Final Call for FT1

Guys and gals, final call to sign up for FT 1. Please email Isaac if you're coming.

In addition to Bro. Superior's visit on Sunday, we're having celebrity MXV who was recently featured in NST to help us on Saturday!

NST Extract:

Ingenious Voon

He has weathered depression, survived an major accident, mentored a TV reality show and helps with community work. MAX KOH gets to the heart of dancer-choreographer Michael Voon

MEETING dancer-choreographer Michael Voon is like bumping into an old friend. Caught munching on a sandwich at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur recently, he says: “Hi... have I met you somewhere before? You look familiar.” Before you can say “No this is a first for me”, we are chatting away like pals.

Jam Collage: A signature dance piece which Voon performed in Malaysia, the US and Australia. You can catch it on www.youtube.com

He says his first New Sunday Times interview was in 1987. “At that time, I had just completed my SPM, and Operasi Lalang had caused newspapers to be shut down.

“NST was the only English publication left available that weekend. So, everyone read that little article about me.” The full-page colour spread titled Over-Achiever told of how Voon had received a full scholarship to study dance in Mesa State College in Colorado. “For a poor boy in Ipoh, it was a big dream come true. “Until Standard Five, I lived in a house where the jamban was outside. I had never even flown in a plane before. Who would have thought I’d go and study in the United States?” How did this happen anyway? Voon says he loved to listen to the short-wave radio as a child. One night, he had tuned in to the Voice Of America programme hosted by Arlene Francis which included a section where listeners could send in their questions to the show.

“My question about the performing arts was picked. At that time, I had just watched Fame. (The original with Irene Cara.) “Somehow, my name got spread around in the shortwave (radio) and people asked me to apply to Colorado to study performing arts,” recalls Voon who did his first piece of dance choreography for a pantomime on Charlie’s Angels when he was 14. “The professor in Mesa State said the college would sponsor my first semester but I didn’t even have money for my flight there. In the end, I got a full scholarship and completed my Bachelor of Arts.” He says the NST article even caught the eye of a local resort who created “an illustrious job for me”.

Live performance in Times Square on Broadway, 2005. Voon also taught movement classes at Chelsea Studios, New York City.

But Voon felt it was a joke because the story came out during the political turmoil and recession of 1987. He was in the midst of personal problems as his grandfather had just died and his parents were in the process a of divorce. He didn’t last long at the resort. “I got really depressed and I decided to run back to Colorado and escape all my problems. They promised me another scholarship and to give me my old job back, which was painting Southwest Indian jewellery,” said Voon, a former student of St Michael’s Institution in Ipoh.

But he got neither the scholarship nor the job. Voon recalls spiralling into a depression.

“I was labelled an overachiever, got a double major and a minor within four years, my Master’s degree at a certain age, and the possibility of climbing the corporate ladder — it all came crashing down. “But I was glad it happened that way, because the depression allowed me to find my spiritual centre. Before that, I realised that I had been dancing externally.

“The depression forced me to ask myself why I danced in the first place. “It was then I realised that I had to find the movement in my heart. When the movement is so strong you cannot contain it, you’ll find it flowing out to your limbs. At this point, you find that (movement) has meaning.” Since then, Michael has taught countless dancers at workshops to identify their movement within themselves and then express it.

Director-choreographer Voon for of YKLS’ jazz concert called Breakin’ It Down in 2008.

“When you are dancing to a certain movement at home, you are actually following an image of a dance routine. To me, that is syiok-sendiri. When you identify your own movement, it comes out naturally.” Today, Voon has acted and performed in more than 100 stage and TV productions.

He is a lecturer in digital-graphic design, dance, choreography and performing arts. Among others, he has directed the choirs Young KL Singers and Wicked Pitches, facilitated in Digi’s Amazing Malaysians, performed on Times Square in New York, coached actors of Popiah Pictures, choreographed Susuk The Movie, and coached 8TV-Unit artistes including Malaysian Idol 1 & 2 winners Jaclyn Victor and Daniel (Danell) Lee. Voon is also involved in social community work, something he took up when in the US.

As a lecturer, Voon has met many a young talent including film-maker Bernard Chauly, whom he helped choreograph his first dance piece.

“When I graduated, I was supposed to choreograph Lat The Kampung Boy Musical which starred a Form Four boy named Afdlin Shauki. “I also met a young boy, Sean Ghazi, in 1987 who was dancing freelance at that time,” recalls Voon.

Voon would later work with Afdlin in the successful Hip-Hopera Musical which ran for two seasons in 1998 and 1999. So what’s next? “It’s going to be exciting as the next project would signify my re-debut in musical theatre after so many years.” Under the flagship of Broadway Academy Production, Voon and producer Casey Koh are working to bring Shout! The Mod Musical in June. “It will feature local performers. So far, Ning Baizura and Francesca Peters have expressed their interest to be part of it.

“The musical is all about suspending disbelief and enjoying the British 60s swing era when songs by Shirley Bassey and Cilla Black were hot,” he said.

In April, Voon’s Diaries In Black, a choreographed piece performed in the Short + Sweet dance festival, will make its debut in Sydney. The Short + Sweet event offers new pieces by anyone in bite-sized treats, each less than 10 minutes. The dance featured retired ex-gymnasts and wushu exponents who has sustained injuries in their careers.

“Two years ago, I was in a bad road accident and broke my femur (thigh bone). It could have ended my stage career, but I was calm as I knew God would teach me new things through the accident,” he said after displaying he could walk without any problems despite having permanent titanium in his legs. It was his accident that led him to choreograph Diaries In Black with the numerous dancers. After that full-page spread in the NST, the 45-year-old has overcame many obstacles in life. “What kept me going all these years is the desire to help people discover their movement within.

“Of course, sometimes I wished I had received more accolades and become more famous. It is only natural that you feel that sometimes. But what is even more important is that I must be honest in everything that I do — be it