Halloween Horror Nights 2011

(subtitled "Exit From Hiatus")

Just a little foreword before I begin the blogpost proper. The events detailed in this blogpost date back as far as last September so yes, this blogpost is WAY overdue. However, I really didn't want to skip it because I think that Halloween Horror Nights was one of the events last year that defined 2011 for me. To be honest, maintaining my blog wasn't very high on my priority list last year but now I have an iPad on loan to me for a semester, I will hopefully be able to churn out more of my blogpost ideas that are currently sitting idle. Ok, now on to the blogpost proper...

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It all began way back on 31 August when I came back to work my part-time job as a waiter in Universal Studios Singapore during the Hari Raya break. While I was in the back-of -house, I noticed a poster advertising the auditions for internal staff for the upcoming Halloween Horror Nights (HHN).

A little backstory on what HHN is all about. HHN is a Halloween event that originated from the Universal Studios in USA. This meant that HHN in Singapore would be a MASSIVE scale production, similar to its American counterparts. In a nutshell, HHN was about taking the Hollywood experience, converting to a Halloween theme and setting it in a theme park for the public.

None of that really mattered to me though. The moment I saw the poster, I was hooked. For the longest time I wanted to have a glimpse of what it was like to be a part of the entertainment industry and this was my chance. The moment I got back to my room, I cleared my schedule to make way for the audition and crossed my fingers.

Fast forward a few days ahead to the audition day. When I walked into the audition room, I was greeted by the project director, the head of costumes and the stage manager for HHN. The audition actually went a lot quicker than I expected. The first part was essentially just them asking basic questions about my background like "Would you mind wearing coloured contacts?" and "Have you ever worn stilts before?". The second part was even easier. The project director simply said two words, "Scare me". The moment those two words left his mouth, I instinctively did the scariest thing I could think off. I bolted to their table and screamed as loud as I could into their faces. The tactic must have worked because a few days later, I received a call from Universal Studios Singapore saying that I got in.

Fast forward once again to the first day of practice. During the contract signing, I learnt that I was casted as an Evil Clown. Whatever that entailed, I didn't know but I digress. So as they gathered all the scare actors in the Pantages Theatre to brief all of us, we were grouped according to our areas and roles. As I sat down in my designated seat, the random stranger suddenly said to me, "I'm sorry but I seemed to have forgotten your name". A little surprised, I simply replied, "I don't recall ever telling you my name". As it turns out, by some random stroke of fate, the person sitting next to me was the ex-vice president of the NUS Comics and Animation Society of which I was currently the president of (in my defence, I only met her once before and moreover she was cosplaying that time so it was hard to recognize her out of costume). Either way, I was thankful enough to have met a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

The practice sessions before the event were odd enough for me. We were all dumped on an empty set with no idea whatsoever what our characters were supposed to look or act like other than the one-liner that told us what character was. So basically for the first few practices, we were left to our own devices and imagination as we explored how we interpret our roles and how we could interact with out surroundings. Nevertheless, over time as the props stopped shifting around and the costumes were finished, we had a more solid feel for what our characters were supposed to be. After that, the rest was history. After the practices, we went straight to the event itself which was spread over two weekends. Night in night out, we scared patrons as they walked in. Over the two weeks, I saw all kinds of people. Some were scared of out their wits for simply being there, some were stoned faced, some ridiculed us back as we tried to scare them, some even manhandled us while we were on duty. I was even fortunate enough to catch some of my friends while I was on set.

All in all, how did I find the experience? For starters, it was tiring like f**k. I was on set for as long as 45 minutes at a time and I was forced to wear a full-faced sponge mask so after just 15 minutes, my face started to melt under the sponge mask. On top of all that, we had to report in at 5pm and we were only released after 1am. Add transportation time on top of that and I got at least 10 hours of being outside to add to regular university curriculum and the fact that I only got to sleep after 2am for two weeks.

But boy was it fun. It would go without saying how fun it would be to be a part of an event centered on entertainment. On top of that, I got to mingle with a lot of interesting people behind the scenes. I met full-time performers, students studying drama and theatre, people who were there simply because they didn't have a job and even a person who has been in the freelance theatre business after quitting school after O-levels (there was an interestingly sizable number of openly gay people there as well). All of them were amazingly fun people. It was like a breath of fresh air to meet people I have never mixed with before and it was eye-opening to learn what it was like to be a part of the entertainment industry, both from talking to all these individuals who are a part of the industry and by simply being a part of this event myself.

Of course, this job had some extra perks. Before the event was opened to the public, some of us had the chance to experience the entire event for free. Some of you would have felt the $60+ entry ticket was too expensive but I would say that the ticket was worth every cent. The entire set-up was incredibly elaborate and the high production value was immediately obvious the moment you see the New York area which was converted to a post-apocalyptic setting complete with crashed cars and a dozen wandering zombies. It's certainly something that one is unlikely to experience within Singapore or even possibly South East Asia. As a customer and as a performer on and off set, I feel fortunate to have been a part of this incredible event and if all else works out, I would totally be a part of this in the future.

Some pictures of my costume for those who are curious:-

Missing Persons Report

Name: Jesmond Chia
Description: Not available
Last seen: 6 Oct 2011 at UCC Theatre
Usual locations: PGP, COM1
Current status: Missing Found

If you have seen this individual recently or know of his whereabouts, please contact your local authorities immediately.

Current status of Jesmond Chia:
Individual was found outside of MPSH2-B exam hall. Individual displayed signs of severe sleep deprivation and residual signs of high levels of stress. Interestingly, the individual seemed to also slight signs of relief but that might be due to a misinterpretation of his current state. Individual has now been returned to his room and is currently recuperating. Individual is expected to return to normal status as soon as tomorrow.

Another Semester, Another Concert

I'm finally back from the little dark hole that I buried myself in. For those who are wondering, for the last 3 months I was stuck in this little time black hole called EMCC (just take it as another Dance BLAST! concert). This concert is a little different from the previous one (SUAD earlier this year) in a couple of ways.

Firstly, it's my first concert as a non-freshie (meaning I get to do items other than the freshie item O=). Secondly, got the chance to perform in two items under 2+1 different choreographers (interestingly, all of which never choreographed stage performances before). So yeah, during the slow periods I was already putting 4x2 hours/week into practices. By the time we hit the crunch period, I was dedicating twice that amount of time. Throw all that on top of 2 other normal CCAs and the additional responsibility of being an inexperienced club president ON TOP OF my regular studies as a (by right lifeless) computing student and you'll understand my disappearance from the face from the Internet.

Looking back now, the feelings I had after this concert are interestingly quite different from those I had post-SUAD. After SUAD, I was simply left in awe after stepping into the world of dancing at a university level. However, now I've actually naturalised into what it's like to be a BLAST!ard so the shock value is much milder. Don't get me wrong, I still find it amazing how good the items look and I certainly enjoyed watching the bits and pieces of the concert which I managed to see.

However, did I have any life-changing moments of inspiration from this concert? Honestly, no. To be fair, EMCC is a much smaller scale production compared to SUAD (esp since the last SUAD was the 10th anniversary of BLAST!) so I felt that this concert was more like a platform budding choreographers and dancers rather than a performance to exhibit pure awesomeness.

Did I learn more from this concert? Definitely yes. I suppose this also has something to do with the fact that I just choreographed SoC Rag just before participating in EMCC. Rather than focusing solely on levelling up my skills as a dancer, I was more interested with how the choreographers conceived the big picture of the item. Story, music editing, blocking, levels, layering, musicality. I found myself inadvertently deconstructing the choreos to see what makes an item awesome beyond just steps.

It also helped me a lot being under three different choreographers. It was interesting how different people interpret music differently, be it beats, counts, lyrics, backing instruments or just random sound bites. So as a dancer trying to be a choreographer, I think it's definitely a plus to learn new ways to interpret music. Aside from that, I also learnt how each choreographer managed their dancers and their training sessions which again will be very helpful when I try to choreograph next year's SoC Rag.

At the end of it all, I think that this concert was quite a humbling experience. Every so often I get my ego let the best of me and I end up thinking that I'm the best dancer around, that I should be given more solos, given chances to choreograph items. Then I sit through the concert and see how awesome the choreos are, how awesome the real soloists are and I suddenly think to myself, "Shit, I could never do that." So yeah, I've learnt to shut my ego up and let my dancing do the talking for me.

Do I think I'm good enough to perform solos? Do I think I'm good enough to choreograph items for a BLAST! concert? I can honestly tell myself, "No way in hell. Not now." There are dancers and choreographers in BLAST! who are FAR better than I am and any concert-goer deserves at very least a level of quality that only they can offer. Nevertheless, this also gives me a goal to reach. To be able to one day reach the level of awesomeness that the only BLAST zhai-squad can offer. To improve till one day I actually become that awesome.

These past few months really helped me grow as a dancer and from this experience, I've gained some headway on my goals as a dancer. So from here on, the only way to go is forward. To one day become so awesome that I finally impress myself.

Life after Rag

(Yes, this post is way overdue given that Rag ended more than a week ago but getting my life back in order took some time. Better late than never =D)

So yes, Rag is finally over. Brief history for those who do not know what Rag is. Rag, which stands for 'Receive and Give', is Chingay-like parade which is held by NUS every year in conjunction with Flag Day. So basically every faculty and hall will build a float and put up a dance performance. For the School of Computing, I was given the task of being the dance choreographer, tasked with choreographing the performance and overseeing the teaching and execution of the item. I should have you know that prior to this, I have never choreographed a full performance (my only choreographing experience being a 2 minute item which eventually got scrapped) and now I was tasked with putting together a 6 minute performance, which is considered uber long by dance performance standards.

The whole choreographing journey started at the beginning of the year when the first design of the float came out. The main reason why I had to wait till the initial float design to come out was because we wanted to ensure that the float and the dance to complement each other (which was not quite the case for last year's rag when the float was an armoured whale and the dance was about war and peace...). So with float design in mind, I went about roughly sketching out the rough storyline and specific effects and moments I wanted in the dance. After that was done, the dance was left to sit at the back of my head till May >.<

May arrives. I start fleshing out all the filler bits and I finally have an idea of how many dancers I have to work with after our recruitment drive during the Freshman Orientation Camp (our main source of manpower). After that, the rest was history. The next three months was essentially just teaching, training and cleaning up till show day alongside National Day.

Of course, to leave those three months at just that would not do justice to the hell of a journey those three months were. I had one dancer tell me he got chicken pox a month before show. My lead dancer gave me the scare of my life when she was suspected to have appendicitis just 2 days before showtime (luckily of course, it turned out to be a false alarm and she performed). Tempers flared as my freshies were torn between Rag commitments and orientation, made only worse by the fact that I had some dancers go missing for weeks on end and come back like nothing happened. If my stress levels were plotted against time till performance, it'll be an exponential curve hitting infinity as time left tends to 0.

Despite all the sleep-deprived nights and all the loss of what little hair I have left, I do not regret being a part of this epic journey. In spite of the numerous failed stunts and dropped steps during showtime, I still believe that we managed to put up a show that we can be proud of and at the end of it all, I believe that's what matters most. For me at very least, I have learnt A LOT from being this year's Rag choreographer, things that I would never have been exposed to otherwise, like cheerleading =P

Videos of SoC Rag 2011:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osvRSVY873I ('official' video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjHLwzW2y-M&feature=share (audience video 1)
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150254339070814&comments (audience video 2)

In the Solemn Defence of All Things Weird

Just imagine this for a moment. You're standing at a bus stop as the bus you're waiting for approaches. You board the bus, pay your bus fare and walk in to find your seat. Then suddenly you notice a guy casually doing a handstand against the side of the bus with the most deadpan look on his face. What are your most immediate thoughts of the person?

Some of the more open people would probably just think 'Cool' and move on with their lives without anything more than an impressed eyebrow raise. The slightly less open people may probably think 'Okay...', look confused for a moment but still continue on their path to find their seat without any negative impression of said person.

Now we look at people who are even less open and that is where things start getting ugly. Thoughts like 'freak', 'retard', 'crazy person' and maybe even 'mental hospital escapee' start popping up. Muttering "siao" not-so-under their breath or even blatantly just shouting it the person. Making terrible jokes about the person, thinking they're out of hearing range when really they are. And then suddenly, just because he's doing a handstand in a public bus, he becomes a bad person. It may not be entirely obvious but he has just labelled and socially outcasted just because he stood out.

I'd pose a question to everyone. What exactly is wrong with being weird, being different? I'll qualify my question a little bit. People who are weird in the sense that they hit on random people, invade people's personal space and stuff like that, those examples I concede are cases where it's wrong to be that weird but by no means can we pigeonhole ALL weird people with the above cases of weird people. Just because weird people are a little more difficult to understand doesn't automatically make all weird people closet perverts and axe murderers.

Now why exactly am I defending weird people? Well for starters I'd be lying terrible if I said that I wasn't the least bit weird but the biggest reason why I defend weird people is because they are often times the most interesting group of people I know. Weird people tend to have more character depth than conforming individuals who just end up being carbon copies of the next guy. I mean, the last adjective you would use to describe a weird person is boring. Take the time to talk to a 'weird' person and leave your mind wide open and you'd know this too.

I'll take an example of a conversation I had about doomsday. My friend said that if humanity was about to go extinct (for argument's sake we said that this was a confirmed issue), she'd want to quickly kill herself before everyone else died so that when she went to Hell (and face it, most of us probably will too) she'd be able to better picks on things like land and accommodation. Furthermore, she'd be able to hoard goods at cheap prices since supply would great outnumber demand and possibly make a killing by selling her hoarded goods back to the rest of mankind once doomsday hits. Now do I agree with anything she said? To be honest not really. Did I find it the least bit logical? If I accepted the wild premise that Heaven and Hell are just extensions of the real world, then her logic is technically sound. Then again, I never did accept her premise so by extension, I didn't accept her logic either. Did I find that doomsday discussion interesting? Heck yeah.

And that is why I like mingling with 'weird' people. I suppose all I wanted to say is that we should just have a more open mind to different people and take life a little less critically when we don't need to be critical. We're all human and we all have limits to our comfort zones but open up your comfort zones a little bit and you might just let in a brilliant new way to see the world you thought you knew.

Confessions of a Sai Kang Warrior

(Pre-blog note: For those who don't speak Hokkien well/at all, 'sai kang' roughly translates to 'shit work' and is usually used to represent menial tasks or simply work that no one wants to do)

In my last post, I talked about one aspect of myself (being hyper) so I thought I'd use this opportunity to talk about another aspect of myself, being 'on'. A brief history lesson now, prior to coming to Singapore a few years ago I was pretty comfortable with drifting through life but the moment I came to Singapore I decided that I would turn over a new leaf to mark this new beginning. Thus, I hopped from the drifting end of the involvement spectrum all the way to the to the hyper involved end.

From my first year in Singapore all the back in Secondary 3 till now, I have volunteered/ran for/self-nominated myself for every committee position/key role/responsibility that I could get my hands on.

Trivia-break. Back in secondary school, my classmates nicknamed me 'Nitro' which was the result of some twisted train of logic which somehow went like 'enthusiatic --> enthu --> N² --> Nitro' (surprisingly the name still managed to somehow capture the essence of who I was/am).

Anyhow, fastforward to present time. I'm currently in 4 clubs (one of which I currently president of >.<) and the dance choreographer for SoC's Rag Dance (Rag is sorta like a Chingay type parade, it'll take too long to explain in full). I'll be totally honest with you guys, never once have I wanted to run for the sake of filling my CV (though it does feel good when I look at my CV and say "Damn, it did a lot of shit"). I mean, it's kinda like working for the sake of the money, after a while you're just going to end up jaded and start hating your job. And that is why I've told myself that I'm doing all these jobs because I want to. That way I always have the resolve to see my work through.

I've come to the realisation that I'm sort of like a shark. A shark has to constantly swim in order to survive, much like myself. I constantly need to be doing something or else I start rotting. It's either I'm full out doing something or I'm full out nua-ing (like a tofu). I can't quite tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I have yet to find a middle gear between the two.

After all these years of being a sai kang warrior, I've discovered yet another rather important perk about being a sai kang warrior. I found out that the pre-working environment is the perfect place for all trial-and-error experiments regarding any responsibility-related. It's the perfect sandbox where we are allowed to screw up with (relatively) minimal repercussions. It's nearly impossible to not screw up the first time we do anything so why not try while the cost of trying is still small?

I'll end this blogpost with a thought that I was once told:-

Never call your work sai kang because if you call it sai kang, you're only degrading the work that you are doing. There is no such thing as sai kang because any work you do, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is still important - Patrick Loo

A Keen Sense of Insanity

Greetings poor Mr. Blog. I'm sorry I haven't been visiting you very often. I have been, still is and will be very busy with Rag Dance but I'll try to come around as and when I can okay?

Never mind that. I digress...

Back to the subject title. Recently I just came back from a 4D4N stayover camp better known as the School of Computing Freshman Orientation Camp (SoC FOC). I think the name of the camp best speaks for itself what the camp was about. My role in the camp was supposed to be that of a fake freshie but my cover was very quickly (albeit unintentionally) blown by one of my orientation group's (OG) group leaders (GL) so I ended up being my OG's fake GL/mascot for the rest of the camp.

Now anyone who knows me well enough will know that I'm a hyperactive bunny when I'm in camp mode. I figured myself to be a rather animated person under normal circumstances so being in camp mode just exaggerates the crazy person that I already am. This behaviour stems from one of my many life philosophies. I believe in creating moments regardless of the personal social costs. To rephrase that, I'm the type of person who doesn't really care if people are laughing with me or laughing at me, just so long as they are genuinely laughing, like being a jester of sorts. It's a whole lot easier to keep people hyped and keep their morale up when you have a hyperactive crazy dude prodding them from behind. That and generally people are more inclined to have fun at the same time.

Which now brings me to the final point of this blogpost. I think being slightly hyper is an important trait to have yet I don't think I'm wrong to say that most people shun it. Granted, there are a great many situations which call for utmost seriousness but that doesn't mean that ludicrousness has no place in our society. Maybe it's in our Asian blood to be conservative and all but I swear, sometimes we are just too quick to reject anything that either stands out or is simply out of the ordinary.

Nevertheless, I suppose I would be asking for too much if I wished that everyone be a little more hyper and I will also concede that not all people are cut out to be hyper. So that being said, I think I'll just have to contend with being one of the few crazy people around to light up people's days for now, for better or for worse =D