Melaka is the great places !!: Melaka Festival

Monday 22 July 2013

Melaka Festival

Melaka Arts and Performance Festival (MAPFest) is an innovative contemporary festival, featuring dance, performance art, visual art, film and music. In a short space of time since its inception in 2009, MAPFest has gained a high national, and increasingly international profile, being recognised for its program of exciting independent arts, collaborations and its use of alternative sites for performance.

The festival draws from Melaka's foundation myth, its famous heritage sites, and Melaka's collective ancestral heritage to create a space where contemporary culture and artistic practice comes into focus and is shared across cultural and socio-economic divides in a three day celebration which remains free to all.

‘Turning Around’ - transformation through the creative drive - remains the central inspiration for the festival, connecting both to the foundation myth for Melaka, and the festival's objective of assisting contemporary arts to play a role in Melaka's revival alongside its heritage-driven tourist industry. This year the specific focus within that broad theme is the traces of transformation.

We are also pleased to have a new stage to showcase the richness of traditional Malaysian and international performance. In the future we hope to initiate crosspollination of contemporary and traditional practice.

MAPFest remains free and accessible for all. Continuing Melaka's rich history as a centre for meetings and exchange between cultures, it will create opportunities for artists and art lovers to share in each others' work and perspectives.

We hope you enjoy the festival!

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Introduction Of Melaka

Introduction

Malacca (Malay: Melaka, dubbed "The Historic State" ) is the third smallest Malaysian state after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and Johor to the south. The capital is Malacca City, which is 148 km south east of Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur, 235 km north west to Johor's largest city Johor Bahru, and 95 km north west to Johor's second largest city, Batu Pahat. This historical city centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 7 July 2008.

Although it was the location of one of the earliest Malay sultanates, the monarchy was abolished when the Portuguese conquered it in 1511. The head of state is the Yang di-Pertua Negeri or Governor, rather than a Sultan.

History of Melaka

The history of Malacca is largely the story of the city for which it is named, and the story of the city of Malacca begins with the fascinating and partly legendary tale of the Hindu prince Parameswara.

The Malay Annals relate that Parameswara was a fourteenth-century Palembang prince who, fleeing from a Javanese enemy, escaped to the island of Temasik (present-day Singapore) and quickly established himself as its king. Shortly afterward, however, Parameswara was driven out of Temasik by an invasion by the Siamese, and with a small band of followers set out along the west coast of the Malay peninsula in search of a new refuge. The refugees settled first at Muar, Johor, but they were quickly driven away by a vast and implacable horde of monitor lizards; the second spot chosen seemed equally unfavorable, as the fortress that the refugees began to build fell to ruins immediately. Parameswara moved on. Soon afterward, during a hunt near the mouth of a river called Bertam, he saw a white mouse-deer or pelanduk kick one of his hunting dogs. So impressed was he by the mouse-deer's brave gesture that he decided immediately to build a city on the spot. He asked one of his servants the name of the tree under which he was resting and, being informed that the tree was called a Malaka, gave that name to the city. The year was 1400.

Although its origin is as much romance as history, the fact is that Parameswara's new city was situated at a point of tremendous strategic importance. Midway along the straits that linked China to India and the Near East, Malacca was perfectly positioned as a center for maritime trade. The city grew rapidly, and within fifty years it had become a wealthy and powerful hub of international commerce, with a population of over 50,000. It was during this period of Malacca's history that Islam was introduced to the Malay world, arriving along with Gujarati traders from western India. By the first decade of the sixteenth century Malacca was a bustling, cosmopolitan port, attracting hundreds of ships each year. The city was known worldwide as a center for the trade of silk and porcelain from China; textiles from Gujarat and Coromandel in India; camphor from Borneo; sandalwood from Timor; nutmeg, mace, and cloves from the Moluccas, gold and pepper from Sumatra; and tin from western Malaya.

Unfortunately, this fame arrived at just the moment when Europe began to extend its power into the East, and Malacca was one of the very first cities to attract its covetous eye. The Portuguese under the command of Afonso de Albuquerque arrived first, taking the city after a sustained bombardment in 1511. The Sultan Mahmud fled to Johor, from whence the Malays counterattacked the Portuguese repeatedly though without success. One reason for the strength of the Portuguese defence was the construction of the massive fortification of A Famosa or Porta De Santiago, only a small portion of which survives today.

A Famosa ensured Portuguese control of the city for the next one hundred and fifty years, until, in 1641, the Dutch after an eight-month siege and a fierce battle. Malacca was captured, but it lay in almost complete ruin. Over the next century and a half, the Dutch rebuilt the city and occupied it largely as a military base, using its strategic location to control the Straits of Malacca. In 1795, when the Netherlands was captured by French Revolutionary armies, Malacca was handed over to the British by the Dutch to avoid capture by the French. Although they returned the city to the Dutch in 1808, it was soon given over to the British once again in a trade for Bencoleen, Sumatra. From 1826, the English East India Company in Calcutta ruled the city, although it experienced Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945. Independence did not arrive until 1957, when anti-colonial sentiment culminated in a proclamation of independence by His Highness Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, Malaysia's first Prime Minister.

Introduction of Melaka

Introduction

History of Melaka

Melaka is the great places !!

Features of Melaka State

Monday 22 July 2013

Melaka Festival

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