No Holds Barred

With the establishment of Malaysia’s first professional ballet company, Choong Wan Chin and her fellow co-founders have built a stage on which dancers can showcase their talents and secure their career

- Elizabeth Soong

Strains of Bizet’s music waft through the studio as Yui Kyotani and Benjamin Cook rehearse their pas de deux sequence for the ballet Carmen. Choong Wan Chin, the co-founder and artistic director of Ballet Theatre Malaysia (BTM), watches the pair intently from the side, issuing some guidance from time to time as the two portraying the characters of Carmen and Jose work to ensnare the other in a complex arrest scene involving a piece of rope.

Adapted from the novella by French author Prosper Merímée, this portrayal is a dramatic tale of passion, jealousy, obsession and tragedy revolving around the free-spirited gypsy named Carmen, a factory girl who got involved with a soldier named Jose after meeting each other in the town square. No doubt Choong has seen varied productions of how the story’s been told (whether it’s in the form of film, ballet or opera) and she’s certainly done her fair share of ballet repertoires—but it was the book that she based her imagination on. And she’s using her creative licence to tell her own version of the story.