THE Kuala Lumpur Tango Club presents Montevideo Night, a tango showcase starring Uruguayan tango exponents Nazareno and Mariana at the Royal Selangor Golf Club in Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

Jointly organised with the Embassy of Uruguay, Montevideo Night is a typical River Plate Milonga where guests will be able to join the Uruguayan duo on the dance floor.

Nazareno and Mariana are said to be among the finest tango dancers in the world and they are also reputable choreographers. They have been dancing partners since 1997, members of the corps de ballet of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Montevideo, Uruguayan Champions of the Stage Tango category and semi-finalists of the Tango Dance World Cup Championship on three occasions including 2008.

The duo participated as soloists in numerous prestigious shows around the world. This month too they will participate at the Fourth Pusan Tafisa World Sport for All Games, representing Uruguay.

They have developed their own original style with emphasis on traditional tango esthetics. In their classes they take traditional tango as a starting point, but give incentives for students to explore and seek identification with the dance.
They also emphasise connectivity between dance partners and improvised dance techniques.

The tango club runs weekly tango events around the city and provides dance enthusiasts with the opportunity to learn as well as enjoy the Latin American dance form.

The club also organises the Kuala Lumpur Tango Festival which features tango workshops in the Central Market.

Uruguay’s contribution to the genre is important and numerous. The best known tango forms such as La Cumparsita and Madreselvas are Uruguayan, as are the dance’s composers and orchestra conductors such as Gerardo Mattos Rodriguez and Francisco Canaro, singers such as Carlos Gardel and Julio Sosa, poets such as Horacio Ferrer and dancers such as the legendary Lola Candales.

The famous tango La Morocha is dedicated to Candales as well as Margarita Verdier, another legendary dancer of Tiempos Viejos fame.

Entry RM100. Time: 8.30pm. Call 012-315-1008 or 012-662-8022 or visit tangomalaysia.com/pages/N&M.html.

New Straits Times

“Refuge” depicts towering trees in a forest beneath an indigo blue night sky.

THE art exhibition “Fragments of Me” featuring the latest works of Singapore-born Stephanie Hazejager-Sng draws to a close this Sunday, having spent two weeks at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPaC) in Sentul Park, Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur.

“Finding the Time” is a portrait of loneliness and self-reflection.

“Fragments of Me” is the first solo exhibition of Hazejager-Sng, 42, who completed art school in Britain in 2004.

Married to a Dutchman, she spends her time between Holland, Britain and Malaysia, picking up inspirations for her masterpieces along the way.

“Fragments of Me” is Hazejager-Sng’s artistic statement about her life as an expatriate.

She said: “It is an exploration of my thoughts. These paintings are pieces of me, my life, memories and thoughts at present. They are fragmented and disjointed, sometimes chaotic and conflicted, much like my physical and mental state of being.
“I look around me, inside me, seeking therapy in many forms to calm and centre myself. I sometimes succeed, gaining a reprieve until another event spirals me out of vortex.”

The artist works with oil and mixed media. Her paintings range from semi-abstract to fully abstract, and its colours, textures and forms convey different emotions.

“They evoke different moods such as passion, warmth and disharmony. Some may say that a variety of techniques means obscurity and are symbolic of spirituality. All I can say is that I simply paint how I feel,” she said.

Among the works are “Finding the Time”, a colourful yet dark and lonely scene of a woman by herself in a room, and “Refuge”, a haunting scene of a thick forest of towering trees beneath an indigo blue night sky.

The artist studied fine art at Guildford College of Further and Higher Education in Guildford, Britain from 2002 to 2004, and participated in group exhibitions there.

She said the life of an expatriate wife is interesting because it entailed a large degree of “freedom with alienation”, and that the idea of being dislocated and relocated repeatedly made life “like a pendulum swing, always in motion”.

The art exhibition in the foyer of KLPaC is from 10am to 10pm daily. Call 03-4047-9016.

New Straits Times

HONG KONG : For the Chinese, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time to celebrate old traditions. And in Hong Kong, it is also when one fading art form comes to life.

Although the sight of traditional Chinese paper lanterns is becoming a rarity, there is one place which is keeping this dying art alive.

Tucked away in the windy streets of Hong Kong’s Soho area is Chow Kee on Elgin Street. The shop is owned by Chan Kwei-chow, better known as Master Chan.

At 90, Master Chan is believed to be the oldest paper lantern-maker in Hong Kong. He has been honing his craft for more than six decades, making each creation by hand, using only simple tools.

He joined the industry at the age of 20, working for his uncle who owned Chow Kee during the 1950s and 1960s, the glory days of paper-crafting. Back then, Master Chan was paid for his hard work with three meals a day.

He recounted: “When we started, there was no salary, we only earned meals. That time was before the Second World War. We were given meals and I just kept working all day.”

A dedicated worker, Master Chan picked up techniques from careful observation. He quickly realised his talents and eventually took over his uncle’s shop.

Master Chan does not follow any sort of design or diagram. He just uses simple pieces of bamboo, sheets of paper, and transforms it into whatever he is imagining in his head.

Lanterns are not his only specialty - Master Chan also crafts elaborate paper figures used as offerings in traditional Chinese rituals. He can custom-make creations and has even had requests from customers in India to craft effigies of Hindu gods.

But the paper-crafting industry is on the verge of extinction. Nowadays, demand for these creations only comes around a few times a year. The situation has been threatened further by cheaper and durable machine-made imitations that are mass-produced on the mainland.

Master Chan refuses to use machinery, which is why his creations have been recognised as masterpieces and have even been featured in the Hong Kong Museum of History.

However, he does not plan to pass on his secrets to his children, who are all grown up with families of their own. He said he knows there is no profit in the paper-crafting industry and is not worried about going out of business.

He said: “There is nothing you can do about it. To be honest, this helps me pass the time and allows me to support myself. I don’t need anything else.”

For now, Master Chan is content to keep things simple, running the shop with his wife and creating his masterpieces for all to admire - no matter who buys them. - CNA/ms

Channel News Asia