to second day of rehearsal.

A couple of us had arrived early to practice of course, just to ensure that we weren't late. Day two was all about movement. Purpose of this was to nimble ourselves and get us prepared for any action command that is thrown at us by the director or movement director.

But before that we had a half hour session with breathing master Dominique Lonchant, the breathing guru. While not many or any theatre groups out there practice on breathing, here for the KLPac production we are trained to concentrate on our breathing. As an actor, our voice and body are the most important things to us, so naturally some exercise to loosen it up is necessary. One important accessory you will need for breathing exercises...

A pillow! If not say hello to bruises on your shins and knees.

Moving right on after breathing exercises, was the movement exercises. The movement director wasn't around so we were left in the very capable hands of our Dance Captain. Starting first with some warm up and stretches which I think some of us wanted to die, from not being used to stretching a lot. And even worse when we had to do a side split (or as far as one can go) and go down with your forehead touching the ground... Yeah we could cry! When Laks told us to relax... you should have heard the sigh of relief from the entire cast. Hahaha.

I have to say, we did a lot of rolling. The two words stuck in my head now is "Pink Paper". lol See there is this pink paper stuck on one of the pillars smack in the middle of Studio 5, which we all use as our focus point. So imagine this.. We are all walking around and then suddenly we are to stop and look at the pink paper. Then shift our head to the clock at the back of the class and then pink paper again.. woohee.. and then clock and then pink paper..

Pink paper clock pink paper clock... aiii - there's a purpose for all this and it is great practice for testing how sharp we are. Back to the rolling..

Our captain, was teaching us how to roll... so we had a lot of rolling on the floor, which concludes with us using our thighs a lot. Along with our butts being very very strained. Roll to the right.. now to the left .. oh wait pink paper clock.... roll right, left.. pink paper clock... pink clock... roll right.. left... you get the picture :P

It was personally fun to see how some got confused :) Which is alright actually because the cast we have - some are new to performing arts and some have been doing it for a while. It's a learning curve and what a fun start it is.

Let's see what happens tomorrow!
yes.. we have rehearsals tomorrow.. :P

First Day of Rehearsal

Well, it looks like we now have a blog. The cast and crew finally came together last night for the first reading of KLPAC's big musical this year, Ismail The Last Days. It's a pretty well thought script with some interesting insight to the man that is Tun Dr. Ismail. To be honest, when I heard that there was a musical based upon Tun Dr. Ismail's life, I didn't know what to expect.

So keep tuned to this spot to receive updates from myself, fang and linora as well as several other cast members!!