{"id":34797,"date":"2014-08-01T12:09:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T04:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=34797"},"modified":"2021-06-03T17:42:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T09:42:29","slug":"young-wild-shahida-hassim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/young-wild-shahida-hassim\/","title":{"rendered":"young & W!LD: Shahida Hassim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By day, Shahida Hassim works in our buzzing tourism sector. By night, she indulges her passion for theatre as a member of young & W!LD. She chats with us about the joys of inter-cultural theatre and stepping out of her comfort zone for Little Riots and Other Stories<\/em>, the ensemble’s upcoming showcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about how you were bitten by the theatre bug.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My first foray into theatre took place when I was sixteen. Back then, I was a junior college student just a few weeks into the new school term. We had been asked to sign up for a co-curricular activity, and I wanted to try something new, so I auditioned for the school’s drama club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you get involved in theatre?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Rather reluctantly, to be honest. Not many people (aside from close friends) would know that I’m actually a closet introvert. I used to be extremely shy as a teenager \u2013 something I attributed to my four years of being in an all-girls school. When I entered junior college, I felt that I needed to try something different to break out of my shell. When it finally came down to auditioning for the school’s Gavel Club or its Drama Club, I went for the latter and the rest, they say, is history. Looking back, I must say that it was a pretty life-changing decision!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on, I started signing myself up for as many school productions as I could, began watching more plays (I love how our local theatre scene has evolved over the years!) and participating in open calls like the recent Ways of Wandering<\/em> public arts engagement project under SIFA 2014. Basically, I made a more conscientious effort to immerse myself in the larger sphere of theatre that’s out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can speak English, Malay and some Japanese, and have a special interest in inter-cultural theatre. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I picked up the Japanese language in my third year of university, when I spent 10 months on exchange at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Ethnically, I’m the perfect embodiment of your Singaporean rojak. I’m half-Malay, a quarter-Chinese and a quarter-Indian; yet, I come from a predominantly English-speaking background. At one point of time in my childhood, I was watching English programmes on Cartoon Network, Chinese drama serials on Channel 8 and Spanish soap operas dubbed in Bahasa Indonesia \u2013 all within the same day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could say I was a pretty confused kid then, but on hindsight, being exposed to such cultural diversity also meant that it was only natural for me to develop a special interest in inter-cultural theatre as a young adult. I find it extremely fascinating to see how all these different cultures are interwoven into a performance piece onstage. As an audience member, you may not necessarily understand what’s being performed or said due to the lack of a cultural connection. Yet, the beauty lies in how you make meaning out of what you do see. Besides, I find that it’s often the visual that leaves more of an impact than whatever verbal dialogue was exchanged between characters within the same span of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why young & W!LD?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Well, I’ve been meaning to involve myself in theatre once more since graduating, but never quite found the right time nor avenue to do so. When a friend sent me the young & W!LD audition notice earlier this year, I knew I had to audition for the programme, or I’d kick myself for letting the opportunity to learn from full-time theatre practitioners and educators like Rodney Oliveiro and Serena Ho slip by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

young & W!LD has been going strong for three months. What have you learnt thus far about your craft and yourself?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I’ve learnt that what I love (and have missed) most about theatre is being immersed in the entire process of creation. I love envisioning in my head how a piece of performance should be, before actually going through the motions to create a final piece for the stage. More often than not, the end outcome is so, so different from what I started out with, but I’ve learnt that this is not necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst working on the upcoming showcase, I’ve also had to do a fair bit of devising and improvisation work, which I must admit was pretty daunting at first. But with each new exercise undertaken, I’ve learnt to challenge myself and be more open to trying new things out; things that fall out of my immediate comfort zone. I realise that I still have a long way to go before I can become the kind of performer I envision myself to be, but so long as I keep learning, challenging myself and questioning the choices I make onstage, I know I’m a step closer to getting there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By day, Shahida Hassim works in our buzzing tourism sector. By night, she indulges her passion for theatre as a member of young & W!LD. She chats with us about the joys of inter-cultural theatre and stepping out of her comfort zone for Little Riots and Other Stories, the ensemble’s upcoming showcase. Tell us about how …<\/p>\n

young & W!LD: Shahida Hassim<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":35554,"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":[1,8],"tags":[438,437,279,174],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34797"}],"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=34797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}