Gather The Lost 10 April 2009 Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre   Review by Alexander Chin   It's Friday night:  while everyone was rushing back home after a week of hard work, I went to the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) to watch a performance called Gather The Lost, which was held at the lobby of the arts centre. This short performance introduces the group comprised of William (Bill) Curtis, Vimala Tangavellu-Fellender, Chai Chikying and Nanci Traynor to the KLPac community.   The performance started with no announcement at all. A male performer entered the lobby in strange clothes and strange objects in his hand. The people at the lobby gave him even stranger looks but he was undeterred and went about his business.   As if setting the stage for his ritual, he got into a meditative state of sweeping the lobby with a straw broom; and with each sweep, he stepped outwards. The repetitive motion, lulled by a ringing bell created a mysterious atmosphere around him.  The cleaning ritual completed, he put down his straw broom, kneeled down and removed stones from a suspicious-looking bag.  He laid out these stones into what we can easily imagine to be a ritual circle.   Three other performers joined him, each taking a position resulting in a triangular formation. Their act was very good especially the part where they let out a moan of suffering. It was so realistic that it sent chills down my spine. They circled around the ritual circle, and slowly closed in. It was at this point that I realized how difficult was it for them to perform, because they had to maintain an agonizing difficult body position as they moved step by step towards the circle.   They arrived inside the ritual circle with a burst of happiness as the 'lost' are gathered and found (hence the title Gather The Lost). They did a little happy dance to celebrate and then exited the lobby, leaving the first performer inside the ritual circle. As if watching the earlier scene in reverse, the performer removed the stones that made the ritual circle, swept the stage and exited in his strange clothes and strange objects in his hand. I guess the performance had come full circle in all of fifteen minutes.   Interview with William (Bill) Curtis   ADC:  What can you tell us about your group? It is difficult to nail it all down into words. We perform Ritual Theater, a theatrical discipline that calls on ancient ritual techniques, and attempts to find the common elements that transcend culture. We try to find those images, symbols and ideas that are collectively held by humanity as a whole. For this reason we don't "own" a name for our group. However, our performances can always be identified by the words "A Ritual Theater Performance."   ADC:  How long have you practised for it? In February, Nanci held a ritual theater workshop. This was how Vimala and Ying were 'delivered' to us. For them, their practice began there. They practiced and learned the basic elements of Ritual Theater.   After the workshop, Nanci and Bill invited Vimala and Ying to perform. For five Sundays in a row we rehearsed for the Gather The Lost performance. The rehearsals are a bit untraditional as far as regular theater goes. In our rehearsals we began by practicing different skills that would be needed during the performance. During the first three weeks of the rehearsals we designed and honed the actual parts of the show. And then, in the last two weeks we practiced the parts that would be the 'Gather The Lost' performance   We often use improvisations and random discoveries in rehearsals to see what happens, and then adapt those discoveries into the performance. At times this can be quite difficult for those who promote our shows, since we never really know exactly what the show will be until just a couple of weeks before the performance date!   ADC:  Why Ritual Theatre? To answer this question is like answering, "What is the meaning of life' Just like the underlying symbology of the performance is up to the audience and observer to decide, the reason for having a ritual theater performance is open to interpretation. It is all dependent on the experiences of each individual involved, not only the performer but also the observer.   If you like to watch Gather The Lost, their full performance are on 19 and 20 June 2009 at 8pm and 21 June at 3pm.