KUALA LUMPUR, 22 December 2014 – Malaysia’s leading performing arts group, Five Arts Centre (FAC) received a RM380,000 boost from Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) for its tenTenTEN programme, in conjunction with FAC’s 30th anniversary.

The two-year funding will be channeled towards a theatre conference, publication, theatre and musical performances, among others. 

During a press conference to announce the funding, YSD Governing Council Member YBhg. Datin Paduka Zaitoon Dato’ Othman said the foundation was honoured to be in partnership with Malaysia’s oldest independent performing arts group. 

“For more than 30 years, FAC has been in the forefront of the arts scene, creating experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural works, as well as providing the platform for the next generation of arts practitioners. There is no doubt that through the sponsorship of tenTenTEN, YSD will contribute towards encouraging and executing new artistic work. We hope the funding will create awareness and educate the audience about local performing arts and the arts, whilst educating and empowering the arts community, specifically theatre and the art of theatre making.” 

 Also present during this ceremony were YSD Chief Executive Officer Puan Hajjah Yatela Zainal Abidin and FAC co-founder YBhg. Datin Marion D’Cruz. 

YBhg. Datin Marion who echoed YSD’s sentiments said, “This partnership with a corporate foundation like YSD is a new beginning for us. The financial support for a small establishment like ours will facilitate a sustained platform for arts management, deepening art awareness and project planning. We are elated that YSD is now officially part of our tenTenTEN celebration.” 

Programmes under tenTenTEN include a theatre conference entitled, “Unfinished Business - a Conference on Krishen Jit’s Performance Practice and Contemporary Malaysian Theatre” to be held from 9 to 11 January 2015 at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (klpac). Krishen Jit was a prolific director, educator, historian, art critic and one of the founders of Five Arts Centre with his wife Datin Marion and other artistes like Chin San Sooi and Redza Piyadasa. After almost a decade of Jit’s passing, the conference will examine his significant influence on contemporary local and international artistes, researchers and academics whom he has worked with throughout his career. The conference will be convened by Charlene Rajendran, a theatre educator, researcher and practitioner currently teaching at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 

YSD is also funding the publication of “Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts Centre, 1984-2014”, a collection of seminal plays, taken from FAC’s staging and production history that runs parallel to the developments in the practice of South East Asian contemporary theatre. This publication will draw from a rich pool of over 100 productions. 

There will also be two theatre performances and a musical production that will be staged as part of tenTenTEN. A theatre performance, “Performing Anis or The Attempted Canning of an Octopus”, written by Leow Puay Tin and directed and performed by Chee Sek Thim will be staged at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC) in February 2015. This theatre is a piece of performance text developed from a workshop on research and documentation by Professor Mohd Anis Mohd Nor, that takes the audience through a series of text modules touching history, culture and identity, using a classroom lecture as its format. 

The other theatre performance will see Mark Teh and Fahmi Fadzil who were friends from a youth theatre group known as “Aksyen” in the 1990’s which has since been disbanded. This project brings them together again, to write and perform but now, within the context of adult men. 

FAC has also began the development work of “Cheras: The Musical”, a musical set to the simple premise of self-discovery and finding happiness, set in the suburb of Cheras. Cheras: The Musical was awarded the New Malaysian Works Grant, an initiative by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture for the development of new scripts. This musical is slated to be staged in the third quarter of 2015. 

YSD, through its Arts and Culture pillar, has supported arts organisations and initiatives, including klpac and the National Dance Tour by the ASWARA Dance Company. Other sponsorships include productions like the 11th JB Arts Festival, the 8th Kota Kinabalu Jazz Festival, Supermokh The Musical and Tropfest South East Asia 2015. YSD encourages the preservation of historical heritage through its support for the revival of The Royal Press, one of the oldest letterpress printing companies in the world which will soon be turned into the nation’s first of its kind living museum.