...continue from page one Why do you feel you need to perform to an audience? I don't feel it as a need. It is very natural to give my energy. It is not a calculated plan. I can bring your mind to another level [here she makes a gesture with her enchanting eyes and her hands that almost brought all my senses to a near 'stand-still']. There is of course the technical level, where I train my artists stage presence and similar matters of the kind. However, the energy that comes from within you is natural and inexplicable. When you dance are you aware of this energy? No, not at all. I immerse into the character totally. I get into the mood and it arouses all my senses, which is how it should be. When you delve in the arts you have to read a fair bit. You must know how to feel. There is no point to only comment on the technical aspects of the performance - it defeats the whole purpose. In Malaysia our budgets are so low (for stage-sets, costumes, payment of artists, etc). The artist has to make do with their talent alone. That is why I wish people would see the production in the essence and the passion of the characters so involved, like the story of Tun Fatimah. She had such a tragic life. The emotions she had to go through, what a woman! That is why for my performance I will have no interval. One and a half hour solid grind. It is highly charged and highly volatile. I would like the audience to feel the energy right from the beginning it will be a bang till the end. You will really have to follow this performance. What do we know of Tun Fatimah? Oh! There is such scanty reference material on her. Historians subordinated her position in their accounts on the decline of the Melaka Sultanate. In my research on her she struck me as the true imperial to Melaka. She was the ruler. The basic story line (of what most people think of her) is that she was very demure and a woman who became a victim of the feudal system. This type of thinking about her makes me very uncomfortable. People think of her as the poor, pitiful woman, when her husband Tun Ali was murdered by Sultan Mahmud (who then married her). In truth, she was the pillar of strength for the Sultan when Melaka fell in the year 1511. Sultan Mahmud was a broken man and she was the one who led the nation from Melaka to move on to Johor Lama and then to Pulau Bantam, when the Portuguese was after them. It is also through her bloodline that she was able to continue and maintain the Melaka empire. She was a very powerful woman, a woman with a vision. Even though a man kills her family there is no malice or vengeance felt. She even managed to change the Sultan's ways after which he repented and became a very religious man. With this, the honour of her family and herself was restored. I feel she represents the true Asian woman's endurance and strength. She persevered in a subtle manner, not out of weakness---oh! no. Sometimes you must look beyond a person, you must look deeper and there you will see the inner strength. I know a lot of eyebrows will be raised for this performance but as for myself, I needed to straighten the facts about Tun Fatimah. She was really the ruler and not the one behind the throne. Why do you think writers wrote about her in this way? Well most writers (especially at that time) were audrocentric and often male inclined. However if we look into our Eastern culture, the role of women has been strong. Even in our religion in for example the Quran women are paid high reverence to. Do you think women have been suppressed by men? Definitely, but women too have allowed it. It may have started due to economic factors where the man went out to work and the woman kept the domestic front stable. I do feel, however, that we should be on equal footing with the men, if not on a much higher level. We should be independent in mind as well as body. There is a school of feminism which thinks that a woman who believes in rights for herself should leave the hair on her legs and armpits unattended to, a visual statement as it were, that she is totally at ease with herself. What is your comment? The battle for survival in a plastic world is real even if it has to be a hairy one. Would you call yourself a feminist, Azanin? I am not a feminist (I believe it is a Western term). I am more comfortable with the term---human rights activist---equal rights for mankind. I mean if I saw a man that was oppressed or suppressed, I would do something for that person. Do you believe that women have an 'energy force' in them not found in men as expressed in some of the characters you have performed? Everyone has an 'energy force' waiting to be released. It is buried deep in a person. In a race against time often we just simply do not have time to stand and stare. Do you get caught up with the other side of the world and it's energy? Not the other side of the world. It is your own energy, your own forces. I don't have that kind of concept of the other world. I believe in my existence right now and the natural elements that surrounds us. The forces and energy that come from our own senses. Once you develop these senses, then you will be able to understand people better. However, when you understand people better, that can also be a problem. You start to question how people can be so difficult about matters of this world. Simple matters are often made into problems by these people. This can really 'bug' me! The more you understand you realise the less you understand and it goes on and on. Do you have a clash between the spiritual side of your mind and the technical side of your mind when you choose your sets, costumes etc.? Well, one cannot be just spiritually based. You have to be able to meet these two parts halfway. The spiritual side of me is a natural process whereas the technical part comes from my training and talking with other theatre people. In the classical art form, one must realise that the artists is only vehicle that links the past to the present for future generations. If this is not done, there will not be any connection to our lives. This time I am having an all black theatre. I want the sound and the costumes to stand out from the black theatre. Black is the colour of my mood...Tun is getting to me. How do you get into your characters [moving into so many emotions at one time? On stage, the 'character' takes over. Control and focus is brought to bear on the dramatic tension. From that point on everything flows from one emotion to the next. When you dance, do you dance for yourself, for the audience or for the heavens above? It is not possible to split the three. When I dance it is for Dance with a capital D. It is for the Dignity of Life with a capital D and L. Does the pursuit of finding sponsors [and other matter of similar nature] interfere in your mode of thought in preparation for a performance? The cultural industry in Malaysia is still in its infancy. It has not split into its various branches of the industry. Ideally an organisation such as Suasana should have it's marketing person, manager, finance officer etc. This is a luxury that I cannot afford. The next best thing is to manage it myself. What keeps you trying, going through all the red tape, etc? We are addressing dignity and life. Handling red tape and others is a civilising role that culture will have to play and carry out. Azanin, how do you get to be strong and sensual at the same time [you do remind me of the visual artist, Georgia O'Keefe who through her enlarged lilies on canvas expressed her strength and sexuality and Frida Kahlo another artist who expressed similar emotions]? Living as an artist is tough as it is a world of emotions. You are fortunate if you are strong. You are lucky if you are sensual. You are blessed if you have both. I am grateful for my blessings. Azanin, do you think you use more than fifteen percent of the brain cells? Oh! Yes. When you dabble in both the natural and real life forces you do use more brain cells. That is why people don't understand you. Then you have the problem or they feel you have the problem. But you are not the one with the problem. You are the one who will just keep moving on and on...and on.
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