Huzir Sulaiman

Huzir Sulaiman is the playwright of Displaced Persons' Welcome Dinner. He tells stories that allow people to access complex ideas in simple, personal, human ways. Huzir is also the co-founder and Joint Artistic Director of Checkpoint Theatre.

Extract from The Weight of Silk on Skin by Huzir Sulaiman

So in New York I became looser
I learned to wriggle and jive in a bid to survive
And inasmuch as a short Asian man can strut and lope
I loped and strutted
and I thrived on it
I became the flowing choreography of the NBA
And the stupid stop-start-stop-start of the NFL
I felt these rhythms in my Bukit Timah bones
New York was the town of sound and movement
it was the shrill promises of the ads on TV
it was ticker-tape parades when I had never seen a parade that hadn’t had a
rehearsal
it was angry old ladies on the streets
it was Dire Straits blasting from a hundred stereos
we got to move these microwave ovens
and you felt the urgency
because in Asia we all knew
what are you without your microwave oven
and your colour TV?