i woke up today at 430 am. and couldn't go back to sleep. i must be too excited about my swansong performance.
this year's national day concert is combined together with arts festival. somewhere in May, i sat down with the humanities HOD, a geography teacher whose name is nallu who has stage experience (he will most probably take over my role when i leave) and the SH of art to conceptualise the whole performance. it was decided that we will present the story of singapore from the past to the future, through music, dance and drama. so we titled the concert as 'Our Home Our Story'.
Act 1: The Lesson
Act 1 reveals a classroom scene where the teacher (acted out by my school counsellor Mr Singh) is going through a lesson on the history of singapore. the students do not understand why they need to learn about the history of singapore as they think that it is of no relevance to their life.
classroom scene performed by my show choir. the song chosen is michael jackson's 'They Don't Care About Us'.
the teacher came back and scolded them: we study the past to understand the present, we understand the present to guide the future. where is your resilience? just look at what our forefathers had to go through...
Act 2: Japanese Occupation
This segment was choreographed by me. and the performers are none other than my show choir students. i used the music from the 2010 nuscd production 'Cold Night'. we only rehearsed this 2 times and went up on stage to perform. i had alot of guts and alot of faith in them. hahaha.
haiz told them not to laugh already and they still laugh. zzz...
they must learn from their teacher in-charge who is so into it. :D
Act 3: Racial Riots
Internal threats plagued the nation in the early years, for example the 1964 racial riots between the chinese and malay community.
the racial riot item was choreographed by me. i chose a song from the 'Ip Man' soundtrack that brings out the tension very appropriately and thank goodness the whole song is only one min. and thank goodness i only had 2 practises with the dancers and they went up on stage!
right after this item the band performed 'fate of gods'. this song is very majestic and also a bit emo, so while the band is playing, the english drama students were on stage to perform a mime about separation between singapore and malaysia.
Act 4: Independence
this scene was acted out by drama students, taking up the roles of LKY, toh chin chye, s rajaratnam, goh keng swee and othman wok.
Act 5: The Test of Soverignity
SIA hijack scene, where the commandos saved the passengers from the terrorists. this scene portrays the importance of national service, where we must defend our own nation with our own people.
Act 6: The Future
the final act, that showcases the future of singapore. vibrant city, vibrant performing arts!
i performed dance and wushu so many times on stage, but this is actually my first time singing! hahahaha. i specially got the discipline mistress, miss ho, to sing together with me. and i purposely arranged for a whiteboard to cover her to keep the whole school in suspense. the song is 关怀方式, a locally composed song, and sung by 2 singaporeans, chen hanwei and cai lilian. so this is the most suitable song for a national day concert commemorating our golden jubilee.
you can imagine the thunderous applause and cheers the moment she popped her head out. hahahahaha.
everyone was cheering frantically. even the teachers! some even took out their handphones and on their flashlights and waved them in the air.
the most priceless scene. head of performing arts singing a duet with the discipline mistress. hahahahaha.
and how do i know that she can sing? because every year on teachers' day, i will organise a ktv session with some of my colleagues. and last year she 鸟 me, asking me why i nv jio her. so to make amends, i jio-ed her to sing with me on stage in front of the whole school, and she readily agreed! and when we rehearsed for the first time... WOW. she can really sing! this year's ktv session i will definitely jio her. hahahahaha.
dance dynamics as usual did not disappoint, with their super high level of energy and confidence on stage!
the cirque du soileil item, choreographed by derek seong! derek really put in alot of effort in choreographing this for us. thankful to have him to be involved in my final performance.
check out the light sabre effect! kudos to derek again!
what a perfect triangle!
the 3 jedi warriors! obiwan kenobi plus his 2 padawans.
i invited this kpop group, DXM, to perform. my student knows them and passed me their contact. they are quite famous in singapore's kpop scene and i am so thankful that they are very willing to come down to perform, and for no charge! they put up a really exceptional perormance!
and lastly, the finale, just for all the sec 4 students of the performing arts CCAs, to thank them for contributing to their CCAs over the 4 years. this finale is even more epic because i only spent 45 minutes yesterday evening to rehearse with them. i deliberately chose an epic emo song to signify that this will be my last performance, as well as the last performance for the sec 4 students.
all the emotions flowing. hahaha.
i also invited jean to come back to perform for the finale. jean has been a special part of my performing arts journey in the workplace, as she was the female lead in the b2b dance drama production in 2011, for the workplace's 25th anniversary celebrations.
and ta da! that's it! thankful that everyone loved the whole concert. and they told me this is the best concert ever. i am thankful to everyone who contributed to the success of this concert. thankful to everyone who embarked on this magical journey with me over these years.
*bows 90 degrees in appreciation
yes the golden jubilee long weekend is coming!
tmr is the national day concert and it will be my swansong performance.
hope i wun get too emotional during the finale item.
after the performance i have to meet 2 students because they are involved in some incident and this is really a mood spoiler.
and then i will have a good lunch with my pe kakis, followed by a soccer game, and finally a staycation with darling at hotel re!
it was quite a good shot! thank you mr tekko! :)
2nd running event of 2015 clocked! (the first event was urbanathlon in march).
this is a 10 km relay run, and i did it together with 3 pe friends. john was the first runner, i am the second, alex is third and aloysius is the final runner.
i love the medals' design! it is like a jigsaw puzzle!
based on our total timings we achieved a top 100 finish (our position is 86).
Individual timings:
John - 55 min
Me - 56 min
Alex - 54 min
Aloy - 52 min
well done everyone! :)
every semester the students will do surveys on teachers. it feels weird to be assessed by students but when the survey results are promising, it brings warmth and happiness. i just received the survey results from semester 1 and thankfully the results are promising.
the comments generally are:
1) I am handsome
2) Best pe teacher
3) Very nice and fun to be with
4) Very funny and always make us laugh
5) Very patient and never give up on us
and these are the comments that stand out:
1) He very exaggerate (yup that's mr tan for you)
2) Gets angry easily (i think i am the nicest person in the whole world so probably the problem is with you)
3) Too emo (SERIOUSLY??!!)
4) The great Turais House Master and Head of Show Choir. I like his trademark move which I call it the 'Jump of Turais'. He performed very well during the Chinese New Year concert.
thank you everyone for the positive feedback. i will miss you all next year.
