By Ahmed Wafi Rashid
The Cultural Activity Centre (CAC) is reserved for only the grandest events around IIUM and on Wednesday night (11 February) it played host to CiTRA’s open day in which a dozen different performances and plays took the stage.
For those who are unfamiliar with CiTRA, it is IIUM’s Centre for International Islamic Culture. Under CiTRA, many different musical bodies exist mainly based on traditional Malay instruments including the angklung and caklempong. The event that night at CAC was full house.
According to the programme manager Muhammad Anwar, the entertainers had been rehearsing ever since before the semester had reopened until a few hours before the curtain was raised. The performances of the night had their roots from all corners of the Nusantara. Admission to this event was completely free!
Although the programme was scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m, due to some complications the events of the night had been delayed by nearly half an hour. The VIPs of the night included Dr. Mahadi and Madam Shahrizad who is CiTRA’s senior assistant director. The different bands that were due to perform on the night were on standby on the stage and as soon as the VIPs entered the hall, they began singing praises to our Prophet Muhammad SAW.
The VIPs were escorted by students dressed in bright colourful baju Melayu and baju kurung which resembled a traditional Malay wedding in which the bride and the groom would enter the ceremony in a similar fashion. As soon as the VIPs were seated, the audiences were presented with a thrilling silat simulation. Silat is Malaysia’s traditional martial arts used all across Malaysia and Indonesia.
IIUM’s alumni were given seating priority as a small token of congratulations for completing their degrees! Various performances were in place but one that caught the eyes of the audiences and that kept them laughing and cheering came from IIUM’s theatre club. They performed a short skit entitled ‘Lelaki Melayu terakhir’ or ‘The last Malay man’. The skit had the audience laughing almost throughout the whole play.
I managed to catch up with the main actress of the play, Nabihal, a third year Psychology student who played the role of Saleha. She expressed her delight in working with the different clubs and societies surrounding CiTRA and when asked if the rehearsals were tiring at all she simply said ‘no’. It seems that her passion for the theatre outweighed her fatigue!
Another performance that caught the eyes (or the ears) of the audiences was the cover of M.Nasir and Jamal Abdillah’s classical hit Ghazal untuk Rabiah. What should be highlighted about this performance was the powerful vocals the vocalists exhibited as well as the rhythmic sounds coming from the instruments the band was playing. The performance was so strong, it kept our heads shaking to the beat of the drum.
The dikir barat performance also managed to captivate the crowd as well as the instrumental cover of Siti Nurhaliza’s smash hit ‘Ya Maulai’ which was performed almost solely based on traditional instruments.
CiTRA open day was overall a good display of the Malay culture and it also played as a reminder telling us how rich our culture is and it was a true exhibition of authentic Malay culture. When a crowd member was asked to describe the night he said ‘Awesome! what else?’ and that it was!
On behalf of the news team here at IIUM Today, we would like to congratulate CiTRA and all those who took part in it and hope to see more of you!
Photo taken by Shazni Ong