The four singers are just launching into the chorus when the music goes dead. The power has cut out, as it does a couple of times a day in Myanmar’s crumbling former capital, taking with it their backing tracks, the lights and the air conditioning.
The girls sing on, undeterred by the sweltering heat of their boxy rehearsal studio or the noisy city outside.
The Spice Girls never had to deal with this — but the Spice Girls never had to have their song lyrics approved by a military board of censors, either.
EXIT SPICE, ENTER TIGER
The Tiger Girls are Myanmar’s answer to the 1990s British girl band. Each Tiger has been assigned a stage name and persona and Tricky, Chilli, Electro, Missy and Baby hope to bring to Myanmar some of what Posh, Scary, Sporty, Ginger and Baby Spice foisted upon the world some 15 years ago.
The group’s mentor — dance tutor, singing coach, co-songwriter and manager — is Australian dancer Nicole May, who was teaching in Yangon orphanages when she saw “a gap” in Myanmar’s music scene: The need for a girl band.
“There is so much natural music flowing through people’s veins here, but the music industry is undeveloped,” she said. “Girls have more to sing about than sad love songs or tough hip-hop tracks.”
A call for auditions brought forward 100 hopefuls, from whom five were chosen. As Myanmar’s first ever all-girl band, the Tiger Girls are an unknown quantity in a country ruled by a military junta resistant to outside influence.
FIRST GIGS
At their first gigs, in Yangon in February, audiences were stunned into silence.
“On the first day, people were quiet, they did not know what to think about us, they hadn’t seen anything like us before,” says Htike Htike — Electro Tiger. “But by the second day, they really liked us, they were clapping and cheering and calling for more.”
Musically, the Tigers are doing things their own way.
‘COPY TRACKS’
The fashion in Myanmar is to sing “copy tracks” — Western pop songs rewritten in Burmese, but the Tigers have a message for the girls of Myanmar, one they feel is best expressed through their own music.
They want their fans to be “confident, to be strong and bold,” said Ah Moon — Baby Tiger. “Girls can do anything that they want. We have enough energy and ability to do what we want to do.”
Myanmar’s ruling military junta requires all musicians to submit lyrics to its censorship board before they can be performed or recorded. Anything political, or even vaguely anti-authoritarian, is usually outlawed, but the censors are inconsistent and unpredictable.
The Tigers’ lyric “Is this Yangon, or is this the jungle?” judged to be about the constant electricity failures, had to be changed.
They got away with the more positive: “I see you, you see me, but I’m gonna dance, because I’m free.”
RISQUE
Their short skirts, risque dance moves and showbiz make-up are political enough. Myanmar expects women to be demure and subservient, May says.
“These girls don’t need to be overtly political, just being who they are, five beautiful girls who sing, who dance and who are confident, that’s a big deal in Myanmar. And if we were too political, people would be scared to like us,” she says.
The country holds its first election in two decades on Nov. 7, although the poll is expected to be rigged to consolidate military rule. Regardless, a mood for change exists across Myanmar.
“The country is hungry for something new, but whether it is ready for the Tiger Girls, I don’t know,” May said.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS