Events 2011

My Ipoh My Home
Introduction:
Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK) and The Actors Studio Academy presented IPOH.MY – My Ipoh, My Home, recently at the auditorium of SMK Methodist (ACS), Ipoh. There were two performances that day; one in the afternoon, one at night. I attended the night session because there was a special performance by children from Persatuan Daybreak. IPOH.MY was a final showcase performance of KLK’s Arts and Culture Programme 2011, initiated in January, as part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to bring arts to the people of Ipoh. With this in mind, KLK brought in The Actors Studio Academy, which sent instructors to six schools in Ipoh over the past few months to teach drama to students and also trainees of Persatuan Daybreak. The six schools involved were SMJK Ave Maria Convent, SMK Main Convent, SMK (P) Methodist (MGS), SMJK Perempuan Perak, St. Michael’s Institution and SMK Methodist (ACS). The performances were mostly about teenage issues, which I found frivolous because I couldn’t relate to them. I grew up very differently from the typical teenager, you see. Nonetheless, I had an enjoyable night, especially the finale.
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News:
The year long Arts and Culture Programme initiated by Corporate Giant KLK Berhad in January this year as part of their CSR initiative culminated in their final showcase entitled, “Ipoh.My” which was performed by six schools from Ipoh. The schools, SMK ACS, SMJK Ave Maria Convent, St Michael’s Institution, SMK Main Convent, SMJK Perempuan Perak and SMK (P) MGS each had to present a 10-minute original sketch which they did admirably. The opening line of one of the sketches by Ave Maria Convent went something like, “I want, I want an iPhone and an iPad and and an iPoh”…and a loud chorus in the background screamed “No!!..not iPoh…its EePoh”…and the script goes on to describe all that is unique to Ipoh town. Such was some of the creativity generated by the programme. The KLK programme collaborated with the Actors Studio Academy@klpac, Kuala Lumpur who provided speech and drama workshops twice per month to the six schools and also students at Persatuan Daybreak, a vocational training institute for people with disabilities. Stanley Lim, KLK’s representative for the programme explained that bringing Actors Studio to Ipoh enabled more students to participate in the programme including the students from Persatuan Daybreak. A total of 137 students and another 40 from Daybreak benefitted from the programme with the students from Daybreak putting on a special performance during the showcase. For Datuk Faridah Merican, the Executive Producer for Actors Studio Academy, she was delighted with the performances by the students saying that the “programme enabled the students to develop the creative side of their personalities and the sketches bear testimony to this,” adding that “Ipoh, especially the schools ACS and St Michael’s, have a great and long tradition for good drama.” As for the students, Haniff Harussani from ACS “wished the programme didn’t have to end” while Shameni Gunasilan described the programme as “awesome, I enjoyed it very much’. Undoubtedly it was an all round win-win programme. Kudos KLK.