Kuala Lumpur, 18 May 2004
The Maple at Sentul West homeowners were recently treated to an afternoon of leisure to enjoy The Park at Sentul West. They had come on the?invitation from YTL, who together with The Actors Studio, had organised for a dance performance by?the RiverGrass Dance Academy entitled "Pebbles".
A tent served an array of afternoon tea favourites and icy cold drinks welcomed visitors as they arrived at the edge of the Central Park on the sunny Saturday afternoon. A stage had been constructed for the performance and there were chairs and mats for the audience’s preferred sitting style.
Braving the heat?of the sun but enjoying the breeze, the children, together with their parents and grandparents, had a great time putting the footballs and Frisbees that were provided to full use. Some of the children clambered into the "jumping castle", a colourful inflated "castle", where they jumped to their heart's content. There were even two clowns giving out balloons and entertaining the visitors with their funny antics.
Over at the Boathouse, two artists provided body art – adults and children alike were given flowers and stars and all even animals in colourful and glittery designs on their hands, arms and shoulders. Meanwhile, others explored the Central Park and climbed up the Bird Watch Tower for a bird's eye view of the park,?sat at the hammocks overlooking the stream for a relaxing afternoon rest, and fed the fish and ducks at the stream.
Before long, the start of the afternoon’s show was announced. While the dancers warmed up on the stage, RiverGrass Dance Academy Principal and Artistic Director Mew Chang Tsing led the children through some dance movements. With Mew’s instructions and encouragement, the children, who sat on the mats in front of the audience, moved enthusiastically as they ‘warmed up’ for the show.
The show began with what Mew described as a ‘highly structured’ dance form, a powerful performance by two male dancers with long strips of red cloth. This was followed by a group of female dancers performing a delicately graceful Chinese dance with the use of Malay selendang (long scarf) entitled “From Bukit Cina”.
Children from the dance academy took to the stage next, demonstrating the Improvisation technique in dance. “Improvisation on contrasting energies” saw strong and soft movements. The children then ended their performance with various ways of “Improvisation using techniques of mirroring and shadowing”, which the audience duly applauded with gusto.
The dance academy’s line dancing group next performed the “Summer Night Cha-Cha-Cha”, which attracted whistles each time the all-female group members struck a pose as they stepped and turned to the beat of the music.
For a finale, a group of male and female dancers performed a dance skit entitled “Who’s Number One?” The strong agile movements by the dancers impressed the audience and the end of the skit brought the audience to laughter.
After the performances, the visitors got to know their neighbours better over tea, with the help of the YTL Land & Development staff who introduced the neighbours.
Taking time away from playing football with the children, YTL Land & Development Project Manager Kon Chee Onn said the afternoon’s event was aimed to introduce “Life In Sentul”, which is the tagline used to promote the Sentul East and Sentul West development. “This is the beginning to the monthly events we are bringing to The Park at Sentul.”
Pleased with the overwhelming response and enthusiastic participation of the visitors, YTL Land & Development General Manager Edward Lee, said, “We may even extend the invitation to other YTL homeowners to join us here at future activities.”
Meanwhile, Faridah Merican, co-founder and executive producer of The Actors Studio, the organiser of the event, said: “I love the turnout. It’s a positive feeling when you see YTL doing something like this for the buyers, for them to come and see this performance and the development here. And especially Sentul West is so refreshing”
Seeing that the visitors comprised mainly of a young audience – young couples with toddler children, she said this was the target audience of the performing arts, “When people find performing arts very exciting, it’s a good beginning for them to find that it is fun and is something that they can relate to, nothing too heavy.”
“I love The Park,” she nodded in the direction of the Central Park while continuing that for the following month, a performance of a different genre would be staged – a comedy for the family, entitled “Jumping Jellybeans”.
