Meet Disha, an odissi dancer who practices her moves at the void deck so that she doesn't disturb her neighbours downstairs when she stamps her feet. In this artist profile, we find out what it is about this ancient Indian classical dance form that gets ten-year-old Disha up and moving.

Disha teaches adults the basics of odissi dance, and it's tougher than it looks. We kid you not.

We kid you not. Meet Hannah, a guzheng player whose dedication to the art of plucking these versatile strings has made her friends think she's a little overboard.

Hannah takes on the task of teaching three grown-ups how to play the guzheng – no strings attached.

All his siblings dance too, we kid you not. Meet Ilham (which means "inspiration" in Malay), whose passion for Malay dance runs through the entire family. Tune in as the little dynamite shares more about inang, one of the five basic traditional Malay dance forms in Singapore. 

From bro to boss, Ilham teaches three grown-ups inang, one of the five traditional Malay dance forms in Singapore.

In this episode, Dhruv and Siddhant make up team tabla, while Rithvik and Sriramanan (Sri, for short) pair up for the mridangam. Both ancient hand drums are rooted in Indian culture but what is the difference and why does it matter? Four mini gurus will take you through the drums’ distinct folk origins, and explain the differences between both drums. For instance, these drums actually represent two main schools of Indian classical music: the tabla for the Hindustani style of the North, the mridangam for the Carnatic music of the South. They will demystify the techniques they use, show you the basics and clear some of those misconceptions before ending with a short demonstration—all without missing a beat.

Tabla
Dhruv Khurana
Siddhant Ananthanarayanan

Mridangam
Rithvik Ganesh
Sriramanan Sathish Kumar

Through the music and instruments of varied cultures and traditions, kids understand more about people who come from different backgrounds, while reconnecting with their own roots. This opens their minds from a young age, showing them the unique ways in which others might see the world. As they grow up, the kids are able to observe and appreciate different points of view, allowing them to effectively navigate the diverse world we live in.

In this episode, Justus and Yi Ming pair up to talk about the erhu, while Anne and Marianne show you the ropes (or should we say strings?) for playing the pipa and yanqin respectively. The four young masters take you all the way back in time to the Silk Road and the Tang dynasty when the pipa and erhu were first introduced to China, and when the yangqin first appeared some 400 years ago. They'll also show you nifty techniques and basics, while explaining how Chinese instruments have an uncanny ability to mimic different types of sounds of nature, animals, even battle, and evoke emotions—sadness, excitement, longing and so forth. The kids wind things up with the performance of a specially arranged folk song titled Jasmine Flower 《茉莉花》.

Erhu
Justus Teh
Li Yi Ming

Pipa
Anne Altorfer-Ong

Yangqin
Marianne Wang

Through the music and instruments of varied cultures and traditions, kids understand more about people who come from different backgrounds, while reconnecting with their own roots. This opens their minds from a young age, showing them the unique ways in which others might see the world. As they grow up, the kids are able to observe and appreciate different points of view, allowing them to effectively navigate the diverse world we live in.

In this episode, Maisarah and Sharifah team up to talk about asli, while Aleesyah and Sarah give us an introduction to zapin. The four young dancers trace the origins of two out of five—other styles are inang, masri and joget—traditional Malay dance forms, which are all hundreds of years old. Zapin is a fast-paced dance that is heavily influenced by other cultures and was once only danced by men, while asli is a slow, graceful dance that originated from the Malay peninsula, typically accompanied by pantun (poems). The girls demonstrate basic techniques that cut across different traditional styles and explain the key differences in asli and zapin, finishing with a flourish—a performance of both styles of dance.

Asli
Maisarah Rifqah Bte Mus Iskandar
Sharifah Auni Imaan Bte Syed Abdul Rahman

Zapin
Aleesya Nadya Puteri Bte Muhammad Azim
Sarah Atikah Bte Aminuddin

Through the music and instruments of varied cultures and traditions, kids understand more about people who come from different backgrounds, while reconnecting with their own roots. This opens their minds from a young age, showing them the unique ways in which others might see the world. As they grow up, the kids are able to observe and appreciate different points of view, allowing them to effectively navigate the diverse world we live in.

Catch Muara Festival, Singapore’s annual gathering of Malay dance practitioners and enthusiasts, online from 29 Oct – 27 Dec 2021. Watch the first day of the livestream performances here.

In this final episode of I Kid You Not Season 2, Anandita, Ananya, Maya and Nishikaa tell us about the essence of one of the oldest forms of classical dance, bharatanatyam. The four gurus deconstruct bharatanatyam into its basic elements and also demonstrate the navarasas, which are the nine emotions that can be conveyed through classical Indian dance. We end with the experts performing an excerpt of Kalinga Nathanam, or the Kalinga dance, which is a story about Krishna who battles with a giant snake and subdues it, eventually emerging from the river dancing atop the hood of the serpent.

Dancers:
Anandita Kishore
Ananya Pai
Maya Senthi
Nishikaa Muthukrishnan

Through the music and instruments of varied cultures and traditions, kids understand more about people who come from different backgrounds, while reconnecting with their own roots. This opens their minds from a young age, showing them the unique ways in which others might see the world. As they grow up, the kids are able to observe and appreciate different points of view, allowing them to effectively navigate the diverse world we live in.