The second Koboi Performance went well today (8th July) in Belem, Lisbon. Among the highlights is meeting Amir Kabani and his family at the site of the Discoveries Monument. Amir gracefully and effficiently facillated the paperwork involved in enabling me to participate as Faculty at the International Art Gallery of the Diamond Jubliee celebration of the global Ismaili community. Thank you Amir and the team at the International Art Gallery.
Ulagam Ulagam
UPCOMING: The next Koboi performance will take place at the Discovery monument in Belem, Lisbon between 5.30pm and 7pm, 8th July 2018. For details please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
In this performance I will attempt to find an image, provisonally titled Ulagam Ulagam. I make reference to another representation of mastery over the world by way of a song from MGR’s Ulagam Suthum Valiban (World Perambulating Young Man), a blockbuster of Tamil cinema from 1973. In the performance I will raise my Pazaham Neeyappa banner with its image of Tamil movie SUPERSTAR Rajinikanth at the sites of the monuments. The audio component of the performance will include Fausto’s A Guerra é a Guerra [fromthe 1982 album Por Este Rio Acima.(Up this River), the Ulagam Ulagam soundtrack, a cello rendition of Jinkli Nona by Tara Rajah, and verses from Kalau Roboh Kota Melaka and Ulagam Ulagam spoken in Portuguese by Hugo Moss. Jane Frankish will read selections from her Poems on the megaphone. Cards presenting the state flag of Melaka will be distributed.
Ulagam Ulagam
Ulagam
Azhagu kalaigalin surangam
Paruva chilaigalin arangam
Kaalamey odivaa
Kaadhaley thedivaa
World!
A cavern of beautiful art
A hall of youthful forms
Time … advance on me
Love … come seek me
Mundo!
Uma caverna de arte bela
Um salão de formas joviais
Tempo… avança em mim
Amor…venha me procurar
உலகம்
அழகு கலைகளின் சுரங்கம்
பருவசிலைகளின் அரங்கம்
காலமே ஓடிவா
காதலே தேடிவா
Papan Jawa
The Papan Jawa photo-event took place on the 7th July at the Alfonso De Albuquerque Square and in Belem, Lisbon. In this impromptu performance In this performance I am attempt to find an image, provisionally titled Papan Jawa, that will recast the monumental representation of the ‘Fall of Malacca’ on the base of the Alfonso De Albuquerque monument within my own contemporary allegory of identity. For more images of the performance please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
Malaca Malaca
Koboi performance: 4.30 – 6.00pm will take place at the Alfonso De Albuquerque Square and the in Belem, Lisbon, 7th July 2018. For details please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
The Alfonso de Albuquerque square is located in front of the Belém Palace in Belem Lisbon. Alburquerque the Second Governor of Portuguese India and the conqueror of the city of Melaka. AT the centre of the square is an impressive monument to the Governor by Silva Pinto and António Augusto da Costa Motta that was completed in 1902. The monument carries a bronze statue of Afonso de Albuquerque on a column with four reliefs on the pedestal. The four relief panels are – the defeat of the army of the king of Hormuz, the entrance of Albuquerque in Goa and the handing over of the city keys, the embassy to the king of Narcinga Lisboa and the taking of Malacca.
Discoveries Monument
UPCOMING: Impromptu Koboi performances will take place at the Alfonso De Albuquerque and the Discoveries monuments in Belem, Lisbon betwen 7- 9th of July 2018. For details please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
The monument to the Discoveries was initially a temporary edifice built for the Portuguese World exhibition of 1940. It was reified as a permanent monument to Portuguese marine adventure and power by the far-right imperialist Second Republic government that ruled Portugal from 1933 to 1974. It was completed in 1960. I will erect my Kabali banner in the vicinity of the monument and in my performance, make reference to a rather different representation of mastery over the world by way a song from MGR’s Ulagam Suthum Valiban (World Perambulating Young Man), a blockbuster of Tamil cinema from 1973. On a personal note this intervention brings together fragments of knowledge and memory from my childhood in Malaysia – history lessons, local tourism, globetrotting relatives … indeed, I was taught about the great European voyages of discovery and conquest. The film song I use, Ulagam Ulagam, and its visual elements are also resonant for me – Subang International airport in Kuala Lumpur, Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore and Expo 70 in JApan … one of my uncles went and brought us some souvenirs. The idea of globalization was just taking shape in the time of the film’s release tourism and it seems to me MGR was looking back up the marine telescope of Discovery via his images of global tourism.
Ulagam
Azhagu kalaigalin surangam
Paruva chilaigalin arangam
Kaalamey odivaa
Kaadhaley thedivaa
World!
A cavern of beautiful art
A hall of youthful forms
Time … advance on me
Love … come seek me
Mundo!
Uma caverna de arte bela
Um salão de formas joviais
Tempo… avança em mim
Amor…venha me procurar
உலகம் அழகு கலைகளின் சுரங்கம்
பருவசிலைகளின் அரங்கம்
காலமே ஓடிவா
காதலே தேடிவா
Koboi Project Masterclass
The Koboi Project will be the basis of a Masterclass at the International Ismaili Jubliee Arts Festival at the Portugal Pavilion in Lisbon on the 6th July 2018. This class is part of an extensive visual arts programme which runs from the 6-9 July. I shall be presenting the praxis, poetics and politics that constitutes my work by sharing and explaining my preparation for street interventions that will take place in Belem between the 7th and the 11th of July. I will lead the workshop participants on a search for a meaningful action at the junction of art and everyday life, between performance and photography, and between intervention and conviviality. I will articulate a theory of performance without proscenium and a methodology for enacting contemporary rituals. We will begin the Masterclass within the designated presentation space of the Portugal Pavilion and finish outside absorbing the architecture Pavilion itself into the spectacle of the event.
https://prodesk.jubileeartsfestival.org/artist-events/
The Fall of Melaka
The UPCOMING Koboi performances will take place at the Alfonso De Albuquerque and the Discoveries monuments in Belem, Lisbon during the 2nd week of July 2018. For details please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
The Alfonso de Albuquerque square is located in front of the Belém Palace in Belem Lisbon. Alburquerque the Second Governor of Portuguese India and the conqueror of the city of Melaka. AT the centre of the square is an impressive monument to the Governor by Silva Pinto and António Augusto da Costa Motta that was completed in 1902. The monument carries a bronze statue of Afonso de Albuquerque on a column with four reliefs on the pedestal. The four relief panels are – the defeat of the army of the king of Hormuz, the entrance of Albuquerque in Goa and the handing over of the city keys, the embassy to the king of Narcinga Lisboa and the taking of Malacca.
Image: https://www.tumblr.com/search/portuguese%20conquistadors
Jingkli Nona
The next photo-event of the Koboi Project will be a series of street performances at the sites of various monuments to Portuguese marine adventure and imperialism in Belem, Lisbon. The performances will take place in the 2nd week of July 2018. For more information please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
Jingli Nona is a song from a dance form know as Branyo. It epitomizes the Malacca Portuguese (Kristang) language, music and culture … In 1511, a Portuguese fleet under the command of Alfonso de Albuquerque assaulted Malacca and annexed the Malacca sezurinty. The Portuguese then ruled Malacca for the next 130 years and in this time, to facilitate settlement, the Portuguese Crown granted freeman status and exemption from taxes to Portuguese men who married Malaccan women. According to a citation in a paper by Razaleigh Muhamat Kawangit 200 such marriages were recorded by 1604. The contemporary Kristang are their descendants. They form a small but fundamental component of Modern Malaysian society.
Listen all the way to end of the video and you will hear the Malay Joget rhythm come forth … of course, the influence goes the other way too. Interestingly, I am familiar with this song from my own Malaysian childhood. My parents grew up in Sri Lanka, and there they imbibed the Sri Lankan Portuguese musical form known as the Baila. I remember singing a version of this tune as a child, even before hearing the Kristang version.
Roboh Kota Melaka
https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
The fall of Melaka is depicted in a relief on the pedestal of the Alfonso De Albuquerque memorial in Belem, Lisbon. The next photo-event of the Koboi Project will be a series of street performances at the sites of various monuments to Portuguese marine adventurism and imperialism. This intervention attempts to mark, express and interpret the aggregation of memories, memoirs and memorials that I find at this junction of my own self and this deeply historic place – Belem. The performances will take place in the 2nd week of July 2018.
Kalau roboh Kota Melaka
Papan di Jawa hamba dirikan
Kalau sungguh bagai dikata
Nyawa dan badan hamba serahkan
If the city of Melaka has fallen
In Java shall I make my place
If I am true to the words I have spoken
Life and limb I shall give with grace
Se a cidade de Melaka cair
Vou me pousar então em Java
Se eu for leal às palavras ditas por mim
Oferecerei a minha vida toda com graça
For more information please visit https://koboibalikkampung.wixsite.com/nuntengporta
Promising Indians!
With with just 55 days left on the STATELESS INDIANS CLOCK, 20 or so promising Indian lawmakers from Pakatan Harapan held a press conference to renew their election promise to resolve the ‘stateless Indians’ problem in 100 days from coming into office. According to Malaysikini reporter Alyaa Alhadjri they held a press conference on the 25th of June 2018, with about 55 days on the clock … and proposed that the previous government’s, “Socioeconomic Development of Indian Community Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department (Sedic) be retained, as part of the government’s commitment to the community promised in its election manifesto”. In a seperate article Alyaa notes that PKR vice-president Xavier Jeyakumar told the press he is confident that the government will strive to resolve Indian citizenship issues within its first 100 days in office. Come on Annai can you really do it! What are action items … what is the timeline for this mammoth project … Please publish it so we can believe you … or at least be smart and let the 100 day deadline you set yourselves in your election promise to the most deprived sector of Malaysian society fade into the background noise along with the rest of the deadlines which will be forgotten in context of the post-election ‘realization’ of financial limitations brought about by the alleged malfeasance of the previous Barisan government! It seems that there are ‘promising Indians’ in every walk of Malaysian public life!
The Koboi Project 
You must be logged in to post a comment.