Welcome to the Malaccan Empire

This year's Shell IT annual dinner was the most extravagant I think. The theme was 'Zaman Kesultanan Melaka'. Ahh we haven't gone traditional for quite awhile, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. I didn't have a clue about the theme beforehand. Firstly a few of my gal pals asked me to join in with Annual Dinner performance, and it was said that there would be malay traditional dance involved. I thot, hmm.."the last time I did traditional dance was back in secondary school", and I feel my body stiffening up just the thought of doing traditional dance on stage..eee..shy lahh. Buut..my good old gal pals persuaded me into it, furthermore there is a pretty attractive catch to the involvement; dancers who are selected will be given free make-up and costume to wear on that day! Hurrah..well, what more would a girl ask for?
Only after 2 weeks signing up, the first training/briefing session started. At first there was much anticipation with WHEN the bloody practice will start as all of us were anxious to know if we are as graceful as we'd like to think. Then it was the anticipation of getting the choreography completed, so that we can practice and memorise steps, and try to look like a pro as much as we can. There were a few frustrating moments, when we all came, but no instructor was around, as miscommunications occurred somewhere. Also many times whom came for practice, just a few of us, which result to full rehearsals failed to execute. Practice sessions were held almost daily and ended up to 9pm sometimes. The sessions were always fun though, bonding with new friends, hanging out, chit chatting. I would have never met/knew these bunch of people so well, if it weren't for this production. I also was surprised that I am more graceful than I thot..wooh. And so to much excitement, I was picked for the core dances, and got to wear one of the prettier (I thot lahh) costumes they have. The core dancers are called the Inangs, and the rest of the girls, the dayangs. Erk..these are 50s palace language ya.. At the very last minute, literally a few days before the annual dinner, the dinner committee decided to add a segment in the performance which is the Food Presentation. This involves a short dance routine similar to the PGL (Puteri Gunung Ledang) moves. And as I poked my face too much in the committee's chats, I was picked among a few of my buddies. And our dearly sexy Fernli was to pilot the dance as the PGL herself. But in that few days, we were to think up of simple moves to fill a 3 mins PGL song..wooh..tough. But we managed to 'wing-it' in the end.
And so practice after practice, nights lacking sleep, and zombie days (sleepwalking in the day), ze day came..too soon, but we were ready, anxiously ready. This is the first time Shell IT used a fairly large number of its staff to perform in a big production.
The venue is Palace of Golden Horses. The place is haunted they say. The dancers and committee members are asked to arrive as early as 12noon on that day. Dancers especially had a last rehearsel to attend, before going to make-up and costume. It was exciting, despite of exhaustion and hunger (we were only fed Domino's pizza that afternoon, which we didn't have much time to gobble up in between rehearsels).
And before we know it, our faces were slapped with heavy foundation, blusher, eye shadow, etc. Our hair was tied up in buns and flowers were pinned into our skulls to make it pretty.
Once done, we all walk out to our spouses and friends, where they didn't recognise us at all..Hah. The first dance I was to do is the food presentation. This was my favorite, as I love the PGL production, and to have a short stint that's similar is a great experience by itself. Ahh..during the dance, I dunno what has gotten into me, but I found it difficult to smile! Eeek..I wasn't that nervous, and I wasn't having stage fright, but my facial muscle just frozed up. I heard people whispering "Smile Muni.." Hehe..Oh well..Oh I also made one obvious mistake on stage! Ark..I made a 360deg turn, the wrong way! Shoot! When the dance was over, I asked around, no one noticed the mistake..phewh..(I'm such a dork..) Then me and PGL buddies rushed to change to another costume for the long drama tari routine. We have about an hour before that starts, so all geared up, we walked to our dinner tables to grab whatever dinner's left for us. My poor hubby didn't see much of me that night except on stage..*grin* The food was ok, nothing to shout about. Malay style rice and dishes. The most memorable was the spicy sotong (squid) and dried chili prawns..yumm. Then before I had time to wash down my food, we were called to stand by for the drama tari routine. We hung out outside of the ballroom, till it was queue to start. And then the show began...Amazingly, this time, I was even more relaxed. Maybe coz they were many of us performing together. and the PGL routine earlier had taken away my butterflies. And this time, I really had fun. We all looked great, and performed like a pro. And then it was over, we were done! The curtain call really showed how reliefed we all were, but happy and proud at the same time. Ya ya enuff of the corny-ness, then quick change of the costume to err..not that I had a fantastic evening gown to wear, I just put on my most comfy kebarung, and continued to enjoy the night. Which was not much. The band performed so-so, no fav songs of mine. Our guest artist Adibah Noor was magnificient tho with her strong vocals and humourous audience interactions. But the saddest part of the night was, I didn't win ANY lucky draw prizes, just like in the previous years...SIGH. sob!sob! I can just rely on the door gift, which has a brilliant keris letter opener, a small packet of dodol and pareo (or scarf) packed in a cute basket. But all in all, this is the most memorable company annual dinner I have been to!