Restrictions on dance and cultural practices are not new. Even the Mak Yong dance, declared by Unesco to be a masterpiece of humanity, couldn't escape it.
AFTER 13 years of education in a controlled and strictly disciplined environment in schools, we send our children to a university to broaden their hor.
COMMENT | The excommunication of Ramli Ibrahim
Modified10:57 pm
Times Two, the second section of the New S
traits Times, I received a feature submitted for consideration. It was from a Malaysian, freshly returned from Australia after finishing with Mechanical Engineering and steeping his feet in dance – ballet, the Bharatanatyam, Odissi – Ramli Ibrahim.
I published that first piece and several others from Ramli, until he got too busy developing his Sutra dance company. Shame, the fella can write. The fella can draw too – did a couple of beautiful ink drawings of his cat to accompany a piece.
In the subsequent three decades or so, hundreds, if not thousands, of students, have gone through the rigorous training of Sutra, a few of whom have gone on to start their own schools.