Arlene Hassan

KUALA LUMPUR–There are some stories we inherit before we fully understand them.  The Nutcracker  is one of those stories. It arrived in December, like muscle memory. Ballerinas from the National Classical Ballet of Moscow fluttered onto the stage at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, as part of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s (MPO) fourth ballet festival presentation of The Nutcracker, on 12th December 2025.   Official Poster For Ballet Festival The Nutcracker. Source: MPO website For most...

Subang Jaya– When LUMICKO went live, it did not arrive with the language of disruption or the grandstanding rhetoric often attached to new platforms. There were no promises to “reinvent” education, no claims of replacing existing systems.  Instead, its significance lay in something quieter and more radical: it made student work visible in a way that refused to frame it as practice. What appeared on screen were not drafts or classroom exercises, but finished broadcasts, documentaries,...

Who can say if we’ve been changed for the better?  In just a clock’s tick , Wicked: For Good has swept up over US$177.5 million at the global box office– an astonishing figure for a sequel and a testament to just how feverishly anticipated this release was. It now holds the title of the biggest debut ever for a Broadway adaptation and the third largest opening for any musical film. A triumph, by most measures. Yet critics remain mixed to positive: they praise its emotional backbone and...