 |
|
Monday, August 25, 2003
A Pointed Sole: Ng Kin Wee Interviewer : Dawn Fung Halfway through doing ballet exercises, I thought to myself, 'why am I doing this? I gave this up already, why am I continuing it? God, if you want me to dance again, send someone to tell me.' I met Kin Wee when I signed up for a beginner's ballet class for adults at the YMCA. I remember being in black leotard and tights, thinking, 'I've never seen my thighs in that way before.' Since then my appreciation for ballet has grown, along with the size of some adipose tissues from the abrupt lack of training. Post ballet lessons, I've seen Kin Wee perform at the Christian Dance Fellowship camp and Deliver Us! by Ballet Magnificat!, America's first professional Christian ballet company, in February this year. Kin Wee is also the Senior Programming Executive of Hope of God Church (Singapore) and its creative arts group leader. If you observe closely, as I did from our dinner interview, Kin Wee's really, really soft spoken and he's even got that aristocratic profile. Blue blood stereotype casting aside, this guy is still a feisty talker. I started out with asking, how did you get involved into the arts? [ The Background: Dancer in the Dark] Kin Wee : I was already a dancer before I became a Christian. I was professionally trained but not professionally working as a dancer. I went to Washington D.C, USA for professional ballet training. In those eight months I learnt new techniques and movements. Also, I didn't go to church. I gave the excuses- I can't find a church, I lived far away, I don't know anybody. It took an injury for me to be aware of the Lord. It wasn't that serious, thank God or I would have needed an operation. That's when I went back to God, read the bible through the night and didn't even sleep- it was such an exciting and refreshing time in my life. Because of my injury, my parents wanted me to reconsider what I wanted to do for my future. Actually I was already enrolled in the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale a year before but I chose ballet instead. My Singapore ballet teacher, Mdm Goh Soo Khim gave me a scholarship to study at Washington D.C. She didn't require me to repay her the bond; she just wanted me to discover how far I could go in ballet. Since I got injured that left the university option. When I got into university I felt like I lost my identity because I had placed my identity only in dance. I was so surprised and happy to find that there was a dance department there. I did classes and my teacher asked me to teach the classes. After I graduated, I did an MBA. My undergrad was in computer science. Maybe it was a good thing. In graduate school, I had to juggle studies, church- I joined a fellowship group- and dance. So I gave up dance, the most obvious thing that had to go because of studies and the fellowship. I gave up dance for two years and at that time I didn't think I would pick it up again. So I threw away my shoes but kept my unitard. (Still in the USA) One day I went to the gym where there was a dance studio. Halfway through doing ballet exercises, I thought to myself, 'why am I doing this? I gave this up already, why am I continuing it? God, if you want me to dance again, send someone to tell me.' That night our church had a prayer meeting. One of the girls who had been in one of my audition classes approached me and asked me, 'when are you going to have a dance again?' I put that into my heart. As I was attending a Vineyard fellowship, a man prayed to have a song that he can dedicate to God. God gave him the song, Beautiful Blue Bird. One of his lyrics was, 'try, try again Blue Bird'. I tell you I was so shocked. A week later, one of the ladies came up to me and passed me an item. She told me that she believed it is for me. She had woken up in the middle of the night at 4am and exclaimed to her husband, 'there's a bird in the house'. She then found this blue glass bird meant as for her sister's Christmas present. She didn't know why she had missed giving the gift to her sister. You see, when I was dancing in the States, my signature piece was The Bluebird solo from the ballet "Sleeping Beauty", and I had always done that piece without fail. When I received the gift, I was so shocked. God had sent three people to confirm my question. The Lord is good. On hindsight I realised it was for me to get healed of all the injuries I had in the past. So now I don't have any of the problems that I had when I danced too much. That was really a blessing in disguise. Imagine if I had continued to dance then, I wouldn't have been able to teach ballet now. [Testimony: A Window Opportunity] I always thought my 'conversion' was not real. A friend in school converted me when I was 13 but there was no follow up, nothing. So I just went along doing what I thought I should. I think until I graduated, I was not a Christian because I was not having a personal relationship with the Lord. Nobody followed up on me, and nobody told me that I should read the bible. Ironically I was actually the president of my Bible fellowship in the States. I wouldn't say now that I had been a Christian then. 'If God is in a house, then I am just outside looking in through the window.' That's how I described my state at that time. It wasn't until my two year sabbatical from ballet that I really experienced the close, personal relationship with the Lord. It was something that I've always wanted to do and to know what was in His heart and in His mind and to be able to love Him too. The Lord said in the Bible that he would restore and return to me all the years that the locusts had eaten. So I think that during those two years he speeded up the restoration for me.It was the best time of my life because I got to know how God works and what He wanted out of me. When I came out of those two years, I had a different view of dance and music. They don't control me anymore and I can determine when and whether I want to dance or not. It was a real sense of freedom for me. [Entering Full-Time: A Different World] When I returned to Singapore, I worked at Informatics for more than one and a half years as a lecturer and I met a lecturer who was also a pastor at the Hope of God Church. However, because of the heavy teaching schedule I had no time for fellowship groups during the week. After so much time overseas and with the little free time I have after teaching, I knew had to spend more time with my family on Sundays rather than in church. At the end of it, I realised that spiritually I was only sustaining on what I had learnt during the two years and it was not enough. I needed fresh input. I quit my job. After a month of joining Hope of God, I decided to know more about this Church and opt to go for a bible conference in Bangkok. After that, I requested to stay back to learn more. I found out later that my pastor was looking for someone to replace the worker who was assigned to work in Bangkok. That's how I got into full time. During the years ahead, although I did little dance God was training me up as a member of the church and teaching me what it meant to be a leader. I learnt about my church's philosophy, follow up, evangelism- it was a good time with no distractions. [Pioneering the Creative Arts Ministry: Baby Steps] We used to have an annual special festival, called the Holy Ghost Festival that was about the same time as the Hungry Ghost festival. The pastor would preach after the arts items. In 1997 the pastor asked me to come up with a proposal for a creative care group. That's how I started the creative arts ministry. There were only four people in the creative arts group partly because I didn't want just anybody to come into the group. I wanted to build this group so that they would understand my heart for the church and for the arts. This is so that people who come in later would respect them as the earlier batch and because they are very close with me, they will listen to what they say. This way I can also build trust within the group as we find out what each other's likes and dislikes, and what I see as being biblical and what is not since arts has so many grey areas. We have to be careful.There were some changes in the group, which made me sad at times. I had to understand what God was putting me through and what God was letting them go through. Sometimes you never know when they might come back again and contribute even more. So I just let those changes happen even though we had been together for a few years. They didn't betray me (or crucify me!) but I felt that way because I felt like I needed their help and they were not there. But then I trust that God will provide. Now I have seven people. They are very young and I have to teach again from scratch. But I am still in contact with those who have left and they are contributing also in their ways. I've dealt with coming from the secular professions to the church ministry. I'm not a creative person but I am artistic. My forte is teaching and coaching and not choreography. Some of my people left because they are creative and artistic and they were bored with doing dramas that were straightforward. I think a matured audience, or knowledgeable one will accept more abstract performances. But when you present such work to the church, it is made up of different kinds of people and therefore, the reception will not be the same. After some trial and error, we understand our people more and what their make up is and we prepare them when we do abstract things. These few years have been better than the last few years even though we have been creating more in the last few years. To improve ourselves, we go out and watch drama and evaluate as a group. They have to look out for things like lighting, costumes, blocking, and stage design. One of our members went for a course and came back to teach us. We add what we learn to our work. We're still not there yet but we try. [ Creative Arts Ministry: The ARTS Feast* ] We have two objectives in using creative arts during service. One is to open the hearts of people and the other is touching the soul. We have to evaluate our works- will we touch them or will we cause confusion? What part of that performance indicated the purpose of the sermon? Our drama is mainly used to introduce the sermon, provoke a thought or let the audience see the humorous side of life. For me, [a genre like] performance art in church is not practical but in a place like ARTS Feast it would be. So when [the creative and artistic people] want to do that, I say, keep that. It's good. Do that at the ARTS Feast. I used to reject a lot of their works and they get so hurt because they had spent so much time preparing. But now they have an avenue where they can do it. They were the ones who decided on the ARTS Feast idea. The ARTS Feast is an event to celebrate the arts. That's when my people can be as creative and as artistic as they want to be. And what we did for this year is that we open it up to the public. We have people who come in from the outside to join us. I know a lot of Christian artists want to bring together the creative arts between churches but it's really difficult because every church has their own agenda. So when people talk about it I am quite reserved. I'm in it myself and I know the time that we can afford. I may have the time but I may not be able to commit. For example, if you suggest doing a Christmas item together, the artists and leaders must see eye to eye. Issues like converts, where do they go? It's a tricky issue. And I understand. We can help each other in having workshops and training sessions. *ARTS Feast is in 15 and 22 August, 2003. See What's On section. [The Ballet Ministry: The New Pointe Shoe] You'd be surprised at how much of a Gospel is inside ballet- we just need to dig deeper. I can use a pointe shoe to tell you what the life of Christian should be. I did that once in Malaysia. The new point shoe is really hard at the tip. You need to break it down, to hammer it and soften it so that the dancer can use it. Then the dancer will feel like it is one with her and she can move freely. Likewise as a Christian we always start out by being stiff necked and stubborn and God has to break us down. This is so that we can be moulded by God and be used by God. As Christians who are artists, and not the other way round, we need to learn our make up and to know when we are vulnerable to our own emotions. This prevents us from being less biblical and less of a Christian. Sometimes you hear really ugly stories of ballet teachers screaming and cursing their students. You also have a lot of prima donnas in dance, especially when they are very good and they don't feel like they should share their secrets. As Christians we need to go beyond that: we need to love each other and be humble and to acknowledge that all these gifts are from God. Ballet is the one genre of dance I know really well so I feel confident teaching it. By teaching ballet, I want to give the students a different image. Ballet can be fun even if it is hard work. In July, I'm going to learn some of the Russian syllables for ballet. That's the syllabus I want to teach when I come back to Singapore. [The Artist's Ministry: The Talent Source] I have learnt that we, in our ordinary lives, must and need to glorify God. Our lives, whether in our conversations, dance, prayers, or in the arts, should be glorifying God. Then whatever we produce will be glorifying to God and there will not be any worry for pride. It cannot be that only on performance night that we start to pray about wanting to glorify God. I don't want to degrade people but I've done that same mistake- I've prayed to God before a performance to make this and that but we have to watch our lives- is it glorifying throughout? There's this verse that says that people who will see your good deeds will praise your Father in heaven. So we don't have to say 'don't thank me, thank God' when people praise us. I find Christians (including me) always struggle with that when we don't realise it's about our lifestyle. Our Christian brothers and sisters are so forgivable but as artists we should evaluate ourselves and know whether our work was good. Don't let people's praises throw us off. When our lifestyle is glorifying, whatever we do will be glorifying. We need to multiply our talents. I cannot just be a ballet teacher or a dancer. I must learn about jazz, hip-hop and contemporary dance (I learnt all those by the way). I can't believe I did hip hop, but it was good for the church because they really enjoyed it. That's when I learnt to open up my view of dance. I did contemporary dance as a freelancer but I cannot teach it because I need to know the syllabus but I try to incorporate it into my ballet and teach it to my students. All this has influenced my work. What God has given to me, I want to give back as much as I can before my time runs out. Now I'm into drama and I have to learn. I am multiplying my talents and I need to teach others who can teach others. We cannot stay where we are and glory at our level of knowledge. We need to move on and learn. Through this process we become fuller artists. Opening up my view of dance and multiplying my talents through new forms of art is a good experience that the Lord has led me through. When Jesus comes back we can say, 'look, we've multiplied what you gave us'. Our interview has ended. I am not unaware that my Dictaphone is still rolling. A lot has been said despite our deceptively short time together. A lot of things have also been out laid out, things that are felt in the spirit and will be revealed by fire in 1 Corinthians 3:13. I wonder on this Wednesday evening if a certain ballet class might be tracing more than a pointed sole. ---- Revised 030803
|
| All articles, files and materials are copyright of CreateLeVoyage.com unless otherwise stated. Views of the writers, artists and contributors may not be taken to be the views of CreateLeVoyage.com. To reprint, reproduce or link to our website requires written permission. Email us at createlevoyage@gmail.com |
 |
 |