GOOD TIMES always pass by too quickly and last Sunday it was time for the 11-day second edition of the biannual Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival (BICTfest) to bring the curtain down for another two years.

On any given Sunday, it’s not unusual to see a family spending quality time at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). The same cannot be said for nearby Chulalongkorn University, one of BICTfest’s supporters, which is currently on summer break. But thanks to BICTfest, which was part of the BACC’s 7th Performative Art Festival, the university saw plenty of perhaps future students clutching their parents’ hands.

Photo/Maiyasit Pianmanakij

Presented also as part of the French Embassy’s “French Highlights”, Compagnie Defracto’s “Flaque”, at BACC’s 4th floor studio, showed that in nouveau cirque, the performers not only show off their special talents to wow the audience but also reveal that mistakes, or even accidents, are common. This made their performance even more mesmerising as they worked to perfect each and every trick. The show was filled with humour and surprises, the biggest one being that the music composer wasn’t just seated stage right to appear as if he were controlling the music cues, but was actively involved in many scenes, and even attempted some juggling, as well.

Photo/Khemngnern Tonsakulrungruang

At Chulalongkorn University’s Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, cellist Noemi Boutin and juggler Jorg Muller collaborated in “Sarabande”, set to Bach’s “Cello Suites”. This was the artists’ first collaboration and the balance between classical music and modern circus was a major problem. Many younger members of the audience were waiting eagerly for the juggling parts but weren’t quite so attentive just listening to Bach. Some older audience members questioned whether this show was really for children, especially in a country where we don’t listen to western classical music on a regular basis.

Nearby at the multi-purpose courtyard of the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Germany-based Italian artists Alfredo Zinola and Felipe Gonzalez invited us to sit down around a portable pool before they themselves entered it.

Photo/Naphatrapee Suntorntirnan

Supported by the Goethe Institut, this most highly anticipated show of the festival, “Primo”, didn’t let the audience down for a single minute. The two performers didn’t try to do much but achieved plenty as they let us exercise our imagination freely. It was also a good introduction for the children, as well as many of the adults, to contemporary dance and its limitless range, here in Thailand where this genre of performing arts is still intimidating for many people.

Some parents voiced complaints about the ticket prices for adults and how much they had to spend so that the whole family could watch a show together. For example, a family with one child paid a total of Bt1,550 – Bt650 for each adult and Bt250 for a child. This underlined once again that more financial support is needed from the government to help reduce the ticket price and to make sure that the next edition of BICTfest can be enjoyed by a wider audience.

But in the end, the image of a child clinging to “Primo’s” pool window with her mother and father looking on from behind will stay fresh in my memory for years to come.

SEE YOU IN TWO YEARS

“Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival” will return in 2020 at BACC and other venues.

For updates, visit http://www.BICTfest.com and Facebook.com/BICTfest.

To learn more about the artists of these three works, check out http://www.Defracto.com, http://www.NoemiBoutin.com, http://www.MullerJ.org and http://www.AlfredoZinola.com.

CELEBRATING ITS 20th anniversary this year, Bangkok’s Festival of Dance and Music is presenting some of the world’s leading opera singers in a masterful performance of “Carmen” by Teatro di San Carlo from Naples, conducted by the celebrated Zubin Mehta.

Scheduled for September 12 and 14 at the Thailand Cultural Centre, this passionate rendering of Georges Bizet’s much-loved classic stars tenors Saimir Pirgu and Carlo Bosi, mezzo sopranos Veronica Simeoni and Giuseppina Bridelli, sopranos Jessica Nuccio and Sandra Pastrana and baritones Vito Priante, Fabio Previati, Roberto Accurso and Gianfranco Montresor.

Zubin Mehta

These are voices that ring out regularly in Milan’s La Scala, the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall, as well as Teatro dell’ Opera in Rome and the Paris Opera.

Essaying the fiery and passionate femme fatale Carmen is mezzo soprano Veronica Simeoni. A noted Carmen, her rich and powerful voice underlines a passionate heroine.

Simeoni’s interpretation is bold, craving for freedom and seeking revenge, raging against an obsessive love. As one critic put it, “A certain magnetism is essential to play such a character” – and she embodies it.

Matching Carmen’s passion for passion is tenor Saimir Pirgu’s Don Jose. A Grammy nominee who’s considered among the brightest stars in the international opera world today, Pirgu was discovered by the great Luciano Pavarotti when he was only 19.

He went on to study one on one with Pavarotti and it was under Pavarotti’s guidance that Pirgu prepared most of the roles he sings now. As a singer, he does channel his mentor and is not for nothing referred to as “the Fourth Tenor”.

Pirgu’s Don Jose is sung with distinction and fervour. His commanding presence onstage and his perfect characterisation underline the obsession that Carmen is to Don Jose.

Pirgu’s King Roger, performed at London’s Royal Opera House, received a Grammy nomination in 2017 for “Best Recording – Opera”. In 2013 he was awarded the coveted Pavarotti d’Oro. He has performed at every major international operatic venue, including the Metropolitan, Vienna State Opera and Berlin Staatsoper. He has also collaborated with the eminent conductors Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, James Conlon and Mehta, as well as with film directors like Franco Zeffirelli, Woody Allen, Peter Stein, Graham Vick, Deborah Warner and Robert Carsen.

Zuniga, Don Jose’s superior officer, who also yearns for Carmen’s love, is played by baritone Gianfranco Montresor. Verona-born Montresor’s Zuniga is a cold man in love with his position and the power it bestows on him. The portrayal is brilliance in itself. The talent that Montresor brings to the table has ensured regular appearances at all of the major opera venues of the world in his 25-year career.

Another tenor of note, Carlo Bosi, is essaying Remendado. Regarded as the greatest comprimario tenors of his generation, Bosi is on the list of all the leading opera houses.

Adding his voice to the drama that is “Carmen” is baritone Vito Priante, playing the flamboyant bullfighter Escamillo. His Escamillo is self-confident, fearless and entirely masculine. Also in great demand as a concert artist, Priante has a voice that is elegant and burnished, stylish and seductive.

Another baritone, Fabio Previati, voices Doncario. His stage presence and his remarkable voice underline his vast experience as a performer. He too is a regular in all the leading opera houses.

Roberto Accurso, winner of the International Competition at the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale “A Belli”, takes on Morales, Don Jose’s friend.

Note must also be made of mezzo soprano Giuseppina Bridelli (playing Mercedes), who is also in great demand in all the important opera productions in Europe and has recorded with major labels like Glossa, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and Ricerca. She was last year declared the winner of the prestigious As.li.co International Singing Competition.

Rounding off this amazing list of talent are sopranos Jessica Nuccio (as Micala) and Sandra Pastrana (as Frasquita). Nuccio is the winner of numerous international awards and opera competitions, including first prize in the First International Singing Competition for both Simone Alaimo e le sue opere and Voci del Mediterraneo.

Pastrana is another champion of international competitions, including the Manuel Ausensi and Francisco Vias competitions in Barcelona, and the Ottavio Ziino in Rome.

The festival is made possible by the support of the Crown Property Bureau, Bangkok Bank, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, BMW Thailand, B Grimm Group, Dusit Thani Bangkok, Indorama Ventures, Ministry of Culture, Nation Group, PTT, Singha Corp, Thai Union Group, Thai Airways International and the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

THE BEST OF BIZET

“Carmen” will be staged on September 12 and 14 in the Main Hall of the Thailand Cultural Centre in Bangkok.

Seats are now available at http://www.ThaiTicketMajor.com and (02) 262 3191.

Learn more at http://www.BangkokFestivals.com.

GOOD TIMES always pass by too quickly and last Sunday it was time for the 11-day second edition of the biannual Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival (BICTfest) to bring the curtain down for another two years.

On any given Sunday, it’s not unusual to see a family spending quality time at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). The same cannot be said for nearby Chulalongkorn University, one of BICTfest’s supporters, which is currently on summer break. But thanks to BICTfest, which was part of the BACC’s 7th Performative Art Festival, the university saw plenty of perhaps future students clutching their parents’ hands.

Photo/Maiyasit Pianmanakij

Presented also as part of the French Embassy’s “French Highlights”, Compagnie Defracto’s “Flaque”, at BACC’s 4th floor studio, showed that in nouveau cirque, the performers not only show off their special talents to wow the audience but also reveal that mistakes, or even accidents, are common. This made their performance even more mesmerising as they worked to perfect each and every trick. The show was filled with humour and surprises, the biggest one being that the music composer wasn’t just seated stage right to appear as if he were controlling the music cues, but was actively involved in many scenes, and even attempted some juggling, as well.

Photo/Khemngnern Tonsakulrungruang

At Chulalongkorn University’s Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, cellist Noemi Boutin and juggler Jorg Muller collaborated in “Sarabande”, set to Bach’s “Cello Suites”. This was the artists’ first collaboration and the balance between classical music and modern circus was a major problem. Many younger members of the audience were waiting eagerly for the juggling parts but weren’t quite so attentive just listening to Bach. Some older audience members questioned whether this show was really for children, especially in a country where we don’t listen to western classical music on a regular basis.

Nearby at the multi-purpose courtyard of the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Germany-based Italian artists Alfredo Zinola and Felipe Gonzalez invited us to sit down around a portable pool before they themselves entered it.

Photo/Naphatrapee Suntorntirnan

Supported by the Goethe Institut, this most highly anticipated show of the festival, “Primo”, didn’t let the audience down for a single minute. The two performers didn’t try to do much but achieved plenty as they let us exercise our imagination freely. It was also a good introduction for the children, as well as many of the adults, to contemporary dance and its limitless range, here in Thailand where this genre of performing arts is still intimidating for many people.

Some parents voiced complaints about the ticket prices for adults and how much they had to spend so that the whole family could watch a show together. For example, a family with one child paid a total of Bt1,550 – Bt650 for each adult and Bt250 for a child. This underlined once again that more financial support is needed from the government to help reduce the ticket price and to make sure that the next edition of BICTfest can be enjoyed by a wider audience.

But in the end, the image of a child clinging to “Primo’s” pool window with her mother and father looking on from behind will stay fresh in my memory for years to come.

SEE YOU IN TWO YEARS

“Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival” will return in 2020 at BACC and other venues.

For updates, visit http://www.BICTfest.com and Facebook.com/BICTfest.

To learn more about the artists of these three works, check out http://www.Defracto.com, http://www.NoemiBoutin.com, http://www.MullerJ.org and http://www.AlfredoZinola.com.

Singer Haruthai “Au” Muangbunsri has stirred up a row between believers and doubters with her painting “Tree in Winter”, which she believes is an original and heretofore unknown work by Vincent Van Gogh.

Ever since Haruthai issued a progress report on research into her antique-shop purchase at the Science and Technology Ministry on Monday, folks have been arguing online about the providence of the artwork and the credibility of her investigation.

Haruthai asked the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam three years ago to authenticate her painting, which she brought for Bt2,000 at a Bangkok store selling antiques from Europe.

The museum’s favourable view could boost the value of the artwork into the millions of dollars.

The monochrome “Tree in Winter”, left, which owner Haruthai “Au” Muangbunsri is convinced is an original Van Gogh, stands beside a research-based reproduction of how it looked when freshly painted.  Photo/Thanachai Pramarnpanich

But the museum pointed out that Van Gogh delighted in colour, whereas the painting that Haruthai dubbed “Tree in Winter” is monochrome.

Haruthai was unfazed. She believes her painting was once vibrant with colour but has merely faded with time to whites and greys. And she has other clues to bolster her optimism. She’s convinced the painting was made in 1888, when Van Gogh was at the peak of his creative powers.

The Van Gogh Museum, it should be noted, gets hundreds of requests every year to verify perceived originals by the master, usually in the form of photographs and purchase documents. Only rarely does it invite the owner to bring the painting to Amsterdam for further examination.

Now there are professional artists and art critics opining online. On hearing Haruthai’s progress report, which was prepared in consultation with Associate Professor Pitiwat Somthai of Burapha University, many were dubious.

Haruthai’s hypothesis was inadequately based on art history, some said. She was rationalising.

Her hypothesis is perhaps a bit narrow. She should be looking at other artists from the same period, when the post-impressionist experiment was at full gallop. Science appears to have confirmed this paintings origin in those times, but hasn’t come close to identifying the artist, and of course it can’t.

Nevertheless, Haruthai is ready to try again with the museum. She’s spent three years doing research in France and the Netherlands and scrutinising her painting with the help of the Synchrotron Light Research Institute (SLRI) and the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT). She even pored through the artist’s letters, archived at the museum in Amsterdam, for any mention of the work.

The Bangkok College of Fine Arts fine-arts graduate believes the brushstrokes match those found on late-period Van Gogh masterpieces, and the TINT – using carbon 14 dating – determined that the pigments were made between the 1700s and 1900s. Van Gogh lived from 1853-1890.

Dr Sasiphan Khaweerat of the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology has been probing the painting with the latest Carbon-14 dating techniques since 2015. Photo/Thanachai Pramarnpanich

Dr Sasiphan Khaweerat of the TINT, who worked in tandem with Dr Kilian Anheuser of Switzerland’s Fine Arts Expert Institute, spotted red paint in all that grey and white. “It was made with red earth and madder root [Rubia tinctorum], which is found only in Arles in France, where Van Gogh painted late in life,” Sasiphan said.

“That pigment was the same Van Gogh used, made with organic ingredients like red earth, madder root, grape wine and olive oil,” Haruthai added.

“Our lab in Nakhon Nayok has been using the latest carbon 14 and isotope hydrology techniques to study this painting since 2015,” Sasiphan explained.

The TINT has in the past helped the Culture Ministry’s Fine Arts Department date and classify long-buried anthropological artefacts like terracotta from Baan Chiang, beads and bronze statues. But this was first time it had studied a painting.

“We used X-ray fluorescence to analyse the pigments,” Sasiphan said. “We found the paint known as zinc white, which has been used in Europe since 1860, but there is no titanium, which has long been a component of zinc white in more recent times. So this proves that these colours were produced before 1900.”

Along with red paint, there was chrome yellow under the surface, which had oxydised and turned brown. “These results indicate the painting was originally brighter.”

At the Synchrotron lab in Nakhon Ratchasima, beamline scientist Dr Kanjana Thammanu recently found more significant indicators.

Nano-scale X-ray technology utilised by Dr Kanjana Thammanu of Synchrotron Light Research Institute uncovers the different pigments used in the paint. Photo/Thanachai Pramarnpanich

Like the TINT, Synchrotron was venturing into new territory in studying an artwork. Its electromagnetic “synchrotron light source” is used to analyse materials at the molecular, even atomic level, but it was never before aimed at a painting.

Kanjana studied the pigments using nano-scale Small Angle X-ray Scattering technology to uncover differences in the samples. He found more organic compounds, such as vinegar, olive oil and red soil.

But there the scientific community must turn the investigation over to the art specialists.

“As scientists and researchers, we only conduct the studies in our fields. We can’t identify the painter,” Sasiphan said. “In this case, only the Van Gogh Museum can make the final judgement.

“However, this research will be adapted for identifying colour pigments in our own heritage arts and crafts, which are national treasures. The TINT plans to further use the technology with the Fine Arts Department to study the pigments in Baan Chiang pottery, for example.”

She’s spent the past three years trying to prove it is, and now, with the backing of the Synchrotron Light Research Institute and Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology, she’s ready to ship it to the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands for the final judgement.

The Bangkok store was, after all, selling antiques imported from Europe, so you never know.

If the landscape, which she’s titled “Tree in Winter”, proves to be a genuine painting by Vincent Van Gogh, it’ll be worth considerably more than the Bt2,000 Haruthai paid for it. It could fetch many millions of dollars at auction.

Haruthai, a fine-arts graduate of the College Of Fine Arts in Bangkok, has done her own artistic and scientific research in France and the Netherlands. She compared the brushstrokes of her painting to those of the artist as presented online by the Art Project for Van Gogh. She even scrutinised the artist’s letters, archived at the museum in Amsterdam, for mention of the work.

More recently Haruthai recruited Synchrotron to examine the painting’s pigments and determine its age. Microscopic study set the age somewhere between the 1700s and 1900s. Van Gogh lived from 1853-1890.

Dr Sasiphan Khaweerat of Synchrotron, who worked in tandem with Dr Kilian Anheuser of Switzerland’s Fine Arts Expert Institute, said they could establish other aspects as well.

“We found that the red paint was made with red earth and madder root [Rubia tinctorum], which is found only in Arles in France, where Van Gogh painted late in life,” Sasiphan said.

Haruthai also consulted with Associate Professor Pitiwat Somthai of Burapha University.

The scientists were unable to give Haruthai anything approaching a definitive answer as to the author of the painting, but her research has convinced her the painting is real and that it originated in 1888, at the peak of Van Gogh’s powers.

“We discovered that the original had many colours, but it’s faded to monochrome over the past century. And the pigments were those that Van Gogh used – all made with organic ingredients like red earth, madder root, grape wine and olive oil,” she said.

In Arles, in France’s Provence region where Haruthai believes Van Gogh painted this piece, she brought locally made paints to test scientifically and found them to match the pigments on her canvas.

Haruthai hopes that, regardless of whether she has a real Van Gogh or not, the research will provide a useful model in future, both for Thais and overseas scholars.

“We’ll present our research to the Van Gogh Museum for approval and maybe they’ll exhibit the work. If it’s a genuine Van Gogh, of course, it won’t belong to me anymore, but to the world.”

ARTISAN WOOD carvers who have been making intricate toys for Indian maharajas, ministers and their children for generations are facing ruin as the rare wood their unique products rely on disappears.

The highly treasured, brightly coloured Kondapalli toys are under threat from deforestation and, in particular, the rampant exploitation of the Tella Poniki tree.

The wooden elephants, soldiers and gods are named after the Andhra Pradesh village of Kondapalli, where artists have lived since the 16th century.

The craftsmen and women produce the figures for royalty and high-ranking politicians, with ministers still regularly giving Kondapalli toys as gifts to foreign dignitaries.

Their tradition depends on the Tella Poniki, a rare tree that only survives around the nearby city of Vijayawada. The disappearing forests mean the carvers must look further afield for supplies of the white wood, which is prized for its malleability.

Craftsmen cut wood using a band saw. /AFP

The Kondapalli carvers are also battling the threat of digital toys and are wrestling with the quandary of whether to adopt modern machinery to up their efficiency and cut their prices.

“Market demand and curiosity for these toys may be increasing but we are nothing without quality wood at a reasonable price,” says Bharani Kota Verma, a 48-year-old fifth generation Kondapalli toy-maker.

Verma says the price of wood has doubled in the past three years because of the shortage. “Our margins have been squeezed.”

“The wood from the tree is very soft and ideal for carving into various shapes,” explains 55-year-old SK Ashra Funnisa, who has been making toys for more than 40 years.

Funnisa owns a small shop in Kondapalli’s busy market crammed with wooden elephants, bullock carts and figures from Hindu mythology.

She points to a Tella Poniki log whose price has doubled in three years.

An artisan works on a wooden toy in Kondapalli, a village in Andhra Pradesh that’s irrevocably associated with the craft./AFP

JSN Murthy, Andhra Pradesh chief forestry officer, says the state government plans to establish extra plantations to ease the crisis.

He explains that many craftsman are unable to find legal local supplies and are approaching middlemen who pass off similar softwoods from further afield at higher prices.

Murthy says authorities would allocate up to five hectares more land for Tella Poniki each year over the next two decades.

Competition from more modern toys and the growing attraction of machines also weighs heavily on Kondapalli.

“Eight to 10 hours of labour to carve 20 cows or buffaloes only gives me about 300 rupees [Bt150],” Shaik Moulali says in his cramped one-room home, which doubles as a workshop.

He sits with a jute basket of carved and part-finished animal figures in one corner. His wife, Baji Sheikh, sits with their two sons, cooking on a small stove at the other end.

“The introduction of machines will definitely reduce the effort and energy spent by people like me,” he says.

Are these among the last wooden toys that this shop in Kondapalli will sell? /AFP

Others like Verma reject the replacement of traditional knives, brushes and chisels. “No genuine toy-maker uses machines,” he |says.

Men and women in Kondapalli families traditionally share the toy work. Men carve the wood, while women do the intricate painting.

Baji – who does household chores and takes care of sons Khaja, 9 and Shahin Baba, 12 – spends eight hours each day painting at least 50 animals.

Local people say the authorities should do more to promote the toys that still have a special significance at festivals and social occasions.

More contemporary designs have been added to the toy catalogue, while the use of enamels and other modern paints have cut costs and made the toys more durable.

But even with these efforts, things look bleak.

“The next generation, who can earn more without learning these tough skills and the hard work, isn’t interested in entering this field like people did 10 or 20 years back,” Verma says.

“I just want them to study and find a job,” he says, gesturing toward his 15-year-old daughter nearby. Verma fears he’ll be the last toy-maker in his family.

ON A ROOFTOP in Syria’s capital, Mohammad al-Rihawi plunges silk threads into emerald-green dye, preparing it to be woven into the city’s famed brocade.

But, with civil war raging, he knows it is a dying trade.

“Nobody works in silk dyeing anymore – there must be only two or three doing it in the whole nation,” says the 53-year-old.

But without their ability to cast silk into a range of luminous colours, the brocade for which Damascus is famous would cease to exist.

Civil war has ravaged Syria since 2011, ripping artisans from their workshops and keeping tourists away. /AFP

The shimmering fabric, which is the product of hours of work on a wooden loom, is said to have been worn by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on her wedding day.

Folklore has it that, in 1947, Syria’s first president, Shukri al-Quwatli, gave a bolt of the material to then-Princess Elizabeth, who included it in her wedding gown.

But civil war has ravaged Syria since 2011, killing more than 350,000 people and forcing more than half the country’s population to flee their homes.

The conflict has ripped artisans away from their workshops and kept the tourists away.

“The trade is fighting for its life,” says Rihawi, his cheeks flushed with effort as he laboured in his open-air workshop on the roof.

“We have no more tourists, no more foreign visitors,” said the artisan, who wears rubber gloves.

Mohammad al-Rihawi prepares silk threads at his atelier in the Syrian capital, Damascus. /AFP

Shielded from the sun by a light tarpaulin sheet, he and his 15-year-old son Nour stand on either side of a large cauldron in their boots.

Over a billowing cloud of steam, they rhythmically heave large wooden sticks draped with silk coils up and down over the boiling water. As he helps his father clean the threads of impurities, Nour is one of very few eager to take on the |craft.

“No one wants to learn the trade anymore – it earns you very little,” says Rihawi, a red apron knotted around his waist.

Once the silk coils are rinsed, Rihawi hangs them to dry from the ceiling of his small workshop, whose wooden lattice walls let the air and sun through.

Beyond a potted plant, small white plastic tubs of natural pigments – magenta, turquoise, brown, turmeric and sanguine red – sit on a shelf.

Rihawi throws a thimbleful of turquoise and a dash of orange into a pot, and dilutes the colour in a large metal saucepan. Using his hands, he bathes the threads in it.

The final result is a coil of supple silk, turned a brilliant shade of emerald green.

Al-Rihawi dips the threads into green dye./AFP

Before Syria’s war broke out with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, Rihawi had a much larger workshop and employed 14 people.

But when clashes reached Ain Terma, a suburb just east of Damascus taken over by rebels in 2012, he sought refuge in the capital.

His former staff has all now either fled the country or been drafted to serve in the army.

The trade has suffered, especially because fewer and fewer people are buying the silk material it is used for.

“Before the war I worked every single day of the week,” Rihawi says. “But now it’s sometimes just one or two days a week because of the low demand.”

And the silk threads once produced in Syria now come from India or China as the conflict has disrupted silkworm farming at home.

“This craft is like an old man waiting for his death,” he says. “But we’re doing everything we can to keep it alive.”

His day done, Rihawi examines his calloused hands, dyed a bluish-green and worn by years of manual labour. But he sees the bright side.

“My hands will always be beautiful as long as they are swathed in silk,” he smiles.

“WHY IS it important to have an international theatre festival for young audiences?” This might seem like a silly question – kids, after all, deserve to have their imagination stimulated – yet it was also the major topic up for discussion at the forum hosted by the biannual Bangkok International Children Theatre Festival 2018 (BICTFest) last week at Chulalongkorn University.

On hand to give an answer to this and other questions were two representatives of renowned and well-established international festivals around the world, namely Fiona Ferguson, creative development director of the “Edinburgh International Children Festival”, formerly known as Imaginate, and Hisashi Shimoyama, general producer of the “ricca ricca *festa” from Okinawa in Japan. They were joined by Luanne Poh, artistic director of “100 and 100 more Festivals” of The Artground in Singapore and Adjjima Na Patalung, director of the BICT Festival in Thailand.

Despite being rather new – this is only the second edition of BICTfest –and still medium in terms of size, Adjjima stresses its importance in focusing attention that young audiences need creative and artistic performances to develop.

“These children are tomorrow’s adults so it’s vital that instil in them an appreciation of the arts. Live performance allows the audience to engage and share their feelings. The details and surroundings arouse and shape these young minds and allow the children to grow up as more complete human beings,” she says.

“They also learn about the cultural differences in the world. I believe and hope that we will see more people eager to experience this type of theatrical art.”

The Edinburgh International Children Festival is the role model of the successful festival. Inaugurated in 1989 and already preparing for its 30th anniversary next year, the festival has experienced plenty of challenges over the years.

“Putting together any festival is difficult,” Ferguson says. “There are always problems in securing funding and finding quality works including those made in the home country.

“But children’s festivals are even more challenging. It’s the same here as everywhere: adults who haven’t seen high-quality works for children, whether theatre or dance, tend to have a real misconception of the standard. Making a good work needs skill and support, as well as recognition. Next year will be our 30th festival and we are relying on those skills, which are affected by government policy, how much money they have for theatre and how much value they put on the art. These are the main challenges,” she adds.

“In Scotland, we are exceptionally lucky that we have a relatively large number of artists in our population. That’s partly because Imaginate has been around for 29 years. But again, it comes back to the same thing: if you want to turn children’s theatre into a career, you have to be aware that a lot of people will pick adult work because it is more serious art. They don’t see how interesting or hard it is to create an artistic work for a two-year-old.

And, Ferguson adds, because artists have to focus much harder on creating a work for a young audience than for an adult one, it’s really good training.

“For example, if you making a dance piece for six and seven year-olds, then you cannot go into the performance without thinking about the audience and what the response is going to be. Some adult artists don’t think about the audience but instead only look at the hook they want to see. The adult audience tends to be polite; even if they don’t like it, they will sit in silence. They will talk to friends about how they feel after the show. Children aren’t like that. You can feel the response immediately; if they are bored, they start fidgeting, playing with things and talking with friends. If they are enjoying it, you can feel their engagement in the work immediately and that’s very gratifying. Artists can still produce the work that they want to make and be driven by their artistic aims, but they also need to think about the audience,” she notes.

Japan’s “ricca ricca *festa”, an international theatre festival for young audiences, was launched in Okinawa back in 1994. Organised jointly across several towns on the island, it was the very first international performing arts festival for families in Asia.

It’s based on the belief in “nuchigusui”, an Okinawan word that means “medicine for life” or “medicine for long living”. This is no ordinary medicine though, but a nutrient for the heart, and so the festival strives to deliver quality performances that enrich the experience of art.

Shimoyama says that one of the key ingredients for success is giving children the opportunity to participate in the show. “Every year the schools organise a show on their premises because they recognise the importance of theatre for children. The festival also organises workshops for children so that they can be part of the show. Many artists try to understand the child’s world by lowering themselves and looking at things from the same eye level as the children and not from the top down. In short, these artists are seeing society from children’s perspectives,” he explains.

Although Japan certainly has more artists wanting to create performances for adults than for youngsters, a new movement has been launched as part of the festival’s mission to be the hub of TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) in Asia. The aim is to cultivate creative activities by participating in the festival, which presents high-quality productions for children and young people from all over the world, and also actively organises symposiums, workshops, networking programmes as well as international co-productions.

Ferguson adds that children’s theatre is not just entertainment.

“As the festival organiser, we try not influence the artist but we are always looking for works that don’t preach about, say, gender or immigration. But we are interested in works that talk about such topics in artistic ways. A good work tells the story not by confronting people but as something that stimulates conversation by a teacher or parent in the classroom or at home.”

Indeed, the performance, “The Rice Child” by Thailand’s Crescent Moon Theatre last weekend was a prime example of what Ferguson was explaining. The performance featured various types of arts including puppets, sand drawing, a shadow play through an overhead projector, and singing. Creative director Sineenadh Keitprapai, says the story of WaWa, which reflects the life of migrant children whose parents are labouring in Thailand, sets out to bring the problem closer to Thai children and their environment.

“Teaching young children to get over their differences is not easy,” she says, “In our works for children we have to create provocative thinking but at the same time it mustn’t be aggressive. I’m thrilled to hear my young audience members engaging with the performance and speaking out loud to one of the other characters, Kao, not to bully WaWa or whispering how much they pity her to their mothers. They learn about life of others through these puppeteers.”

THREE MORE DAYS

– The Bangkok International Children Theatre Festival 2018 continues through Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

– Find out what’s showing at http://www.BICTFest.com.

NEARLY a decade after his death, a New York retrospective of the rapper, composer, graffiti artist, painter, sculptor and cosmic theorist Rammellzee hopes to reveal to the world his multifaceted, iconoclastic work.

While street art has worked its way into everyone’s living room, and a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat can fetch more that $100 million (B3.1 billion) Rammellzee, although a key figure of 1980s New York, remains – as Sotheby’s put it – “perhaps the greatest street artist you’ve never heard of”.

Like many aspiring artists of his time, a teenage Rammellzee in 1970s Queens, New York, started out spraying on subway trains.

But as time passed, his letters transformed into abstract figures – compositions that by the start of the 1980s could be found in galleries, even Rotterdam’s prestigious Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in 1983.

People look at the art of the conceptual artist, graffiti artist and hip-hop pioneer, Rammellzee at Red Bull Arts New York/ AFP 

He also rapped – and Basquiat produced – his single “Beat Bop,” which would go on to be sampled by the Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. Next, he made a stealthy cameo in Jim Jarmusch’s cult film “Stranger Than Paradise”.

But instead of being propelled to the same heights as Basquiat, Rammellzee changed course — inventing the concept of gothic futurism, creating his own mythology based on a manifesto.

In his Tribeca studio, he materialised his creation in the form of the “Letter Racers” – huge letters on skateboards that symbolise the possibility of free language as an emancipation tool.

He also made the “Garbage Gods”. figurines made of recyclables – half the “Recyclers”, and half the “Trashers”.

From the 1990s, Rammellzee would appear in public disguised in futuristic warrior get-up. Until his death from heart disease at 49, he remained in this imaginary world, current trends far from his mind.

People look at the art of the conceptual artist, graffiti artist and hip-hop pioneer, Rammellzee at Red Bull Arts New York/ AFP 

“Our biggest challenge was how to find a way to take such a multi-faceted artist, character, myth and try to create a narrative arch that could convey his intentions,” explains Max Wolf of Red Bull Arts New York, which is hosting the retrospective until August 26.

The pieces come from private collections and Rammellzee’s family.

“The US doesn’t really know a lot of that work, that was created and put into collections in Europe and never seen again,” Wolf adds. “So it was important that we try to forage all that and present it here.”

“He had a purpose. He had a certain body of work that he had to complete, to complete this capsule of gothic futurism. He finished it and he passed away.”

WHILE THAILAND will soon play host to three art biennales– the first ever held here – there remains only one biannual international children’s theatre festival in the country. This clearly proves the lack of support for children’s performing arts, a tool that helps them develop into quality adults, and reminds us of the sad fact that here the focus is on talent shows and competitions.

At the opening ceremony of the second biannual Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival on the first floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), part of BACC’s seventh annual Performative Art Festival (PAF), last Thursday, audiences saw plenty of logos of cultural and educational partners but few of supporters on the poster backdrop. Despite this, festival director Adjjima Na Patalung, and her team at Arts on Location and Democrazy Theatre Studio have managed to bring in performances, artists, scholars and producers from nine countries.

In just seven days, Kabinet K managed to create a performance worthy to raise the curtain of the BICT Fest at BACC. Photos/Deun Chongmankhong

In her opening speech, Adjjima noted that as the festival puts emphasis on the process, rather than product, the show that we were about to watch was a work developed from a seven-day workshop – hardly the usual curtain raiser for any performing arts festival.

Later, when we moved to the fourth floor studio, Adjjima introduced the Belgian choreographer Joke Laureyns, who’s part of Ghent-based company Kabinet K. She described the concept of “Horses” as an “intense sharing” rather than a “performance”. The work premiered in 2016 and toured many European cities following five months of creation and rehearsals, and Laureyns applied this intense sharing to six adult and six children performers here in Bangkok.

Forty-five minutes later and most audience members would agree that she was being humble. It was a risk well taken for the festival, and the Thai version of “Horses” didn’t look like a work from a seven-day workshop at all. Centred on the theme of trust through physical movements, professional dancers and children engaged in a variety of movements and at various paces set to original music. It was also proof that to enjoy dance, kids don’t necessarily have to just watch music videos and copy their movements then perform in a dance competition in a department store.

Photos/Deun Chongmankhong

Yet the number of adults in the audience far surpassed the kids at this opening show – perhaps because it was weekday evening –and a boy in front of me fell asleep after 20 minutes, allowing me a full view of the work. I found myself wishing that, since the original version was presented with a live music performance, Thai musicians, composers or sound designers able to work in such a limited time, could have participated in this Thailand-Belgium collaboration, thus adding to the local input.

And since I cannot take my four-legged son to any of BICT Fest’s programmes, I replicated some of the dance movements in our midnight playtime to prove that we also have trust in one another.

But as neither of us are dancers and he weighs 28 kilos, his facial reaction read, “Hey, wouldn’t you rather have a human son instead of me?”

OFF WITH THOSE SMARTPHONES

The “Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival 2018” runs through May 27 at BACC (BTS: National Stadium), Chulalongkorn University (BTS: Siam) and Creative Industries (at M Theatre, on New Phetchaburi Road, between Thonglor and Ekamai).

It features performances, workshops, talks and forums.

For more details and ticket reservations, visit http://www.BICTfest.com and Facebook.com/BICTfest, call (081) 441 5718, or email BICTfest@gmail.com.