Also..

MJ is dead.

The King of Pop has passed on and the world who knew him mourns for his passing.

The world that did not know him, grieves for the lack of knowing for another like him who has the talent for song writing, the skill of artful dance and the ability to touch your heart through his actions would not come so soon.

Artsy..

There's one thing that is quite sad about not having enough money is that you can't go on holidays overseas...


And stuck in our sunny island of Singapore, what is there to do, besides the never-ending movies shown at the theatres, the GSS that we are supposed to be actively spending on in order to stimulate our economy?


*ponder*


Why not see what does the local arts scene have to offer?

In the past couple of weeks, I have been to Own Time Own Target (OTOT)as well as Ballet Under that Stars (BUTS).

In OTOT, what I have come to realise that the Singaporean brand of humour is unique to its homeland. This is of course assured by Singaporean's own tourism campaign whereby we are Uniquely Singapore. Why is this so?

The first show of OTOT, Full tank!, a story whereby a runaway tank captures an escaped terrorist reveals the depth of Singaporean humour. We laugh at others who are representative of ourselves (Am I paid to do your job for you?) and glimpse at the political criticism with regards to the dealing of escape of Mas Selamat. The 'sex scene' was crude and totally uncalled for. The political tirade unleashed on the reporter was not further developed on and the escape of the 'fainted' terrorist was not funny. Along with half the story being scripted in vulgarities, I wonder if Singaporean humour is just that much or did I miss a more subtle message encrypted in the story.

The second story of Botak Boys provided a look at the BMT days of freshly recruited boys. I felt that this story was more reflective of the Singaporean society. The inter-racial mix of an Indian, Malay and Chinese much better than the flamboyance of the Full Tank team. The three Chinese boys also carried the sterotypical Christian boy, the Ah-beng as well as the overseas educated Kantang (Potato). It made the show more relevant as we would have encountered such characters in our daily lives, Perhaps I am biased by my enjoyment of the songs in the second show but I felt that it was more interesting compared to the first where there was too much unknown and angst underlying the reason for the runaway tank. The freudian scene of the dreams by the gay BMT boy was a little overwhelming although the plot of friendship was sweetly poignant.

I have to say that I expected more musical than play and this probably contributed to the letdown of Full tank in my opinion. That being said, I felt that the Botak Boys made up for it and made the price of my ticket worthwhile.

Ballet under the stars (BUTS) was my first time at a concert in a park. The comfortable atmosphere of a picnic in a park, together with an appealing performance of ballet was awesome! It took away the cultural pompousness that one would expect for a ballet performance for those not educated in dance. The performance was graceful and beautiful although at times the classical ballet items seems too long and draggy. Contemporary ballet was more interesting and captivated the audience more. Company of other picnickers who brought wine, food or families also helped to make the overall atmosphere more friendly. However, I felt that the lucky draw was too much and too boring despite understanding the rationale behind it. The ballet dancers needed some rest and needed to change but the emcee could have prepared more for it. Lame jokes that failed to engage the audience made the audience restless and was incongruent with the whole graceful and classy performance of the dance theatre.

Overall, considering that we split the cost of one ticket of $21 between the three of us (Leong redeemed another two free), the performance was quite worth it. Particularly since the weather was good and thankful that there was no rain, the picnic was also a fun-filled experience.

As for paying full price for the tickets in the future, I wouldn't mind going with a bigger group of friends, a larger picnic basket and a more comfortable seating(Now I see the need for the group bringing lots of cushions and pillows, despite sniggering at their trouble prior to the performance).

Next up! SINGdollar~