By Ma Chee Seng & Lee Shaw Wei
KUCHING: The second day of the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) felt like it restarted the world after years of pauses. It was finally time for everyone to unwind.
It brought Sarawak Cultural Village to a full house Saturday (June 18) with excitement filling the air as friends, family, newcomers, and returning festival-goers able to finally meet again.
“There was a clamour for more as At Adau took to the stage last night, the crowd chanting their name, as they delivered a mesmerising performance that wowed festival goers
“OOHAAAA! This one’s for all the strong women in our lives, past, present, and future, OOHAAAA! People, let’s raise our glasses to them,” they said, before going on to perform a beautiful serenade that stunned the crowds and got everyone up and dancing.
As the concert progressed, Mei Han’s RC world, a group of performers who combined the use of Chinese GuZheng and Western instruments, entertained the audience once more.
Among the numbers of Mei Han’s performance were the Sape tune on her GuZheng she learned during the sape workshop; it blew away the audiences as they all started clapping and started jiving to the tune.
Dongyang Gozupa, a progressive rock band from Seoul, Korea, performed an energetic mix of various genres including progressive rock, post-rock, and traditional music at this year’s festival.
Eunhwa Yun’s Yangguem, a traditional Korean hammered dulcimer, was the band’s highlight, as she performed an exotic tune alongside Dohyuk Jang (percussionist) and Minhwi Ham (Bassist).
Aside from the food and beverage stalls, the festival was also packed with vendors and workshops of traditional and modern attractions that attracted visitors for a variety of reasons, such as the tattoo areas, which piqued visitors’ interest, and the sape workshop, which provided hands-on sape lessons.
The Melanau House’s crafts and trinkets, which appear ordinary from the outside were another point of interest.
M. Sahzy’s intriguing project of building ‘portals’ out of recycled forest materials is a short walk from the Melanau House.
“I’ll make a portal out of all the branches and vines from the forest; some of my projects are on display at HAUS, but the majority of my larger works are in the forest.”
According to him, he kept most of his project’s location a secret and urged anyone interested in seeing one of the portals to go out and explore Sarawak’s forest.
