community Archives « Sasha M Online

Fellow’s Tea at Tembusu College

April 9, 2019 by Sasha M

academic, community, panelist, Tembusu College, university

Recently, I had the honour of being invited to speak at Tembusu College not once, but twice(!), on the topic of how I use social media in my work as an artist. It was a very interesting discussion with the students about the various aspects of social media use, from how we actually use it, the kind of audiences we interact with, and even the technology itself.

On the first week (25 Mar) I was paired with Brenda Tan, a social media influencer who focuses on beauty and lifestyle topics such as skincare products and food. On the second week (1 Apr) my fellow panelist was Charissa Goh, a YouTuber who amassed her following through Kpop dance video tutorials.

It was an educational and eye opening experience for myself as well to be able to discuss the different ways all three of us use social media, and of course the similarities too. And I was happy to be able to come back to my alma mater and contribute to the community through the work that I do. Special thanks to Dr Connor Graham for putting the events together and inviting me to speak.

Here are photos from the second week, taken by the university (NUS)’s official photographer.

Corporate Workshop Facilitation for OCBC

July 4, 2018 by Sasha M

Work

acting, artist, community, corporate, culture, facilitating, HCAC, improv, soft skills, theatre, training, workshop, worldview

Yesterday, I assisted Kamil Haque from the acting school HCAC as a facilitator in an improvisation-based workshop for OCBC. It was a team building workshop with the objective to create a new company culture. We worked with fresh graduates who had just entered the company and had not yet become integrated into the old company culture. There were 68 participants, and for such a huge group of people, we had eight facilitators as well as Kamil leading the full-day workshop.

Kamil is a boss ass workshop instructor who can handle any group size

It was really interesting working with so many people. As a performer, I’m used to training myself to improve my own skills at a craft. It’s very different to try and teach other people how to do those skills, especially when everybody has their own ideas and strengths. However, I must say I was very impressed by how the participants performed in the workshop, as they largely seemed to grasp the principles we were trying to express through our programme.

Everyone was paying close attention even at the end of a long day

Working so closely with such a large group for over 8 hours, I definitely learnt a lot from my interactions with the participants. I’m glad for the effort they put into all our games and exercises, and especially for their sincerity in reflecting on the activities. I, too, had much to reflect on as the day drew to a close.

Seriously there were so many people it was amazing that the day wasn’t mostly chaos

I’m very happy and honoured to have been part of this wonderful team of people, working on something that I find incredibly meaningful, and making an impact on people. My main objective as a performer is to have an impact on how people think and feel about things, and it’s great to be able to open up my perspective on that and do this kind of work in a facilitator role as well. It’s creating art in a whole different way.

Every single one of these amazing individuals is a talented gem of a human being!

Most of all, I feel incredibly glad to be part of this community of people who share similar worldviews as myself, with a similar approach to life and how we interact with the people around us. I hope to always keep learning and growing with them!

Community Performance at Our Tampines Hub

June 23, 2018 by Sasha M

Work

acoustic, community, covers, event, guitar, live music, live performance, performance, public, show, Singapore, vocals

Hello hello hello!!

So I recently did a public performance at Our Tampines Hub (if you’re on my Instagram, or Facebook page, you’d probably have seen my post announcing it; if you aren’t yet, go follow/like so you see my posts!).

For this show, I had Anthony Poi accompanying me on guitar. We did a set of stripped-down acoustic covers through the ages, from Oasis to Swedish House Mafia (can’t escape the EDM music!).

We also did a couple of Lady Gaga tunes, some wedding songs, and some really heartbreakingly sad songs (those were my favourites).

It’s been quite a while since I did a public event like this, and it was fun to be able to interact with the crowd. I’m happy that many of them stayed throughout our set, and were smiling, clapping and singing along as well.

Just wanna give a big THANK YOU to my friends and fans who came down all the way to Tampines to watch me perform. It meant so much to me to see you guys there. So much love for y’all!

Check out the video above to have a listen to the music, hear me chat with the audience in between songs, unsuccessfully attempt to convince people to come up and dance, and enjoy the chill vibes 🙂