PETALING JAYA, June 2 ― Chase away the lockdown blues by making a date with the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre’s (Klpac) Short+Sweet series that will stream this weekend.
Dubbed the world’s biggest little festival and the annual highlight of Klpac’s programming since 2008, there will be two genres ― “Short+Sweet Dance” and “Short+Sweet Theatre” ― premiering from June 5 to June 6 on the CloudTheatre streaming platform.
Audiences only need to purchase one ticket to have access to five dance works and four short plays by nine diverse groups in one night during the combined screening.
The evening will kick off with “Short+Sweet Dance” that features the Minangkabau people’s Adat Perpatih customs and cross gender performances with masculine and feminine dance movements.
The five dance pieces are Kym Tan’s Frame, Muhammad Zamri bin Mahamud’s Pepatih, Fione Chia’s (New Gen D Studio) Grow, Zhafir Muzani’s Two One and Tristen ZiJuin’s Catch 22.
The screening will then move on to Short+Sweet Theatre after a two-minute break.
In this segment, audiences can expect four short but heart-warming works written during the lockdown.
They include Siddhant Lahiri’s Five Questions (directed by Lahiri), Lawrence Chin’s Searching for Elephants (directed by Yee Heng Yeh), Kent Tan’s My Appa Died Again (directed by Tan), Fa Abdul’s #METOOLAH (directed by Charity Yong).
All works will be in English, save for My Appa Died Again, which is performed in English, Cantonese, Hokkien and Bahasa Malaysia.
These performances are the two final segments of last year’s Short+Sweet festival that couldn’t be staged due the conditional movement control order.
For the uninitiated, Short+Sweet is presented in bite-sized theatrical treats with each work lasting no longer than 10 minutes.
The entire screening for this weekend’s combined shows will last approximately 120 minutes and unlike previous years, there will be no audience voting.
Despite the full lockdown, Klpac and The Actors Studio are undeterred from pushing out a different show each weekend all through June virtually.
There will be Bollywood Dreams, directed by Datuk Faridah Merican, from June 11 to June 13 followed by the golden oldies concert Yesterday Once More 3 from June 18 to June 20.
Wrapping up the theatre venue’s final WFH@klpac for June is Don’t Let Hantu Know that will be screened from June 25 to June 27.
Also available for free online, the public can access Storytime with Uncle Joe and Aunty Faridah as well as the Talking Aboutdocumentary series here.
Supported by MyCreative Ventures, Cendana and Penjana, tickets for these online screenings can be purchased here.
Every ticket sold will help keep Klpac afloat in these troubling times, especially when live performances are temporarily disrupted to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The Actors Studio and Klpac have lost RM2 million due to the pandemic and must raise RM3.3 million by December 2021.
The public can make a donation here.
Short+Sweet Dance and Short+Sweet Theatre will be streamed on Saturday, June 5 and Sunday, June 6 at 8.30pm at a flat rate of RM23.
Visit klpac.org for more details.
