The National Dance Company staged its annual production “Christmas Funtasia” a week ago. This production was a reminder of traditions, theatrical and otherwise, at the Christmas season. It is a Dance Company tradition to stage this show every year in December to have fun with the audience as befitting the season, but also to reflect on and dramatise the many customs associated with Christmas.
These traditions are several and varied, old and recent, demonstrating Christmas as a theatrical festival, to add to the other categories in which it falls. Christmas Funtasia dramatized the Christmas story, the mythology that evolved around it and its popular offshoots, the Christian religion within which it originated, and the spirit of the festival – its meaning and messages for mankind.
But prevalent in it all was the theatre. Different kinds of dances were exhibited, including classical, a touch of ballet, and folk, such as the parang and their relationships to Christmas were in evidence in the production. They strengthened the resonance of theatre.
