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Now last weekend the Actor's Studio opened at Lot 10, with an Opening Gala performance on Saturday night and a Mixed Bill of performances on Sunday afternoon (plus more this whole week actually). Very quickly now, there was a drum circle bit at the start to entertain the folks while they had drinks out on the rooftops before coming inside the Actor's Studio, the Hands Percussion played drums, the Young KL Singers sang a couple of songs, a Butoh dance by the Nyoba Kan dance company, Douglas Lim had everyone laughing, a Short + Sweet Malay play of non-epic proportions, a dance by Michael Voon and other people not from the dance genre, more songs from the KLPac Sinfonietta's String Ensemble and baritone Eddie Chin, and to round it all up an Indian classical dance by Ramli Ibrahim and Guna.

The first thing of note: quite a number of performances (especially when it comes to dance) have people showing off their abs. And they've got great abs. Like the butoh danceer, although even if you click for a close up it's probably not so clear from this pic.

Check below for a vid of the drum circle - members from YKLS and Actor's Studio each took a musical instrument, and played a steady tempo creating an awesome sound! Then when everyone was ready the drum circle procession began - led by a butoh dancer from Nyoba Kan, the drum circle players and some belly dancers whom we cannot credit because we have no idea who they were.



Taking videos played merry hell with our iXus in two ways. Memory space and battery life. Memory space because we've never really fiddled with the different settings when it comes to video taking, thus a 5 minute video like this actually took up 600MB. Thankfully we'd Windows Movie Maker to help shrink it down with little compensation in terms of resolution. Have yet to play about with iMovie...because we still don't own a Mac.

And by the time the butoh dancers were performing our iXus started shutting down and telling us to change the battery pack. Thankfully after a while we could turn it on again and take more photos and videos, and the rest of the time we took photos with our L'Amour instead.

Maybe not buff abs from the members of the Hands Percussion, but their costume got us curious. As the Chief points out to us, normally for drummers they wear sleeveless costumes.

Dato Faridah and Joe. Host and hostess and the people behind the Actor's Studio.

And the man who helped keep the Actor's Studio going after they left Bangsar Shopping Centre - Tan Sri Francis Yeoh.

Then we have Douglas Lim on stage for laughter. He also points out to the folks that the stage is a Hanamichi thrust stage, which is something like a fashion runway stage. This allows for the audience to be right up close to the performance. Okay, so Douglas Lim doesn't show much skin for his performance.

The short Malay play, Adiwijaya's 'Allah' performed by Abdul Qahar Aqilah and Tuan Faisal Azmy. It was in Malay, using vocab that's even a bit out of our depth (but yes we would understand even a statement like, "Puki hanya tahu terima jantan saja!") but after watching it three times we get the whole picture. The first time watching it, the ending was definitely a shocker!

Okay, so the two of them don't reveal much skin either.



Michael Voon's Diaries '09 had dancers who aren't dancers by profession (we think). First time watching everyone we had the impression that they were all martial artists. Energetic performance. We were impressed that Michael could dance with so much energy that you'd never know he had a motor accident and was limping noticiably just last year when he directed YKLS's Breakin' It Down!

Oh and for the other dancers. Maybe it's because they aren't from a dance background, save gal Joey, who we think does ballet, their abs are more like what you'd see on guys the gym with their 6-pack potato buns.

Sutra Dance Theatre with Ramli Ibrahim and Guna. Their moves were very strong yet graceful. And Ramli Ibrahim was definitely still in shape, and his abs were similar to that of the butoh dancer from the drum circle procession!



And that wraps up the performances for the weekend! There's still some shows going on this week (free!) for those interested in checking the place out!