story story part of it

So here are the photos =) This is my pretty piano teacher, Moon Kyoung Kim (Korean! hehe). She is a PhD student in School of Music. Took this picture after the piano recital of all her students on 2nd of April. There were 10 students and I was the 2nd haha. It went according to difficulty of your piece, so the last person played really long. I played a short version of Für Elise (like the red piano music box) and Pastorale by Burgmüller. Soooo nervous to play in front of people who are better. I realized my hands were shaking after I was back at my seat, and I show it to Moon who was sitting beside me lol. She smiled and grasped my hand.

I played so badly during my last practice with Moon (2 days before) and I was so upset. I can play well when practice by myself on the student piano, but I was very bad when change to grand piano. In order not to make a fool of myself ><” during the recital, the next day, I braced myself to practice on the grand piano in the Union (it’s in a public lounge >< scared people scold me lol). I decided not to play student piano at all until the recital. =) At last my plan worked ^^V I played much better, with only a few wrong notes hehe but I’m glad. Should have gone to play in the Union sooner, I’m always a coward haha. Oh well…

Then, it was the choir performance on the following week 13th of April. It was great =) Kind of hard to see me because of the stage lights, I was 2nd from left on the middle line. Photos taken by Dhinesh, who seated on the balcony, it was a small theater inside East Quad. Thank you to those who came to support me and Bu (he is the first from the right), really unexpected.

That girl was the solo soprano in one of the pieces. None of us in the choir were from School of Music hehe. Conductor was Arian Khaefi and pianist was Kristina. We had 2 assistant conductors too (like GSI in our class), Alex and Joseph, who each conducted one piece; they were the two guys wearing bow ties. I took this class 2 years before haha, and Kristina was also the pianist =)Well, just so happened that 3 of my classes this semester have performance at the end hehehe. I had fun! What a way to graduate lol. Looking forward to commencement week because all of you will be here! So excited now… don’t want to study for last final haha.

Finally the concert! The beginner class played 2 pieces, advanced played 4 pieces, plus played for the dance drama. Wow, they can sit on the floor and play really long. This is the program =) hehe, I was so surprise to see my name listed under dancers, then went around to show other dancers, but they all seemed to think it’s a normal thing hmm… like we should be listed because we were performing… I guess all these times I always perform anonymously haha.

The dance drama is about Amir Ambyah, his love with god and two princesses. Mas Yanto, my lecturer played the main character. He is a visiting professor from Indonesia, renowned and very talented; he sings, dances and writes the music for the gamelan.

Warning (lol): the makeup is very scary XD I guess it is a Javanese dance thing, and also because the stage is so far, the makeup has to be heavy so that audience can see. I especially like the “elf ear” lol but ears got kind of painful after wearing them so long. Luckily one of my clip-on earrings was broken, so I didn’t have to wear them hehehe, or else more burden on my ears… That’s Ayu on the right.

Other than the main characters, there were two types of costumes: the ones with the red scarfs were lady-in-waiting for one princess, the other type were soldiers for the king.

The lady in charge of the stage light left it at red even after the drama ended, so all the photos ended up red… She did change the lights to normal later, but too late… see, on the stage the makeup not that scary haha.

Ikha came!

Of course I must take a photo with both of them! Eni is Mas Yanto’s wife and she made all the costumes by herself 0_0 and she did all the dancers’ hair and some Indonesians helped her with our makeup. She contributed so much, remarkable. Also, I mentioned in the previous post that Val dressed almost all the dancers. We were wrapped kain batik, then with a length of cloth around the waist to keep our backs straight and not slouch. Everything is so tight haha.

I put this photo because because it shows the costumes of the two princesses. Hmm… why I didn’t take one with them ah…

Now that the performance is over, there is no more class ^^V and after my piano recital on Saturday, no more piano class. Muahaha I left 3 classes only, more free time. But very sien to do last programming project, this UI class is boring (it’s not supposed to be, bad class syllabus).

Both days before the gamelan concerts were dedicated to rehearsals. First time step foot in Hill Auditorium (I know, I know, I almost graduate and haven’t been there, but I did, right?) It is big and so beautiful inside. Of course that means photos hehe but difficult to capture the entire place because it’s big. Turned out those pipe things on the stage are real organ, I thought they are deco design haha. It’s cool now that I know the backstage of the auditorium.

The gamelan of the university has a name: Kyai Telaga Madu, the Venerable Lake of Honey.

Jia Jin is in the gamelan class oh.

The afternoon the day before the concert, we had slamatan (ritual meal) after the rehearsal at the basement of the auditorium. There are many Indonesian food, very similar to Malaysian food, I was happy I get the chance to taste them. Me and Ayu (the only Indonesian student among the dancers) busy explaining what’s what to the American classmates. This huge plate of food is the focus of the table. The cone and the rectangle base is nasi kuning. Pile a bit of each dish onto the nasi, put a chili on the top, and some egg strips on the cone.

got keropok! haha and the Americans love the perkedel, well it’s potatoes…

and then they put the shadow puppet and flowers for deco… we the dancers were actually imitating the puppet in the drama.

Many musicians flew from other states to come play in the gamelan, therefore this is a very important event. From left (erm some I’m not sure of the names hehe): drummer in the gamelan; rebab player in the gamelan; Susan Walton, the director of this event and also played in gamelan; Mas Yanto, my lecturer aka choreographer of the dance drama and gamelan; musician in gamelan; Val, drummer’ wife, she was a professional Javanese dancer, now teaching in other college, she helped almost all the dancers dress our costumes, which is a very difficult task because we had to be wrap up in layers of clothes; and Eni, Mas Yanto’s wife (more on next post). I was photographer-of-the-day because Eni forgot her camera =)V

That’s Ayu, third from the right.

“aerial view” lol

After Mas Yanto prayed, he cut off the top of the cone (and add abit of each dish in the plate) and according to Ayu, give it to the important persons. This case, it is Susan; she is also lecturer of my humanity class haha, so ngam. The Indonesian lady on the left was the one who cooked most of the dish and arranged the platter, impressive.

One of the Indonesian lady said the the custom is elders eat first, but the Americans were like “we don’t care, we want to eat” which I frown upon.