Stories of Katong and Hope
Performance Arts
*This interview was conducted during the 2023 Church Camp held in Holiday Villa Johor Bahru City Center from the 2nd to 5th of June 2023. Some editorial changes were made for clarity.
Justin Hui
Ok we’re going to turn back the clock abit. I heard Uncle Owen, that there was a time in our history, when singing groups were all the rage. Can you tell us abit about this time.
Owen Lee
Urm I think it was during the 70s. During the 70s, young people like you all now, we tend to form singing groups. There were several singing groups in KPC. We had the traditional choir , and we had groups like the Scintillators , groups like the LAMP, the L-A-M-P, the lights unto my path, and then we also had the groups, the Wheel, which I’m part of.
Justin Hui
I see a lot of familiar faces here. Thomas Lee, Marilyn Lee, what is this photo about? What’s happening here?
Owen Lee
Well during the younger days, one of the things we did which I think many new churches don’t do, is to go out of the church and fellowship with other churches. So one of the things we did during that time was we visited churches in our friendly country Malaysia. So this is one of the singing groups. In front, on the extreme left is now my current wife Siok Han. And then we have on your right, the 2nd one, Pastor Lena. On my extreme right, Pin Pin, younger sister of Goh Wei Ming and Goh Wei Leong. And right behind, we have Herbert Wee. My co-fellow worker. The carpark attendant. So Herbert is there, and myself right in the middle, that time I had more hair. And my extreme left, he’s also here, Uncle Teck Ann, husband of Elder Mui Hong. The one on the extreme left.
Justin Hui
Amazing, so this was a touring group and you went around Malaysia, performing and different events, supporting churches.
Owen Lee
Yeah, that’s right, so we visited churches and helped them out with their evangelistic program. So it’s like we were the singing group and part of their evangelistic program and we were one of their singing groups.
Justin Hui
I can’t imagine that happening now. I also heard there was a period of time in Hope’s history, where performing arts was quite big.
Timothy Seow
Yeap definitely. So what you’re seeing here is Black Box. But this is just the youth. The older adults also had singing groups as well, my father David Seow, Uncle David Tay, Uncle Sik Horn and Aunty Nancy, will all bring their voices together and they’ll sing a wonderful choir. They also put on musicals during Christmas, Easter. They did one on Augustine play. But for the youth, we had dances, mimes and we also had this kind of performances. The music we played was less choral and more drums.
Justin Hui
Tell us a bit more about the black box.
Timothy Seow
So the black box productions, this is something I was actively involved in. I’m over there. It’s actually a black box theater. The idea of the black box theater is where you have a small comfortable space, there’s no stage, we blacked out the entire basement. It’s about ¼ the size of this place, blacked out the entire space and put up a simple set and we’ll perform.
I felt it was very personable. We’ll touch on darker themes. There was one on abusive husband to a daughter. That were very interesting things we were able to touch upon.