CHAPTER 4 1st May 2019

STORIES

1. Pritvii- M'sia - Pearl of Love

2. Roger Jenkins - S'pore - 2 grains of sand

3. Oni Lasana - USA - The Wife's doilies

4. Edwin Sumun - M'sia - Blind Date ; story by Kevin McIvor

MUSIC

1. Weijun - M'sia - "Back to Life" &  Love Rise above"

ONI LASANA is the "drama mama" of storytelling! She was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the USA. She now lives on the island of Tobago, in the Caribbean sea.

Her professional life as a storyteller started in 1994 and has presented her one woman show in theaters, schools, universities and storytelling festivals, across the USA, Germany and in Zimbabwe, Africa.

To learn more about Oni. Visit  www.OniLasana.com

PRITVII SANTHENA DEVANDRAN was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is a natural born storyteller and has strong oratory skills.  She is fascinated by different people, places
and culture and is always keen to learn their stories.  Her favourite genre is folk tales.

Pritvii attended primary school at Sekolah Rendah Bandar Sri Damansara 1 and was involved in numerous storytelling competition. It was at this time that storytelling reemerged as something she wanted to learn more about. In the 6 years she was there, she began to make storytelling a central part of her performance life.

Pritvii won the district storytelling championship organized by Ministry of Education in 2016 and 2017. Pritvii also emerged as the state storytelling champion in the competition organized by Ministry of Education in 2016.  Ms Shanthini Venugopal, the renowned story teller was instrumental in sharpening Pritvii’s story telling skills during her preparation for these competitions.

This recording for StoryTime will be the first of its kind for Pritvii. She hopes of being successful like Ms Shantini and Donna Washington in storytelling. Pritvii also aspires to write story books for children in the future following the footsteps of her trainer and mentor Ms Shanthini Venugopal. 

Pritvii is also a classical dancer inTemple of Fine Arts Malaysia. She has performed on many stages and celebrates her dancing skills with joy. She also trained some storytellers among her primary school juniors in a succession plan.  Her ability to tell stories was recognized by National University of Malaysia Alumni and was invited to demonstrate her skills to Tamil School Children around Klang Valley and was honored in many events.

Pritvii also performs very well in her studies and obtained straight A’s in her primary school public exam and her ambition is to read law in one of the Ivy League universities.

ROGER JENKINS is a Singaporean storyteller - really (born there and lived there over 40 years). He founded Singapore's annual 398.2 Storytelling Festival in 2015 and along with Sheila Wee andJeeva Raghunath is a Director of FEAST, the Federation of Asian Storytellers, which aims to promote the art of storytelling and tellers working in Asia. He has performed frequently at the PINKS Festival in Penang as well as in story festivals in Bangkok, Chennai, Jakarta, Kuching and Nairobi.  www.rogerjenkins.com.sg

WEIJUN is no stranger in the Malaysian performing arts scene. Since his return to Malaysia
after completing a Bachelor of Arts, Dance Degree in 2001 at Queensland University of
Technology (Australia), he has been involved in many acclaimed theatre productions. He is best known for his involvements with Sutra Foundation under the artistic direction of Datuk Ramli Ibrahim.

His many interests include photography, figure skating, teaching, multimedia production and making music.

On the music front Weijun has produced music for numerous local theatre productions, short films and also dabbled in pop music.

Weijun was nominated twice for Best Music & Sound Design for Dance at the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards

A finalist in the SUTASI Song writing competition , 2 top10 songs on the AMP Channel[V] charts, (no2. Move It/Make Your Body Mine, no8. Back To Life)

Currently producing a show titled In Pieces featuring top Malaysian contemporary choreographers and actors with music and artistic direction by Weijun

EDWIN SUMUN is an Award-winning Theatre Practitioner, however he is most recognised today for his work as his alter-ego, SHELAH.
Little known fact: Edwin is a tech and comic geek (self-declared) and enjoys his bookshelf & reading corner. Shelah, on the other hand, enjoys entertaining. They make a cute couple. #relationshipgoals

KEVIN MCIVOR (WRITER - Blind Date) 

....is finally free after 30 years locked up in the corporate world “I have 2 grown up
daughters who no longer call at MY bank account”. He has lived in London, Prague, Panama City and now lives in Kuala Lumpur.

He has been writing for 30 years and is still looking for an agent and publisher although he doesn’t look on a Wednesday. Kevin has three novels, a screenplay and a comedy series in the can plus numerous other short works including a children’s book

He’s interested in art and paints (“but only in my studio in England”) & is fascinated by eyes. He hates discrimination in all its forms