Me, Myself & Opera

Ponyo ponyo... she is going to UK for this traditional culture Vocal competition! My god. I heard that she will be competing wit 30 participants from 11 countries! It's going to be a tough competition and Ponyo wants to win it too. MY gosh but 30 participants from 11 countries? They must be like the best in their country lor. I think it's going to be a tough fight. Some other students are also going to UK to compete in the musical category. I hope they do win it. They are our young students from the nanyin orchestra. Though they don't have lots of experiences in Nanyin but I think they are playing pretty well already. Heard that Ponyo will be singing solo, without music if she goes into the finals. Wah, that is like super stress. Imagine a super big theatre and you are singing solo without music. Ponyo said that she has got the skills already and what she needs now is that stroke of luck. It's true cuz the judges are bound to mark the participants by their own preferenc...

For a few times these few weeks, I have been meeting up with susan whenever I am free to practice Yueju with her at TPY. I know she is very keen in pulling me into her yueju group so I sometimes go there and see look. Because Director Zhang is here, we made use of the opportunity to let Zhang correct our movements and teach us more about acting. I must say that I have also learnt a lot from Director Zhang. Susan, Xue yan and Director Zhang practicing an excerpt from the Lady White Snake. I think they did pretty well under Zhang's guidance. At least I can see a big improvment in their acting after a few lessons from him. Sorry the image is dark cuz they are back facing the light source. We realised that its dark like this so we moved to another area where the TPY statue was founded. This is the famous TPY Statue. LOL! Xue yan is a hardworking student. I started practicing this yueju excerpt with Susan, 草桥结拜. It's really difficult for me because I don't know how to sing yu...

Siong Leng has organised a make up lesson for us at the Make Up Studio beside SL. Make Up Studio is a company specialising in professional make up and teaching people how to do make up. SL sponsored us this lesson so that we can do better make up for our performances in future and stop making a mess on our faces! Hahaha. I am grateful lah cuz it really benefits me alot. Today, the make up we learn is not opera make up. It's modern stage make up. The Make up studio has prepared for us all the neccessary make up tools and mirrors. We all sit together on this table like really good students. Look at ponyo's face. So glum! haha. And she must pose with this brush lor. The make up kit that the class supplied us. We can bring the brushes home. Wow, still got free gifts ah. Not bad leh. Susan is very happy again. MAke up removal wet tissue and cotton buds all neatly set beside our mirrors. Suddenly uncle comment that if this class is very sexist because how come all the ladies has got ...

For 3 consecutive sundays, I had performances at SL, this clashes with COI and I had to compromise both sides. I ended COI early so that I arrive at SL late but at least in time. The performance is really very short and simple enough but we had to dress up with ancient costumes etc so we need some time to prepare. For the show, we made Govin, the tabla player, create some new things to go with our 'sibao'. It's actualy a percussion piece but Govin couldn't catch the feeling so me, Yayi and Govin stayed at SL till 11pm one day to practice with him. Poor little Govin, Yayi is still trying to convery her ideas to him. On one of the Sundays, a Korean TV team came to record a documentry or something like that. Not sure. I didn't take part in this but I got to go help them do the hair. As they are going to appear on TV, I had to do their hair very neatly and with as few visible hair clips as possible. The back view of the hair I styled. The front view. At least it's...

I am starting the 'MAD' series. This MAD series will show how each and every student in COI is actually MAD! As I said, mad people attract mad people. We will grow as a very mad troupe. First of all though, I must come across the mad things that our people do and jot them down so that I can blog them. They have done many mad things but I didn't write them down before so I forgot them all. Now, I will collect the mad incidents of everyone. I can say that almost everyone (including me) has a mad moment. Before talking about dearest Zhu ying, we will look at this 2. I found them to be sitting very symmetrically with each other! Hahaha. So funny right. Like a mirror image. Ok, ZY is acting as a dan in our new show. She did not have a choice. If she can choose she won't choose to do dan. So no choice. In this show, she gave birth to a pair of twins which she often carry around in her scenes. In one of her scene, she is suppose to run away carrying one of her babies and then ...

I dunno if this is fate or this is destiny but we have alot of crazy people in our COI class. Maybe it's because there are already many crazy people and crazy people attracts other crazies to join them like a magnetic force. So therefore, my class is FULL of mad people. Or maybe they are originally very normal when they just joined but they got influenced by the crazies in class so they also become crazy. Either way, we are now like a mad house. And Ang is the Mistress of this Mad house. One day, right after a crazy night at Teacher's house (drinking as usual) we all thought that nobody will attend class the next day cuz alot of people were quite drunk. Surprisingly, everyone attended class. First we have singing class and at times, teacher will make us sing solo so that she can correct us. When it was Lizuan's turn to sing, she told teacher,"老师，你要站在我面前我才会唱咧。" I don't know what kind of weird logic Lizuan has but our teacher being very good-natured, accepted he...

I have been talking about rehearsing this Han Dan Ji since a long time ago but we didn't act it until 29 May. Finally, we acted the show that we have practiced for such a long time, on and off. This is the first time I acting as an old woman. For the first part of the show, I acted as a young lady. Then I got married and then my husband got sent to exile. After that when he was released, we live peacefully till 80 years old. This is a pic of me when I am 80. My first time, I rather liked it. I think it's cute! haha the white wig is cute! Some friends told me I dun look like old lady. I look more like 白发魔女. :) May and Susan, not so romantic.. Hahaha. taking photo with susan is tricky cuz she is so skinny! If you are not careful, you will look like giant beside her. Trust me. I know her so well. May in her new costume. Nice? She very long never doll up this way liao. In her own make up, her own costume etc. So I think she must be very happy la. Miss Tan, the 店小二。In her hand, ...

It was costume distribution day. It's like a tradition for us. A week before the show, Ang will distribute the costumes and the headgear stuff. We will then bring back the things and check for missing pieces and iron them. If you turn up with a missing piece or an unironed piece of costume, then get ready to kana from our tough teacher. So being her students for the past like dunno how many years, we always check our things and ensure that everything is in perfect order. Our aspiring Xiaosheng, Zhuying, brought her wig to COI to ask Ang how to fix it. Buying a wig is an indirect way of telling teacher that you are determined to do that role. If you send $400 on a sheng's wig, teacher will know that you are more or less determined to do Sheng and will then try to push you to that side. So Zhuying want to show her determination, she got this sheng's wig. And asked Teacher to fix it forher. She looked very good in her wig but she very stingy, dun let me take photo.. Use that ...

Never will I link Jay Chou and Yueju together but someone else did. He changed Jay Chou's 'Ju Hua Tai' to Yue Ju version. I think he did a pretty good job converting. It gave this song a new touch which I like very much. So I am sharing with you guys!