Closure

It's late, I'm just back from concert, my blog is a mess and I'm a mess. But there's something I've got to note down, and I plan never to forget it.

It's just a small detail, but it's often these things that leave the most lasting impressions.

Okay... flashback to last year, after the Saturday night concert... was it Saturday or Friday? After the show, we were spread around the stage, taking group pictures and trying to hold on to the time of our lives. I was walking past the front row of seats when this woman approached me with a little girl in tow.

She told me how much she had enjoyed our performance, and how her daughter - the little girl now clinging on to one of her legs - had been thrilled to catch the comb I threw into the audience during the dance. And sure enough, there it was in her daughter's hand - the little black comb we all decided to buy on impulse. At the time she couldn't have been more than three or four years old.

She doesn't exactly look like that, but let's pretend she does.

One year passed and I forgot all about the girl and her mother.

Maybe I was setting my expectations too high after what we did with Grease last year, but this year's concert definitely felt in want of something compared to its predecessor. Maybe it was how fast everyone disappeared after the show was over, or even before... there was no celebratory mood as there had been the last time.

Walking past the front row of seats, I was approached by a woman again. She smiled at me as though she knew me. She asked me if I was the same boy who had been in Grease, and this didn't surprise me... I'd been recognized as such by parents before. I said yes, I was, and behind her I noticed a little girl clinging to one of her legs.

Realization struck me like a load of bricks.

She spoke to me, confirming what I had suspected... she was the same mother who had complimented me last year, whose daughter had caught my comb and was now standing, noticeably taller, in the same position she had been the last time we met. She recognized me, and according to her, so did her daughter. The girl shied away from me, exactly as she had done previously and I was just overwhelmed by the most perfect feeling of closure.

It was more than I could have hoped for, more than I had ever dreamed of.

Closure, that's what it was. Closure of the last memory I would ever have performing before the whole school, and of the one almost-perfect year that had followed after August 2006, when I discovered what would become my deepest passion.

That's over now. I'm not being - to employ a word already abused by our students - emo or anything, but it's a fact. Tonight was a lot of last chances for me, and the far from perfect result meant that I missed most of them.

Nothing left to look forward to, huh? Nothing left but to hit the ground running, towards the trials and the SPM... And it'll be over so soon you'll look back at your school life and wonder where the time had gone... or maybe it's over already.

That's just too depressing for words.

Lest I Forget

Warning: This post contains a hell lot of words.

It's not my style, so to speak, to write angry blogs about things because, well, it's so much nicer to read about nice things. But sometimes I need to make a note for myself. Lest I forget.

I'm going to write down my thoughts as they cross my mind. Something else I don't do much.


Two things. The Interact Club and the school concert.

About the Interact Club... well I don't have much to say. I mean, we're all so used to the tantrums getting correspondingly huger with each project, but the way she put it, firing the Vice President a fortnight before the end of the club year sounds almost like club policy (well, it didn't happen, but that's how she made it sound). An annual event, even. My feelings about the club have been inconsistent throughout.

On Tuesday I thought it was so amazing we were finally having a board meeting that was just pure fun... planning the installation of the new board, what was more. A farewell party was on the cards, and cushy retirement beckoned.

On Wednesday she was in a bad mood to begin with, but the installation went pretty well. And... well, Kai Foong asked me to say a few words and I almost choked up doing it. But I held on even though I thought my voice must have been getting shaky... and I spoke about how it suddenly became so clear, my memory of starting my directorship in that very spot barely a year ago, how brief and precious that year became to me, and how no matter what happened I'd always carry fond memories of my time as an Interactor.

On Thursday she had to go and spoil it all over again.

I found myself feeling sorry for the form fours. They have an entire year to go through. Funny huh? Just the day before I was telling everyone about how short our term of service was and how I wished it could be longer. I guess I'm not completely immune to her tantrums yet. It was one of those times I would have warned you against ever joining the Interact Club. I'm not sure how I feel about it right now. Thinking back to all the good and bad times... the good times were good, but the bad times were really bad.


And about the concert... I don't really know where to begin.

My dance... saying it's a disappointment would be an understatement. I mean, it's great for the girls, but I'd rather be a guy in any other dance but mine.

I don't care who reads this.

It's not your fault, any of you. The only ones I can blame for this are Matthews and myself. Matthews for following that amazing guide I wrote to the letter, and myself for not forseeing something like this.

When we first started out, the guys were doing their own thing, the girls were doing their own thing and everything was fine. The guys even got to practice in the hall... alone! I guess we were messing around too much cause Grace went and complained to Matthews about our dance being too hiphop, and Vicky pulled us out of there midway through the second week so we wouldn't get into any more trouble.

Not being able to use the hall was annoying, but we carried on without it and we managed to get our steps done by the third Wednesday of practice, one day before the first rehearsal.


On Thursday morning, Sarah came to me early and told me the guys wouldn't be dancing that day. According to Vicky, Matthews had already received complaints about the guys being too modern and the girls being too Malay, so she didn't want to risk anything by showing her our part when she was out to get us. I didn't feel that our steps were overly... not Indian, but I agreed.

Well, the dances were screwed from the start. I watched Matthews scold the Egyptian dancers until one of the girls cried. That was... well... I came to a realization. Matthews wasn't just a strict, old-fashioned cow. She actually was a bad principal. No matter what your stance on education, any principal who can yell at a performing student until they break down doesn't deserve to be in office. That's just too much.

Anyway, our girls got it from her too. The way they shook was too slow, she said. Too sexy. If they shook faster she would have called it Indian. We had to do the dance again, from scratch. Even the song had to go, since it was in Hindi, which was from North India, when we were South India. Where the Indians speak Tamil.

Why can't the Indians just be unified? Why do they have to have factions?

So we started from scratch. Without her having even seen the guys dance. And that was fine with me. So we changed the story of the dance too. Instead of the girls coming out, then the guys, then both, we'd have the girls out from the start with the guys, and they'd all have scenes. And that was fine with me.

They told me to come up with new moves for the guys. Which I did.

And so began the fourth week.


On Monday, the teaching of a whole new dance was underway. That day, the girls were getting most of the moves. I couldn't do much because I wasn't not familiar with the song (it all sounded the same) and I needed to know what the girls were doing because I had to fit the guys moves in around them. But that was fine with me. At least we had some freedom.

On Tuesday, the guys were taught steps... well, basically what the girls had done the day before. I was given a slot for the guys to do their own moves. We would still be sandwiched by the girls during that time though. But that was fine with me. At least we were doing our own thing.

On Wednesday, Vicky began the polishing of the dance, so to speak. Which basically meant doing mundane things like walking, turning and shaking over and over again until she was satisfied. That was still fine with me, since it was all for a good reason.

And another thing... the time the guys had for our own moves was cut in half, and now we would be spending about half a minute in a freeze behind the girls before rejoining them for the last few steps.


On Thursday, we had to give up that time completely. And instead of freezing behind the girls, we'd be backstage for a full minute. Enough time, we said, for a few rounds of Blackjack. And of all the time we did have on stage, all we did was either mimic the girls or shake. The final number of steps I contributed to the dance? Two.

During one of our cuter formations, Sharlene asked me if I was embarrassed. I told her I wasn't. It was the truth... I was past being embarrassed, past being angry and past trying to fix things.

I hate it, but what can I do? Wasting my energy on it won't solve a damn thing. I'm only sorry for the other guys. I'm sorry for En Yaw, Jason, Brian and Kevin. I'm sorry you got involved in this. I'm sorry I couldn't help you do more of a dance. I'm sorry things turned out so bad the only possible progression in this vein would be to remove the guys altogether.

Well, that's all I guess.


Good thing music's a healing force. If I hadn't been listening to these tracks all day, I might be in a much worse mood.

PS: A warning to North India's lady dancers (especially Sandra), Brian's Form Ones - the little Africans - are perving on you.

How To Organize A School Concert

So you've decided to organize a concert for your school, but you're clueless about dancing and music, you have no previous experience and you're completely lost in the planning stage.

Never fear! This user friendly, step-by-step guide will have your concert up and floundering in no time.

* Step One: Just Add Water

First, you need to consider what your concert is going to feature. It could contain acting, singing, dancing, or a combination of all three. A musical is ideal for this purpose.

Apart from being greatly enjoyable for audiences of all ages, a good musical has the potential to immerse your entire school in a warm blanket of song, dance and high spirits.

Observe the following. It's a promotional video for Sri Cempaka's We Will Rock You Musical last year. Yeah, they did a musical based on Queen. So what?

Click to watch. It's a really fun, inspired piece of work.

* Step Two: Pick A Theme

You see, every concert needs a theme. However, the less original the theme the better.

As I just mentioned, last year Sri Cempaka did a musical based on Queen. That wasn't very unoriginal. And worse, the entire soundtrack consisted of rock songs!

If you let rock into your school, sooner or later you're going to end up with rock and roll, and your school concerts are going to start kicking ass. We don't want that. No way. It's a school production. Ass kicking has no place in an institution of learning.

Going back to the selection of an appropriate theme, what about one that allows for diverse selection of content while retaining watertight criteria for selection?

...Yeah, you probably didn't get that.

What it means, is that with the right theme, you can have a whole lot of different performances, yet make sure that everyone in those different performances sticks to the plan.

Sounds like getting to have your cake and eat it too, doesn't it?

Figure 1.0 - Cake

Well the cake is present, it is delicious and it has a name.

Dances From Around The World.

No... wait for it... Traditional Dances From Around The World. See? That way you can have a whole bunch of people doing anything you want - you have an entire world full of nations and cultures to pick from - and an easy way to remove any aspect you don't want. Just say it's not traditional enough!

Crazy huh? And as if that wasn't enough reason to go with Dances From Around The World, you can even take the chance to seed a little patriotism into the audience. Or force it down their throats.

See, you could have a couple of actors going all around the world, checking out all the dances in all the countries and eventually coming to the realization that there's no place like home. Brilliance!

So what do you think? I think we nailed it.

* Step Three: A Cast Of Thousands

Before deciding how many students you want to include in your production, consider this. Three hundred students will inevitably have more parents than a hundred students. And as a school, parental support is important. Think about it. Would you really pay to see a show staring someone else's kids?

You don't exactly get a warm and fuzzy feeling looking at it, do you?

See? See! That's magic.

All parents would prefer to look at the second picture, the one with their child in it, compared to the first one, which is almost identical but full of strangers. Similarly, a concert with their own child in it will garner more of their support than one without. How do we ensure that we reap the benefits of this support to its fullest?

You guessed it: a cast of thousands.

* Step Four: Rome Wasn't Built In A Day, But We're Not Building A City Here

There are several fundamental rules to a production of any kind. Observe the following.


Keeping this rule in mind is vital. You can't have everything.

If you want to have an awesome concert with maximum student participation, the sheer multitude of factors involved mean it's obviously not going to come together in a couple of weeks.

If you want to architect a great show but you haven't got a whole lot of time, you'd most likely have to give the spotlight to a handful of students who already know what they're doing and don't need weeks of practice to prepare.

If you want to involve as many students as possible, but you don't want to mess up too many of their lessons in the process, some quality will inevitably be sacrificed in bringing the show home.

We've already established that we want to pack as many students onto that stage as the UN will tolerate, so what are we going to sacrifice? Quality or lesson time?

Back up a minute, why is this even a question? If you detract pupils from the syllabus, you're going to get lots of complaints from parents! Besides, most moms and dads don't care how bad the show is, as long as their kids are in it they'll whoop and cheer all the same. It's high school!

* Step Five: Burn The Ships

Cortes had a plan, he wanted to lead an expedition into Mexico to obtain its many treasures. He presented his plan to the Spanish governor, who was so excited that he gave him eleven ships and seven hundred men.

Cortes did not tell the men or the governor the complete plan. After months of travel the eleven ships landed in Veracruz. Cortes had the men unload everything from all eleven ships. As they headed into their new adventure the men turned back and saw all eleven ships burning!

Their reaction was to fight back, as surely an enemy had initiated such an attack. Cortes halted the men, as this was in his plan, he had ordered the ships to all be burned.

Cortes did not know what he and his men would encounter in their expeditions. What he did know was that by burning the ships he had completely eliminated their option of going back. At the same time creating an intensely powerful motivation to succeed.

Figure 2.0 - Burn them good

What does this have to do with your concert? Well, it's hardly on equal terms with an invasion of Mexico, but what both ventures have in common is that they're, well, ventures and whether a venture is made or broken depends heavily on the level of commitment of the people involved.

Since you have no ships to burn, how do you ensure that your cast remains dedicated? Here's an idea: why not issue a directive that requires students to remain in a dance once they sign up? Most students will sign up for the concert as soon as they get the chance, and often don't check the details first. In a way, it's kinda like making them sign a contract with the devil, but less fair.

If any parents complain, just tell them that their child should not be in the school at all if they are unwilling to follow the rules. Don't forget to mention how many people frequently beg for a place in the school, even if the last time that happened was in 1994.

Congratulations! Now you know how to organize your very own school concert!

Good luck, and don't forget to check out Around The World With Wesley on the 22nd of July (this month)! Our dancers have been practicing real hard an hour a day, four days a week for about three weeks now!

Wait... by the time you're reading this, all the tickets for seats in our own highly exclusive, limited capacity hall have probably sold out.

Oh well.