Portraying time-honoured traditions in the present comes through a genuine embodiment of cultural expressions from the past. Performing arts dissolves the passage of time, transporting us back to the origins of these cultures and evokes a sense of pride and connection. At Pesta Raya, we witnessed musical storytelling by the last surviving awang batil, Pak Romli Mahamud, and heard the ancestral stories of the orang laut and orang pulau through a theatre work by Asnida Daud and Firdaus Sani. We also experienced the traditions and festivities of the Malay community through dance and movement, while Lantun Orchestra masterfully infused elements of traditional Indonesian music with jazz. #pestaraya 2023 filled us with stories of the Nusantara told from the heart—through music, theatre and performing arts. Slide 1: Asnida Daud from Air Da Tohor (The tide is low), an Esplanade commission, which highlights the orang laut and orang pulau community’s stories Slide 2: Pak Romli Mahamud, the...