Dancing Vampire King
Vampire king ousted by wife
But she wants him back
I saw a dance-drama for the first time a Petronas Performing Arts Group (PPAG) production called Raja Bersiong. An interesting experience (I is cultured, you know?), courtesy of my best mate, The Voyager. It was held at the Petronas Philharmonic Hall, housed in the 2nd tallest building in the world (the Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur). A very intimate hall; I feared the dancers may fall off the stage, that is how tiny the stage is. But then again, it was designed as a concert hall for orchestral performances, which is probably why the stage was practically on the front row audiences' laps.
It was based on the story of the vampire king, Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria of pre-Islamic Kedah (a northern state in Malaysia). The story was that he developed a taste for human blood when his chief cook accidentally cut her finger while preparing his favourite dish of red spinach in coconut milk (yum!). When his chief cook was too anemic too cook, thanks to her sacrifice to prepare blood-infused dishes, he decided to empty his gaol to fulfill his taste for iron supplementation. His fangs grew as his appetite for blood increased, gaining him the appellate Raja Bersiong, literally, The Fanged King. When he ran out of prisoners, he cast his eye over the neighbouring state of Kampar and began snatching the subjects next door to add to his dishes.
The king of Kampar, upon realising he was missing a good number of subjects to the vampire king, decided to investigate further to find a means to stop him (after all, less subjects means less workers for the paddy fields and less income for him). He disguised himself as a peasant and contrived to be arrested in order to make an appearance before the bloody king (it was the custom then for the king to sit in judgment for criminal cases ranging from petty thievery to murder). Of course Ong Maha Perita Deria decided that a petty thief is a menace to society and sentenced him to the cooking pot, er ... death. The king of Kampar, faced with the truth of his neighbour's evil, confronted him as his kingly self and challenged him to a duel.
Both of the kings were practitioners of magic and were pretty evenly matched, skill-wise. However, the vampire king had an advantage in that the blood he consumed had intensified his magic and physical strength, making him a powerful adversary. In desperation, the king of Kampar transformed himself into a tiger to try and balance the odds. He was saved when the consort of Ong Maha Perita Deria intervened and dueled her husband to persuade him to quit his bloodthirsty ways. His love for her proved to be his undoing and he was defeated, leaving his court on a self-imposed exile.
The king of Kampar started out as a fun-loving king, more interested in chasing his palace ladies and cavorting with his queen (who did not appear to mind his philandering bent). This did not, however, mean that he was an uncaring ruler, as demonstrated by his decision to confront Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria for the atrocities perpetrated against his people. As commonly stated in Malay mythology, a king must possess supernatural powers; in this case, he has shape-shifting skills. However, I was rather puzzled by his disappearance whereby the consort of Ong Maha Perita Deria took the opportunity to challenge her husband. Did he die? Was he permanently transformed? Who knows? But the actor was pretty cute, with a dashing goatee and a killer smile.
Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria's evolution into a bloodthirsty monarch and subsequent banishment from his own kingdom in this version differed from the story familiar to me. In the story I heard as a child (a version that was famously related by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia and a royal native of Kedah), his subjects staged a revolt, causing him to flee his court, alone. While he was travelling, his fangs began to hurt him, due to the lack of blood in his diet. The spot where he grasped the offending incisors were called Kuala Pegang (Kuala = confluence of two rivers/a meeting of river and sea, Pegang = to hold, grasp), and proceeded to conduct his own DIY dentistry at Pulai (close in sound to pulas, which means to twist) to remove the incisors from his gums. At Baling (baling= throw), he tossed the offending teeth (tooth?) and they landed in a place called Siong (fangs). However, since the story of the vampire king is noted in oral traditions and not exactly documented history, it became an interesting way to explain the names of these places.
The story as penned by Roslee Mansor in this adaptation departed slightly from the version of my childhood. To suit the constrain of storytelling in dance format, he had to choose different foci and approaches that can be conveyed satisfactorily without the aid of any verbal supplementation. A member of the audience commented that it would have been helpful if the acts were separated by short syair or pantun (forms of Malay poetry) to help the audience to follow the narration. This have been applied in other dance-drama to good effect. Perhaps Suhaimi Magi, the director, had greater faith in the audience. Nevertheless, such a device would have improved the audience's ability to follow the story, as many are not familiar with this art form.
Kudos to the composers, Mohd Khairul Anuar Mohd Ramly and Abdullah Omar Abdul Wahid, with Ahmad Muriz Che Rose as music director, for scoring a fantastic soundtrack that kept true to the story with the styling of Siam-influenced traditional music, as one would expect in a story set in Kedah. The combination of instruments such as the violin and the piano together with traditional Malay musical instruments such as serunai, seruling Melayu (Malay flute), rebab, gong and gendang allowed for the incorporation of modern elements with traditional music; the results of which was fantastically beautiful. A pity that the production was rather small and no soundtrack CDs were available for sale.
The dance-drama is an interesting art form; dance and motion is used to tell a story without the need of verbal narration. I am not knowledgeable enough to critique the choreography by Mohd Seth Hamzah, A Sam Palal and Mohd Nordin Abdulatip; but I felt that the styling for the male dancers could be more emphatic. It is my personal bias that when men dance, they should express a great deal of range and energy, to take advantage of their natural strength to explore motion and dimension. The costuming was delightful, with colours carefully chosen to signify the various characters. The kings and their consort had a great deal of golden tones in their costumes; Malay and Thai royalties use golden yellow as their royal colours (once upon a time, it was forbidden for a commoner to wear yellow; it was an offense punishable by death). The nobels of both courts wore green and blue, with green the colour of the Kampar court. The peasants wore earthen shades to signify their connection to the land. The set was simply designed with a sumptuous carved background that appeared to be edged in gold thread in style of tekat (pictorial examples here). This background served as a backdrop for the royal courts as well as a niche to hide the musicians.
All in all, I had fun (although I had nodded off during the scene where the queen of Kampar was tearfully begging her husband to not confront Ong Maha Perita Deria). However, I would not choose to go to another dance-drama (unless someone else paid, hehehe); the lack of dialogue was a bit trying on my nerve. I guess I'm not just a visual person, my ears needed something more than just the music to move the storyline.
But she wants him back
I saw a dance-drama for the first time a Petronas Performing Arts Group (PPAG) production called Raja Bersiong. An interesting experience (I is cultured, you know?), courtesy of my best mate, The Voyager. It was held at the Petronas Philharmonic Hall, housed in the 2nd tallest building in the world (the Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur). A very intimate hall; I feared the dancers may fall off the stage, that is how tiny the stage is. But then again, it was designed as a concert hall for orchestral performances, which is probably why the stage was practically on the front row audiences' laps.
It was based on the story of the vampire king, Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria of pre-Islamic Kedah (a northern state in Malaysia). The story was that he developed a taste for human blood when his chief cook accidentally cut her finger while preparing his favourite dish of red spinach in coconut milk (yum!). When his chief cook was too anemic too cook, thanks to her sacrifice to prepare blood-infused dishes, he decided to empty his gaol to fulfill his taste for iron supplementation. His fangs grew as his appetite for blood increased, gaining him the appellate Raja Bersiong, literally, The Fanged King. When he ran out of prisoners, he cast his eye over the neighbouring state of Kampar and began snatching the subjects next door to add to his dishes.
The king of Kampar, upon realising he was missing a good number of subjects to the vampire king, decided to investigate further to find a means to stop him (after all, less subjects means less workers for the paddy fields and less income for him). He disguised himself as a peasant and contrived to be arrested in order to make an appearance before the bloody king (it was the custom then for the king to sit in judgment for criminal cases ranging from petty thievery to murder). Of course Ong Maha Perita Deria decided that a petty thief is a menace to society and sentenced him to the cooking pot, er ... death. The king of Kampar, faced with the truth of his neighbour's evil, confronted him as his kingly self and challenged him to a duel.
Both of the kings were practitioners of magic and were pretty evenly matched, skill-wise. However, the vampire king had an advantage in that the blood he consumed had intensified his magic and physical strength, making him a powerful adversary. In desperation, the king of Kampar transformed himself into a tiger to try and balance the odds. He was saved when the consort of Ong Maha Perita Deria intervened and dueled her husband to persuade him to quit his bloodthirsty ways. His love for her proved to be his undoing and he was defeated, leaving his court on a self-imposed exile.
The king of Kampar started out as a fun-loving king, more interested in chasing his palace ladies and cavorting with his queen (who did not appear to mind his philandering bent). This did not, however, mean that he was an uncaring ruler, as demonstrated by his decision to confront Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria for the atrocities perpetrated against his people. As commonly stated in Malay mythology, a king must possess supernatural powers; in this case, he has shape-shifting skills. However, I was rather puzzled by his disappearance whereby the consort of Ong Maha Perita Deria took the opportunity to challenge her husband. Did he die? Was he permanently transformed? Who knows? But the actor was pretty cute, with a dashing goatee and a killer smile.
Raja Ong Maha Perita Deria's evolution into a bloodthirsty monarch and subsequent banishment from his own kingdom in this version differed from the story familiar to me. In the story I heard as a child (a version that was famously related by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia and a royal native of Kedah), his subjects staged a revolt, causing him to flee his court, alone. While he was travelling, his fangs began to hurt him, due to the lack of blood in his diet. The spot where he grasped the offending incisors were called Kuala Pegang (Kuala = confluence of two rivers/a meeting of river and sea, Pegang = to hold, grasp), and proceeded to conduct his own DIY dentistry at Pulai (close in sound to pulas, which means to twist) to remove the incisors from his gums. At Baling (baling= throw), he tossed the offending teeth (tooth?) and they landed in a place called Siong (fangs). However, since the story of the vampire king is noted in oral traditions and not exactly documented history, it became an interesting way to explain the names of these places.
The story as penned by Roslee Mansor in this adaptation departed slightly from the version of my childhood. To suit the constrain of storytelling in dance format, he had to choose different foci and approaches that can be conveyed satisfactorily without the aid of any verbal supplementation. A member of the audience commented that it would have been helpful if the acts were separated by short syair or pantun (forms of Malay poetry) to help the audience to follow the narration. This have been applied in other dance-drama to good effect. Perhaps Suhaimi Magi, the director, had greater faith in the audience. Nevertheless, such a device would have improved the audience's ability to follow the story, as many are not familiar with this art form.
Kudos to the composers, Mohd Khairul Anuar Mohd Ramly and Abdullah Omar Abdul Wahid, with Ahmad Muriz Che Rose as music director, for scoring a fantastic soundtrack that kept true to the story with the styling of Siam-influenced traditional music, as one would expect in a story set in Kedah. The combination of instruments such as the violin and the piano together with traditional Malay musical instruments such as serunai, seruling Melayu (Malay flute), rebab, gong and gendang allowed for the incorporation of modern elements with traditional music; the results of which was fantastically beautiful. A pity that the production was rather small and no soundtrack CDs were available for sale.
The dance-drama is an interesting art form; dance and motion is used to tell a story without the need of verbal narration. I am not knowledgeable enough to critique the choreography by Mohd Seth Hamzah, A Sam Palal and Mohd Nordin Abdulatip; but I felt that the styling for the male dancers could be more emphatic. It is my personal bias that when men dance, they should express a great deal of range and energy, to take advantage of their natural strength to explore motion and dimension. The costuming was delightful, with colours carefully chosen to signify the various characters. The kings and their consort had a great deal of golden tones in their costumes; Malay and Thai royalties use golden yellow as their royal colours (once upon a time, it was forbidden for a commoner to wear yellow; it was an offense punishable by death). The nobels of both courts wore green and blue, with green the colour of the Kampar court. The peasants wore earthen shades to signify their connection to the land. The set was simply designed with a sumptuous carved background that appeared to be edged in gold thread in style of tekat (pictorial examples here). This background served as a backdrop for the royal courts as well as a niche to hide the musicians.
All in all, I had fun (although I had nodded off during the scene where the queen of Kampar was tearfully begging her husband to not confront Ong Maha Perita Deria). However, I would not choose to go to another dance-drama (unless someone else paid, hehehe); the lack of dialogue was a bit trying on my nerve. I guess I'm not just a visual person, my ears needed something more than just the music to move the storyline.