PETALING JAYA, March 9 ― Ayesha Hafsa never expected to enjoy the intricacies of making puppets from cardboards when she enrolled her daughter for Kakiseni's SeniKidZ class.
Kakiseni Junior is an online platform that offers four categories of classes ― performing arts, traditional arts, visual arts and life skills to allow parents and teachers to rediscover young people's interest in the arts.
Speaking to Malay Mail, Ayesha, who is from Petaling Jaya, said that she had fun alongside her daughter, Wan Dhuha, 11, after experimenting with a torchlight and coloured paper to create different lighting effects and shadows for their handmade puppets under the traditional art classes.
“It was really fun learning how to create different joints on the characters' legs and arms that my daughter used for her show and ways to explore a storyline.
“I attended a real wayang kulit show sometime back, but this was different ― I had to be fully immersed in the session as I had to be hands-on to help my daughter with her puppet creations and help her with her recording sessions.
“At the end of the programme under Kakiseni Junior last year, my daughter learned how to create a storyboard and even created a story focusing on a main hero titled 'Attack on Quadseason Island’.”
With wayang kulit show being a dying traditional art, she was more than happy to have had her daughter join the online platform last year as schools were also not having co-curricular activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I’m glad that my daughter joined because it wasn’t hectic at all ― classes were only for about half an hour a week using Google Classroom and Zoom with fun and palatable activities that were conducted online.
“She gets to cultivate her interest in an art and parents should also bond with me as she would sometimes need my help with creating her stage for her puppets.
“And most importantly, learn about the different cultures that we have in the country such as the wayang kulit which originally has its roots in Hindu mythology that has been adapted into the Malay culture," she said.
A digital creator who loves making art and teaching children
Afi Sulaiman, a 26-year-old artist and digital creator who teaches paper and digital collages under the visual arts section said that she enjoys teaching children making paper and digital collages from scratch.
“I’ve always loved experimenting with different textures and layers when it comes to paper collages and this was something that I only ventured into in 2020 during the movement control order (MCO).
“Most of my themes revolve around food whether it’s the different kueh or nostalgic snacks where the kids would need to cut their shapes on old magazines and paste them on paper.
“Paper collages are therapeutic and children can get their hands dirty cutting or tearing the papers from old magazines or such but allows children to have their creative twist to it."
The 26-year-old, who is also a law student, said that digital collages, however, have a more specific technique and students who join the workshops are often more serious in wanting to learn collage.
While most children have enrolled under the paper collage classes, there are some adults who have also signed up for the digital collage course.
“One experience that I remembered was when students made their own creative twist during the paper collage workshop by adopting an easier technique in presenting the background colours as well as shapes of fruits.
“I was in awe because I never thought of presenting it that way.
“Having these children have their own creative direction is a great way for them to be more confident in their decisions in creating art,” she said.
Funded by Yayasan Sime Darby under their Arts and Culture pillar, Kakiseni Junior supports art practitioners, to offer a platform for them to promote their classes, set their own class pricings and to allow teachers to conduct lessons in a safe environment.
The team has been working with more than 100 arts practitioners who have registered as service providers under Kakiseni Junior to conduct their creative classes, as well as running and improving features on the website since it went live in June last year.
For more information on the creative platform, surf here.
