{"id":34513,"date":"2014-10-01T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T11:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=34513"},"modified":"2021-06-03T17:46:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T09:46:10","slug":"red-hot-chilli-pepper-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/red-hot-chilli-pepper-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Red-Hot Chilli Pepper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Talk about coming full circle! Kimberly Chan, one of the local theatre scene\u2019s brightest rising stars, made her professional debut as a dancing crab in Cinderel-lah!<\/em>, W!LD RICE\u2019s first pantomime. Now, she\u2019s starring as Red Boy in Monkey Goes West<\/em>. She chats with us about graduating into the limelight and performing in the recent RICE BALL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your character in Monkey Goes West<\/em>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I actually play a character who exists in two worlds in the show. In the real world, I\u2019m Xiao Hong, Ah Tang\u2019s stepsister. She\u2019s very pampered and an over-achiever. She sings, she dances, she acts, she writes and has trophies galore. It\u2019s a very good juxtaposition with Joshua\u2019s character, Ah Tang, who\u2019s more quiet and reserved and feels like he needs to take care of himself because his aunt and uncle are too busy paying attention to Xiao Hong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the imagined world, I play Xiao Hong\u2019s alter ego – Hong Hai Er, or Red Boy. Like Xiao Hong, he\u2019s spoilt beyond belief by his two parents, King Bull and Princess Iron-Fan. He suffers punishment from Guan Yin Ma for being mischievous and wanting to eat Tang Seng\u2019s flesh so that he can be immortal. He must confront the error of his ways, and that makes for a really interesting journey of his own in the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you familiar with Journey To The West<\/em> before being cast in this production?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When Journey To The West<\/em> was on television, I was really young. So I never followed it closely and don\u2019t remember specific stories. But I remember images and scenes and monsters from it. I remember it being a massive<\/em> epic journey – there were so many episodes in the television series! [laughs] I think Alfian has done a very interesting and very good job of translating the mythical characters and stories into something we can relate to. He had a wealth of stories to pick from, and he\u2019s found the essence of the journey and each character and planted that into our version of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kimberly as Red Boy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the most challenging part for you in playing your role?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Shooting fire from my eyes! Everyone keeps singing that line over and over, and we\u2019re all trying to figure out how I\u2019m going to do that! [laughs] More seriously, I was told to come back for a dance call during auditions – and it was essentially a wushu<\/em> call. Gordon Choy, our martial arts choreographer, asked me to spin a staff in my hands, and I kept dropping it. And he asked me to do some movement stuff as well that looked<\/em> simple enough, but really wasn\u2019t! I\u2019m anticipating that to be the most challenging thing for me: incorporating all the wushu<\/em> movements and having really fast dance breaks that go straight into the singing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your first experience with the W!LD RICE pantomime.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As a child, I was in Cinderel-lah!<\/em>, the very first W!LD RICE pantomime ever. I was a FIRST STAGE Kid! That was the first professional show that I ever did. I feel like I\u2019ve come full circle, because I\u2019ve just graduated from LASALLE and it\u2019s great to come into the pantomime again. And I\u2019ll no longer be dancing in a styrofoam crab suit! [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did my thesis on W!LD RICE\u2019s pantomimes as well. I think W!LD RICE has done such a great job in sustaining the pantomime over a decade. It\u2019s so rare to find a theatrical tradition in Singapore that spans such a long period of time. And the pantomimes are so Singaporean too. They\u2019ve been localised and they reach out to such a wide audience, including people who don\u2019t usually come to the theatre, because it\u2019s something they can connect to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s it been like working with the cast?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Everybody has a wicked sense of humour. It’s really fun to be part of a cast with a real mixture of actors, all from very different backgrounds, and to see how everyone works individually with their roles and their songs. I feel like a little kid at Christmas just watching everyone at work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You performed Eye Of The Tiger<\/em> with the Martial House Kids at this year\u2019s RICE BALL. Tell us about that experience.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It was like a dream come true. I sound like a broken record, saying this to everybody, but it really was. I mean, I grew up with the Singapore theatre scene – watching it and learning from it. So I\u2019m sitting backstage with people like Ivan Heng, Glen Goei, Pam Oei and Hossan Leong\u2026 these are big names to me! I was sitting at the table with Ria Jones, this incredible West End star, waiting to go on. I was just pinching myself. \u2018Is this real? Am I actually sitting here, doing what I\u2019m doing?\u2019 And the RICE BALL is a whole bunch of fun. It\u2019s so flamboyant and fabulous. I feel really fortunate to have been part of the W!LD RICE family in that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk about coming full circle! Kimberly Chan, one of the local theatre scene\u2019s brightest rising stars, made her professional debut as a dancing crab in Cinderel-lah!, W!LD RICE\u2019s first pantomime. Now, she\u2019s starring as Red Boy in Monkey Goes West. She chats with us about graduating into the limelight and performing in the recent RICE BALL. …<\/p>\n

Red-Hot Chilli Pepper<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":35558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[339,430,152],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}