Set induction- foundation for the make up

Simulated teaching is back. Oh god... this time we had to teach an aspect for any play that we have learnt. The play that I have chosen to do on is ‘Dance Like a Man’ by Mahesh Dattani. I had never thought there could be so many steps that we had to follow when we teach. The first step is set induction. I was clueless on doing it. Our tutor wants our set induction to be as interesting as possible.
I started my set induction by giving my students the main difference between a play and other literal text. As my play was regarding the traditional dance of Bharathanatyam, I decided to show the students (my classmates) the pictures of some traditional dances from other races (power point presentation) and pictures of a few dance ornaments (power point presentation) required them to guess those pictures. This play that I choose also revolves on prejudice towards male who dances bharathanatyam. So I posted a few questions towards the students:
1. Which gender participates more in this dance?
2. Why do male participate less in the dance?

My tutor did give a few comments on my set induction. One of his comments was the speed of transaction of the pictures in the power point presentation was a bit too fast, thus it was difficult to identify some of the pictures.
Through all the set inductions that I saw, I realise that it is a very important aspect in order to attract the students. It is the step that gives the first impression towards the students regarding the lesson of the day. ;-)

Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like a Man... ;-)

I have selected this play for my simulated teaching. This play is written by Mahesh Dattani. It is about an old couple reflecting upon their life as dancers and their long struggle against the stigma attached to Bharathanatyam, in the 1940s and 1950s, as the dance of the devadasis, compounding the problem for the male dancer.
Throughout reading this play, I noticed that the phrase “be a man” is being repeated. It indicates that a man is suppose to behave like a man and should not learn the art of Bharathanatyam. Jairaj, who is interested in bharathanatyam, was being controlled by his father, Amritlal. Amritlal wants Jairaj to be man, as he thinks that is where a man’s happiness lies. However, I believe that he does not understand that his son’s happiness lies in the dance he loves most, and dancing it makes him happy. I also notice that Amritlal looks down on the dance and believes it’s a dance for prostitutes. In my opinion, he should actually uphold the bharathanatyam dance, which is one of his tradition and encourage both Ratna and Jairaj to pursue the dance.
This play also reminded me of a man named Vishnu. He is a Malaysian. He is a classical bharathanatyam dancer, who participated in ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’. His conflict was more less same as Jairaj. His passion towards bharathanatyam was disliked by his father, and lead to his father to disown him. However, with the help of his sisters, he was able to learn this art from a ‘guru’. Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his final stage due to financial problem. Nevertheless, he was a great bharathanatyam dancer.
Thus, I strongly believe that there should not be any stereotyping or prejudice on which gender should learn bharathanatyam. There is no harm if a man learns bharathanatyam. I have also seen male bharathanatyam dancers. One of the examples is Ramli Ibrahim. He still is being a man. So, what is wrong in learning this art? If we ourselves do not uphold our own root, who will?

Reading a play or watching a movie…??

Oh my god… What am I reading…?? That was the phrases that appear in my brain when I read a play especially the plays that we read for this semester such as Oedipus Rex and King Lear. However, Dr.Edwin asked us to watch the movie of these plays. I think he knows that each of us is totally lost reading the play and watching the movie might help us out with it.
Well, watching the movies does bring me a few benefits. It somehow enhances my understanding if the play better. Besides, there were also some parts and scenes of the play that I cannot visualize. However, through watching the movies, I had a clear visual of the scenes and also had an idea of the setting and lifestyle of the people in the play in those eras. Additionally, the scenes that I watch in the movies leave a greater impact rather than the same scenes which I read in the play. Visual does stay longer in mind rather than words.
However, I realize that I should not rely fully on the movies. I should read first the play to get a rough idea of what it will be about. Reading plays is as though putting a base, meanwhile watching the movie gives a better support to the base.
In a way this idea could actually be used in future when I will be teaching in schools. Even though the students will not be learning on plays, the same tactic can be used for novels. I could actually ask them to read the novels first before allowing them to watch the movie. This in a way will interest the students to read the novel. After that, I can reward them to watch the movie. In a way, it attracts students yet builds their understanding of the story.
Both reading the play and watching the movies compensate each other to make us understand better. :-)

Oedipus in play vs. Oedipus in movie

When we were asked to watch this movie, I was eager to see how Oedipus will be walking. To my disappointment, he was walking as fine as others. That was the first thing I realised in the movie. The movie was not up to what I expected. Mainly it was because Oedipus was not portrayed as how I imagine he would have been. He was supposed to have a club foot; however I did not see this in the movie. He was able to run up and down the stairs as a normal person, whereby he was supposed to limp. His costume also did not represent him as a King. There was one point I was confused between Creon and Oedipus as Creon was better dressed; more like a King. The character of Oedipus was not portrayed well as a King. I could not see any dignity in the way he brings himself and talks. I think Oedipus was more portrayed as a person with dignity in the play rather than the movie. There is some differences with the play and movie.
Overall, the movie did not appeal to my interest due to its’ bad visual and audio system. I could barely hear their speeches.
There is one thing that is still bugging my mind.... “Iocaste looks too young to be Oedipus’s mother.” Don’t you think so?

Teiresias: uniqueness in him

When I was reading the play of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, I came across with the character of Teiresias. Dr.Edwin told us that Teiresias is the one who has the insight in the play. I was surprised to hear that as Teiresias is actually a blind man, so how come he could have the sight. This leads me to Google more about Teiresias.
He was the son of Eueres and Charicloa and born in Thebes. Teiresias is a blind prophet of Thebes. There are several reasons for his blindness. One of it was Teiresias accidentally saw goddess Athena bathing and she blinded him. However, she could not undo her curse, thus gave him the gift of prophecy and a life seven generations longer. He was also able to interpret the will of the gods by studying the fight of the birds. Another myth says, Teiresias killed one of the snakes which were coupling with a stick. So, Hera, the goddess of marriage and woman was displeased and transformed him into a woman. He got married and had children. After seven years, he met mating snakes again and struck it. As a result Teiresias was transformed back to a male. According to the third myth, there was an argument between Zeus and Hera about who has more pleasure in sex. Zeus thinks that the woman had more pleasure while Hera thinks it is the man. As Teiresias has experienced both as man and woman, he was questioned. He reveals that women enjoy greater pleasure compared to men. Hera instantly struck him blind due to his disrespect. Zeus could not do anything but to give him with a gift of prophecy and a life of seven generations.

In my opinion, the uniqueness in Teiresias that other men do not have is that he has experienced the life of both as a woman and man. Thus he has a better understanding regarding both genders. The gift in Teiresias enables him to have the insight and prophecy. an extra thing is, the life of seven generations allows him to be in a lot of Greek tragedies in the history of Thebes, such as The Bacchae, by Euripides; Oedipus the King by Sophocles; and Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes.

Another matter that I have realized through this character is that, it is not necessarily if we are having the sight we can distinguish on what is bad and good. There times we can be blinded from seeing the truth due to a few circumstances. Lesson through this character is we must also consider other’s view and opinion, and should not be merely ignorant.

An unavoidable destiny or mere just foolishness

Oedipus Rex... when I first started to read the play, I was totally clueless of what I am reading. The language that is used in this play was a difficult for me to comprehend. However, with the guide and explanations of our lecturer, Dr.Edwin, I understand the text better.
The play begins with Oedipus Rex (King) talking to his people about the plague in Thebes. This is the time when he got to know about the murder of Laius, the former King. He wanted to truth badly so he commands for Teiresias to tell as he can see the future. Teiresias was unwilling to tell the truth but he does hint Oedipus himself is the murderer. Due to Oedipus’s ignorance, he did not realise about it. In the end of the story, Oedipus finds out the truth. The prophecies that are cast upon him have come true. The prophecies are:
• Oedipus will kill his father
• Oedipus will marry his own mother
• Oedipus will have children from his own mother’s womb
At the end of the story, Oedipus finds out the truth. This lead Iocaste, who is Oedipus’s mother and wife to kill herself. Meanwhile Oedipus blinds himself. The ending of the play is a tragedy.
Issue of fate and destiny is very clear in this story. Oedipus couldn’t avoid his fate. He was actually avoid from making the prophecy to be true, but nothing was in his hand.
However, I do feel that his act to help the people of Thebes to overcome the problem that they are facing by finding the murderer of Laius. But his act was a real foolishness act as the truth will only destroy him. He is the murderer that he is looking for. If only he had listened to Iocaste’s advise:
“For God’s love, let us have no more questioning!
Is your life nothing to you?”
he could have avoid such a tragic incident. His good intentions end up hurting him.
Thus, we should believe in fate, but it should be in moderate. We can actually change whatever destined in our lives if we are wise. DO NOT ACT FOOLISHLY thinking that you are wise and falling back to your fate.

writing a play aint easy

“You are required to write an one act play.”
At that moment I felt like, “Oh no. What are we suppose to write about?”
I was clueless on where to start. Thank god, it was not an individual work. My group members were Kalmeet and Dharmini. Firstly, we jotted down some possible themes for our play. However, the themes that keep on striking our mind were regarding friendship and love. However, we wanted to try out something else. Something that is common among teenagers but rarely discussed.
That is when Dharmini came up with a word. TOMBOY! She reminded me of my friend who had the problem during secondary school. It was an issue that is quite spreading among the school children nowadays. Thus we agreed to the theme of searching for one’s identity.
So, we decided to write regarding a girl, named Meghna Rajitha, who acts as a boy. We introduced the character with a boy’s name, Raj (shorter version for her name) in order to give the readers suspense. We decided to reveal the suspense at the end of the story only, where we will reveal her real girl name.
Throughout writing this play, I learned that it is not easy to convey a theme through play. There were times we run out of ideas and jammed. It was difficult to convey the ideas in our brains to words. Sometimes, we were unable to choose the right choice of words. As it was a group work, there were also times when each of us were having different ideas regarding a few scenes. In order to overcome this problem, we divided the scenes. After that we gather all the scenes and did a checking by reading it out to ensure there is a flow in it and none of the scenes are off.
We chose the issue of tomboy as nowadays especially students in secondary schools are facing this problem. This play will create an awareness in them that they should follow their gender identity. Thus, we think that this play is suitable for upper secondary students.

Not just drawing and painting are arts. Dance is also an art.

Traditional dance... Malaysia is rich with a lot of traditional dance as all of us are from different ethnics and culture. All the dances have their own style and uniqueness. However, only one dance has amazed me. It is the Bharatha Natyam. It an Indian traditional dance which origins from India. Now, this art is also being practices by the community in Malaysia.
This dance has both combinations of both the dance steps ( nritta) and dramatic art (natya). In this dance emphasises is also given to the facial expressions and gestures. The dancer should be expressive according to the mood of the song that he /she are dancing. Sometimes the dancer may need to change the facial expression in seconds. This is as though the dancer is communicating with the audience using only his facial expression and gestures. This allows the audience to distinguish the various characters in the song that the dancer is dancing.
In addition, the use of make up in this dance is something that I really adore. One might think that the makeup is just a simple matter. However, it is not as easy as some may think. For bharatha natyam, more emphasis is given to the eye part. Thick eye lining that is tilted up a bit at the end will be put on the dancer’s eyes. This is because the eyes play the most important part in the facial expression. On the other hand, the costumes are also amazing. The materials are based on ‘sari’, which is being stitched as a Bharatha Natyam costume. Through the appearance of the costume, we might think that it is very heavy and inconvenient to wear it when dancing. Conversely, it is actually comfortable and allows the dancers to move freely when dancing. What is dance without jewelleries...?? in my opinion, Bharatha Natyam dancers especially the female ones wear the most numbers of jewelleries(not from 916 gold) when dancing. The utmost important thing that each Bharatha Natyam dancers should wear is the dancing bells (salanggai), which they wear on their legs.
A Bharatha Natyam dancer will pass through different stages in the dance. The final stage, which is more like a graduation performance (Arangetram), is an occasion where the guru presents his/her student to the public. This is the time the student will perform the dance to be judged by the public. At the same time the guru’s knowledge of the dance will also be reviewed by others through the student’s performance. That is why only the guru will decide when the student is ready for it. Typically, it will take at least 10 to 12 years of training before Bharatha Natyam dancer is ready for Arangetram.
Dancer of Bharatha Natyam should have good stamina and concentration. This is because the time duration for a Arangetram will be 2 ½ till 3 hours. In addition, the dancer should perform at least a minimum number of eight songs with only a very small break in between. Some of the songs might even take up 15 minutes per song.

I learned this dance when I was six years old. At that time, I was unable to understand the underlying meaning of the songs that I dance. I just follow whatever my guru teaches me.
It took me two years to finish my basic which is ‘salanggai pooja’. I can still remember the excitement at that moment. It is one of the memorable moments for me.
“Mogana, do some ‘bhavanai’ when you are dancing.” I have never realise what was the purpose my guru said so, as I had always thought we must only remember the dance steps and dance following the rhythm of the song. However, I started to realise it when I was in my teenage age.
Bharathanatyam is not just about the dance steps, it also combines the dramatic art (bhavanai / natya). Facial expression and gestures are very vital for this dance. The dancer should be expressive according to the mood of the song that he/ she is dancing.
I began to understand that the facial expressions that we give when dancing actually help to deliver the underlying meaning of the song. It is actually as though I am communicating with the dancer using my dance steps and facial expressions together with the gestures. There were times when I had to change my facial expressions in seconds.
Many will be thinking that it is very easy to master this art, but it has never been as easy as they thought. It took me two years to finish the basic level. I was on my way to the final stage (Arangetram) after learning the dance for almost eight years; however I had to stop due to my studies. And if I want to continue, it will take me at least another five years. That is not a short period at all. It is almost like studying to be a doctor!!
When we were required to read an extract in the book “Now Read On”, I immediately recognised that the extract is about bharathanatyam due to my previous knowledge about the dance.
Watching a dance performance and watching a play or drama is the same. We have to give importance towards the characters’ expression and gestures besides their speech to know about the play and the characters’ traits.
Finally, one should learn a traditional dance as it is an art that we should uphold. It is very gifted to know our own traditional dance as it reflects our own identity. Maybe after I finish my degree, I might also pursue to complete my dance. Wish me the best for it. :-)