Uni- Art Festival Weekend: Why Was It Special.

Its throwback time and let go back a month in time to the 23^rd and 24^th of June 2018. You may wonder why to those exact dates. Well those dates are indeed a special one for art lovers because Unique Arts Culture & Heritage Foundation Negeri Sembilan had organized a 2 day art festival.

Festivals are always fun and moreover when it is an art festival. In case you missed the opportunity to attend this art festival last month, allow me to take you through with my writing on why this event was special and a big hit.

This art festival brought us a set of performance called the “Ancient Arts of India” whereby the audience were treated to number of classical Indian dance such as Bharatha Naattiyam, Thiruvathakali, Kummi and various more. Not often do you get to witness various type of classical dance for a cheap price in a single day.

With that being done, the festival peaked with some local flavor performance. Being call the “Unique Arts of Malaysia”, it kicked off with a dance called Datun Julud. For those who doesn’t know, Datun Julud is traditional dance performed by the women’s of Orang Ulu from the Kenyah tribe of Sarawak. It is also known as the hornbill dance.

More Malaysian traditional dance followed on such as Daling-Daling which is the traditional dance of the Orang Bajau. That was then followed by Tarian Randai which a folk theater tradition of the Minangkabau people who incorporates music, singing, dance, drama and Silat. To cap of the list of performance was the Chinese Umbrella Dance and Branyo which is Malaysian dance that originated for the Portuguese colonization of Malacca.  

The icing on the cake for the night was to have YBhg, Tan Sri Dato Seri Utama Dr.Raid Yatim to officiate the event and thus launching the “Uni-Art Fest 2018” in grand style. Alongside him was his wife, Puan Sri Datin Seri Utama Masnah Rais and the legendary Dato David Arumugam who presented educational grants to 2 outstanding students of Unique Arts Academy and awarded certificates of recognition to 7 of Negeri Sembilan’s artists who have contributed to the same purpose.

And that was a wrap for day 1, phew what a day it was right?

Day 2 kicked off with a couple forum session in the morning speaking on topics like “Importance of Performing Arts”, “Arts Can Discipline Every Kid” and “Arts is a Profession”. It was a healthy interactive session between the students and the guest speakers.

With the forum done and dusted, we were then treated with a musical session. The session was kicked off with a Tarian Randai before the main performers took the stage.

Bring the best of East-West Fusion to you, EKAM an offshoot of AKASHA were the big performers of the concert. Using musical instruments such as Sitar with Guitar, Mridhangam played to Bass Guitar, EKAM delivered a diverse genre of music.

The band gave life to the crowd by playing tracks such as Damascus, presenting the exotic rhythms of the long ago Persian era; and American blues on the sitar, in Brickfields Blues from their album titled ‘Into…AkashA’. The connection and seamless bonding of Eastern and Western instruments and world genres presenting itself, took the listeners deep into a sublime environment of musical bliss; deep into AkashA.

The concert took a break with an Indian traditional dance performance by members of Unique Arts Academy, and then to continue part two of the concert. A very pleasant blend of traditional and contemporary, resonated well with the audience who cheered them on enthusiastically to their ‘Chasing The Camel’, ‘Ipoh Hor Fun’, ‘Karakoram Highway’ and ‘Bafana Bafana’ from their 2^nd album titled ‘Karakoram Highway’ itself.

After two days of art magic being created in Negeri Sembilan, EKAM was the fitting way for Uni-Art Fest 2018 to bid goodbye. With so many amazing performance and session, this is why Uni-Art Fest 2018 is something very special indeed.