Selected as one of 22 light art installations by international artists from 14 countries, “Chandelier of Spirits” is on display until Sunday (April 1).

Organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) of Singapore and now in its sixth edition, the festival features installations designed with energy-saving lighting, recycled or environmentally-friendly materials, reinforcing Marina Bay’s position as a sustainable precinct, and reminding festival goers and the public to adopt eco-aware habits in their everyday lives.

Living Spirits is a collective that listens, observes, questions, creates conversation, and makes connections with people through arts. They believe there are two sides to every story, and their main goal is to tell stories that cannot be seen with our eyes but only with our hearts.

Through their artwork, they invite interaction in order to complete the art’s message. With the help of technology, they strive to create the most meaningful interaction with the art. Social issues inspire the concept of their work but they let each audience complete the story via their interaction. The artwork is a synergy of people, technology and art.

Coffee is an essential drink for many of the office workers in Singapore and Thailand who contribute to the country’s growth and success. As a symbol of the hard-working and can-do spirit of Singapore’s workforce, more than 1,400 cold brew coffee bottles were collected to create this installation which lights up the city after sunset, the same way they light up our energy during the daytime. Chandelier of Spirits is a light installation art that can also interact with people who visit. The lights will shine and flicker as more people approach the works and dim when people are away.

“I’ve always been drawn to interactive arts, museums and light arts. Every time I travel to one of these events, I always ask myself what makes a quality artwork on an international level – my dream is to one day to be able to display my work amongst the world’s greatest artists. The debut of Chandeliers of Spirits at this festival is a great milestone and accomplishment for the team. We would not be here if it wasn’t for the hard work of my lead artist, designer and production team. To see a year of hard work come to fruition is one of the moments,” said Sasis Suwonpakprak, the founder of Living Spirits.

This year’s festival offers a showcase of 22 light art installations from Singapore, Canada, Poland, Hungary, Spain, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Malaysia, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Thailand. Three of these installations are created with used bottles and containers contributed by the community and by corporate partners.

The works are illuminated nightly from 7.30 to 11, extending to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, around the Marina Bay waterfront and Esplanade Park. Admission is free.

Visit http://www.iLightMarinaBay.sg for more information.

Choreographer Monica Casadei defines this play as a futuristic “action ballet”, which involves all the creative body of Artemis, composed not only by the dancers and the choreographer, but also by all the visual artists and the musicians, who have already become one with the dancing ensemble.

Casadei’s interprets Figaro as the prototype of a successful man in today’s world. Clad in rigorous managerial clothes, the Rossinian hero becomes the emblem of all those who are able to satisfy with strength, vivacity and savoir faire, the expectations of a society that requires a daily achievement of personal goals by optimising time and energy.

On the choreographic level, Figaro’s character duplicates in the bodies of the entire company, where, without distinction of gender, the performers act with the determination, energy and precision of a special team: vigorous, gritty and hyper focused. Their dance manipulates time and space, continuously weaving and unravelling an endless web made of changes of direction, intersections of trajectories and inlays of movements. As if they were chasing the routes of overcrowded and noisy highways, the dancers extricate themselves with lucidity and martial energy, wise gears of the deranged mechanism of the social living.

The show starts 7.30pm. Tickets are available at http://www.Eventbrite.com Admission is free but online registration is required.

“The marks the eighth edition of the contest and it is time we took a step forward. We are therefore inviting artists to reflect through their artworks what is happening nowadays, such as the progress in technology and the economy both in the AEC and internationally under the topic ‘International Perspective’,” says Dr Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of Asia Plus Group.

“Our aim, as always, is to support and encourage all artists to create works of the very best quality.”

The panel of judges is made up of national artists and art experts, among them Prof Ithipol Thangchalok, Prof Preecha Thaothong, Prof Dr Chalermchai Kositpipat, Prof Thavorn Komudomvit, and Prof Somsak Raksuwan.

Artworks must be 2D and can be created with acrylic paint, oil paint or mixed media. There is no limit on techniques and materials. The size must not exceed 150 x 200 cm excluding the frame and each applicant can submit a maximum of two entries.

Submissions are being accepted on April 19 and 20 at Asia Centre Building, 12A Floor, South Sathorn Road.

Download the application form at http://www.asiaplus.co.th/artcontest, Facebook Asia Plus Art Contest or call (02) 680 4045 and (02) 680 4042.

A FEW YEARS AGO, when everyone was excited about the formal launch of the Asean Economic Community (AEC), The Nation ran a box on its front page that gave the traditional greeting phrases used in different Asean countries. For Singapore, it said “Nihao”, but when I forwarded the article to my Singaporean friend, who’s fluent in Mandarin, she wasn’t happy about it. In recent years of attending the Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay’s annual “Huayi: Chinese Festivals of Arts”, I’ve realised that, despite the vastness and diversity of the Chinese diaspora, the programming of performing arts in Singapore and Hong Kong has given me the most opportunities to learn about it. And meanwhile, thanks to these theatre performances with English surtitles, my Mandarin remains limited to basic greeting phrases and food names.

Performers from Singapore, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong migrated in various paths. Photo/Jeannie Ho

The Theatre Practice (TTP) is the oldest professional bilingual (Engish and Mandarin) theatre company in the island state – indeed, it’s as old as the independence of this country where the majority of the population is of Chinese descent. Every year, they also organise the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival, where audiences can watch works from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, most with English surtitles.

The Esplanade commissioned TTP to create a new work for this year’s Huayi – its largest production to date staged at the 2,000-seat Esplanade Theatre, which was more than half filled on the Saturday evening. I cannot recall ever watching local plays on this stage before, though I have seen plenty of musicals there.

“I came at last to the seas” was originally written by playwright Wu Xi from the structure suggested by director Kuo Jian Hong who later developed it with members of her multi-national cast.

Photo/Jeannie Ho

Based on the Buddhist philosophy’s six roots of sensations which refer to the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, the play traces the different migration paths of the six main characters and reflects the complexity of the Chinese diaspora. They are: A Fu, a blind traveller; Gong Ye BB, an IT service-man; Curious Nose, a wanderer suffering from a mid-life crisis; Le “Petit” Prince, a middle-aged wanderer; Miss Dong, an expert; E-Jun, a music conductor and Mdm K, an entrepreneur.

Most of the stories are compelling and the fact that the play was staged in such a large theatre meant that Kuo, who is also a filmmaker, needed to fill it with projections of images onto the set. For this, credit must go to designers Genevieve Peck and Ric Liu, who deftly made sure they didn’t upstage the characters and their stories. But maybe because I was among the minority in the audience who had to completely rely on the surtitles, the play as a whole felt overwrought and much more for the head than the heart. This overwroughtness also reminded me of a few other Singaporean plays I have watched in the past decade.

Photo/Jeannie Ho

Kuo wrote, though, in her director’s note: “I am not an intellectual. I am not trying to tell you something. I just want to tell a story and I want to tell it well, with a bit of humour.”

I wished there had been more than a bit of humour, although her deftness in using her ensemble actors in different parts of the play and the way in which she unified all elements of the production were highly commendable.

And in this day and age, it’s nice to be reminded before we seriously discuss migration issues that migration has always existed. And that’s why one doesn’t need to go to Singapore’s Chinatown, or indeed Bangkok’s, to find the most delectable Peking duck.

The writer wishes to thank Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay’s See Ling Ling for all kind assistance.

COMING UP NEXT

The Theatre Practice’s next work, by the same director, is “Four Horse Road”, inspired by actual events on Waterloo Street, where the company is located, and exploring the themes of identity and the sense of belonging. It tuns from April 2 to 28. Visit http://www.Practice.org.sg.

At the Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay, theatregoers are booking tickets to watch the National Theatre UK’s multi-award-winning production of an internationally renowned novel of the same title “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. It runs from Thursday to April 8. Visit http://www.Esplanade.com or book online at http://www.Sistic.com.

Gardens are usually about the senses – colours, scents, water, birdsong – and Paradise itself is envisioned as a garden. But Piyatat cultivated his Eden as the garden of a mind seeking escape from sensory prison.

Even so, there is the smoky aroma of sacred plants, which shamans regard as “teachers”, wafting from a trio of bronze pipes being sipped thoughtfully by three dreamy heads in green, black and gold.

There is a Bronze Age Isaan simplicity and potency in Piyatat’s enigmatic bronzes. This isn’t surprising, since he learned to cast bronze in Ubon in the Northeast, which is steeped in prehistory. The sculptures’ solidity notwithstanding, they take us into ethereal realms, not of fantasy but of otherworldly reality.

The biblical serpents of Eden that tempt and repel turn into enticing hands and staring eyeballs. The seething “Serpent Brain”, the sprouting “Serpent Heart” and the “Apple Bong” whose sucking hole is the clitoral gateway through which we all enter this world.

In a necklace of the five-headed (five-sense) naga, Shiva himself holds out to us the consciousness of good and evil, in a world where his divine gift of thirdeye opening ganja is forbidden fruit.

“If we hadn’t tasted the apple, there’d be no creative ideas, no weapons – and no art,” says Piyatat. “We’re punished for it, but other forbidden knowledge can so pervade us with consciousness of reality that we can free ourselves.”

His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn will today preside over the opening of an exhibition hosted by the US government at Queen Sirikit Textile Museum, which features nearly 80 gifts exchanged between the country’s heads of state and delegations over the past two centuries of bilateral relations.

Two centuries ago this year, American naval captain Stephen Williams docked his ship in the port of Bangkok in the hope of opening trade between his country and Siam. The mission was a success, and Williams returned home with a letter addressed to President James Monroe from Dit Bunnag, Siam’s foreign minister, conveying the approval of His Majesty King Rama II.

The two nations have maintained an amicable relationship ever since.

The gifts are on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, US National Archives, presidential libraries, Library of Congress, King Prajadhipok’s Institute, the National Museum Bangkok, the Thai Department of Fine Arts and Thai Film Archive.

“Thailand was one of the United States’ earliest friends, and I strongly encourage you to visit the Queen Sirikit Museum and see first-hand how these gifts helped cement that friendship over 10 generations,” said US Ambassador Glyn Davies in a press release.

In 1818, the United States was still a young republic, with little political experience beyond the Atlantic Ocean. The Chakri Dynasty was meanwhile just learning how to navigate the world diplomatically, which included dealing with European adversaries sharing colonial ambitions. Situated on opposite sides of the globe, the US and Siam were not the most likely allies.

“Great and Good Friend” is the salutation President Abraham Lincoln used to address King Rama IV in February 1862 when he wrote to thank King Mongkut for sending “rich presents … as tokens of goodwill and friendship for the American people”, co-curator Trevor Merrion said at a recent talk at Siam Society.

Merrion and ethnomusicologist William Bradford Smith spent nearly a year to prepare the exhibition – most of which is on show for the first time in Thailand.

Among the highlights are historical treaties, letters exchanged between Thai monarchs and US presidents, presidential portraits, golden cigarette cases and lacquerwares.

The show is divided into two parts. The first room portrays the first century of relations, which began during the reign of the King Rama II and former president James Monroe through the reign of King Rama V.

There are also the black-and-white photographs depicting HM King Maha Vajiralongkorn visiting Disneyland when he was a young prince, on June 22, 1960 during a royal visit to the US.

The photographs depict King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Queen Sirikit, Prince Vajiralongkorn and Princess Ubol Ratana cruising on a boat in Disneyland.

The second room features the last century of relations spanning to the current day.

The show runs through June 30.

WITH her nose piercing, jeans and sweatshirt, rising street artist Sara Erenthal looks nothing like what she was 20 years ago – a member of an extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish group.

New York-based Erenthal, who left religious life behind, is attracting growing attention for her unusual murals and art that give a second life to abandoned objects she finds.

Artnet website in December listed her among 10 street artists to watch who are “taking the art form beyond Banksy”, the famed British activist.

The 36-year-old’s work has flourished in the streets of Brooklyn and at the New York borough’s FiveMyles exhibition and performance space.

Rising street artist Erenthal looks nothing like what she was 20 years ago  part of one of the most extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups./AFP

It has been an unlikely rise for someone from the closed world of the ultra-Orthodox, who follow a strict interpretation of Jewish law.

“I didn’t have a happy childhood,” Erenthal says during a recent return to Israel for the first time in her professional life.

“I stopped believing in God when I was very young, but I never said it. There were also arguments with my family.”

While back in Israel for several weeks, Erenthal worked in a studio and on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Some of her work was exhibited at the Bait Haadom (Red House) gallery in the hip Shapira neighbourhood of southern Tel Aviv.

She painted her emblematic woman’s face, with stylised black curves and red lips, on the Jerusalem streets of the ultra-Orthodox district of Geula near Mea Shearim, the strictly religious area where she was born.

That face and its different guises, almost expressionist in nature, has become her signature.

“It is a self-portrait. It represents me in all my variations and also all women and people,” she explains.

“It is a subconscious self-portrait.”

The image at times takes the form of a young girl with braids, how she herself was as a girl.

Erenthal draws one of her emblematic woman’s faces./AFP

Erenthal comes from a family that belonged to the Neturei Karta branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, known for its especially strict religious lifestyle and its opposition to Zionism.

For Neturei Karta members, the establishment of a Jewish state is prohibited before the coming of the Messiah, so they avoid dealings with the Israeli state.

When she was only a few years old, her parents left Jerusalem and moved to an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where she spent most of her childhood.

“When I was 17 and a half, we moved back to Israel,” Erenthal says.

“A few months later, my parents told me they had found someone for me (to marry) without really giving me a choice. I had a gut feeling that that was the time, that if I didn’t leave right away I would never leave.”

She ran away from her family and went to the army’s recruitment office to carry out her military service, mandatory in Israel, though young ultra-Orthodox are often exempt.

She spent time in a kibbutz – the collective communities in Israel – and learned Hebrew there after having previously spoken Yiddish, the ancient language that some ultra-Orthodox in Israel still use.

Erenthal did nearly two years of military service, working in the administration of an infantry unit.

“My military service was my introduction to the secular world,” she says.

She later returned to New York, surviving with the help of odd jobs and enduring a “feeling of emptiness”.

Seeking to address that void, she spent nearly a year in India. Then in her 30s, she began to draw while there.

“In India, I started to develop as an artist. Until then, I never thought I could be an artist,” she muses.

“In my family, I was not exposed to contemporary art and to culture in general. We would never go to the museum.”

Back in New York, she took her first steps in the art world, beginning by working in a studio. She quickly turned toward street art, using found objects such as mattresses, televisions and scrap wood in her work, then trying her hand at murals.

She gradually began to include messages in her paintings.

Many are spontaneous, inspired by her feelings in the moment or by the objects themselves. Some are more militant, although she says she is not trying to provoke.

While in Jerusalem, her graffiti on an abandoned window included the words “Open Your Eyes”.

“These words are an invitation to stop for a moment and think,” she says.

“It is a subtle message in case someone would need it. I am not trying to tell ultra-Orthodox Jews how they should live their lives. I am not trying to convince anyone.

“If someone should see this message, he will.”

DIRECTORS OF Glenstone, a museum of modern and contemporary art just outside Washington, announced on Monday a massive expansion set to open October 4 that would make it one of America’s largest such private institutions.

Tucked away on 93 hectares of rolling meadow and woodlands in Potomac, Maryland, Glenstone opened in 2006 with funding from billionaire Mitch Rales and his wife Emily.

The former fox-hunting estate’s natural setting is meant to encourage contemplation for visitors, who can marvel at the art and architecture for free.

Dubbed the Pavilions, the new 204,000-square-foot building designed by architecture firm Thomas Phifer and Partners features a ring of galleries arranged around a large central water court.

PWP Landscape Architecture has completed other grounds that boast two recently installed outdoor sculptures.

Glenstone, a museum of modern and contemporary art just outside Washington announced a massive expansion to become one of the largest such private institutions in the United States. /AFP

It’s a dramatic expansion from the original, 30,000-square-foot building, increasing gallery space by nearly six times and visitor capacity from 25,000 to 100,000 per year, though the number of daily visitors will be limited to ensure a more intimate experience with the art.

The Pavilions looks like a traditional hill town rising out of the earth.

“Throughout this transformation, we’ve maintained a single mission – to create a seamless integration of art, architecture and landscape and make it available free of charge to all who wish to visit,” said Rales.

Visitors can get a sneak peek at the ongoing construction in May – the exact opening date is unknown for now – with a show featuring work by Paris-born French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, known for her giant metal spiders that have spun their webs across the globe.

That show will take place in the original building – the Gallery. The entire museum will be closed in September before reopening the following month.

At the Pavilions, 13 different spaces will present works from the Rales collection. While some of the rooms will show single-artist installations, others will include temporary exhibitions of pieces by various artists.

Among those set to participate in the inaugural installations are Bourgeois, Michael Heizer, Roni Horn, On Kawara, Brice Marden, Lygia Pape, Martin Puryear and Charles Ray.

Most of the work was created after World War II and spans a wide range of media, from paintings and photographic prints to sculptures and installations.

“We’ve worked carefully to create a visitor experience unlike any other, providing each visitor with an unhurried, contemplative engagement with the artworks,” said Emily Wei Rales, the museum’s director.

ONG KENG Sen’s four-year term as the director of Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) finished last year, and both audiences and artists noted how the event was very different from other similar festivals, not only in Southeast Asia but also in Asia as a whole. Two simple, yet significant, facts are that it’s strongly based on context and, as a result, the programmes were not divided into such familiar categories as theatre, dance, music, film and visual arts, as many works fit into more than one category.

During Singapore Art Week in late January, his company TheatreWorks joined with the Goethe Institut in holding a five-day “The Curators Academy”, with support from Taiwan’s Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture.

PHOTO/HOONG WEI LONG

Southeast Asian participants, who were selected from either their applications or by invitation, attended, for example, classes with Sigrid Gareis, initiator of Salzburg University curating programme, Stefan Hilterhaus, director of Pact Zollverein, in Essen, Germany, and Shermin Langhoff, director of Maxim Gorki Theatre in the German capital, and worked out potential thoughts on curation. They also attended “Capture Practice”, a video installation by Israeli choreographer Arkadi Zaides as well as Apichatphong Weerasethakul’s projection-performance “Fever Room” and Tsai Ming-liang’s new films “No No Sleep” and “Autumn Days”, with the internationally renowned film director in attendance.

Taiwanese composer Lin Kuei-Ju, whose “Kuang Qi” was part of Bangkok Theatre Festival last year, presented a lecture-demonstration of “Dear John”, her Taishin Award winning work.

PHOTO/ HOONG WEI LONG

Among the Thai participants was B-Floor Theatre’s Sasapin Siriwanij, who’s curating a new festival addressing the subject of violence, scheduled for next year. She reflected on her academy experience, saying, “I learned that although curating sounds big and important, the ‘best’ strategy is to be clear with yourself, If you can answer yourself clearly as to what you want to do and why, then you’re at a good starting point.”

As for how to apply the knowledge and insight she gained from the academy to her first festival, which has the working title “Eyes Open to Violence”, she noted: “In fact, what we discussed throughout the academy spread out in many directions conceptually. And so, more than anything, I’d take the feeling of determination and self-empowerment that I got from the academy to fuel the work.”

With her professional background firmly in theatre – and having won an IATC Thailand award for best performance by a female actor – she noted that, like Sifa, artists and curators in this academy are working in various disciplines of arts.

“This helped expand my mind and I loved that. Being put together in the same environment to see examples from other fields helped me realise that what happened elsewhere could also happen to me, to us. The only limit to what you can create is the limit of your imagination.”

To make sure that the participants can then put these valuable thoughts into actual practice, Asia Network Asia (ANA), which is being operated by TheatreWorks, guarantees three micro-grants, each worth up to US$10,000 (Bt312,000) for the selected projects proposed by the academy participants.

The writer’s trip was fully supported by TheatreWorks. Special thanks to Ong Keng Sen, Tay Tong and Mervin Quek for all kind assistance.

CURATION THOUGHTS ONLINE

Visit CuratorsAcademy2018.wordpress.com to read what artists and curators shared there.

A KEY index of the development of modern theatre in each country is the quality, and quantity, of original plays. The fact that Thai playwrights, unlike their Asean counterparts, have never been honoured with SEA Write Awards, is partly because most of their works have never been published – a situation that’s alarming, if not shocking. It also explains why a recently published anthology of Southeast Asian plays includes a Thai play written in English by a non-professional playwright and adapted from an ancient Greek myth.

Yet we should never forget that the development of modern and contemporary Thai theatre owes a great deal to translation, tradaptation and adaptation of foreign plays. And while a rising number of Thai theatre scholars are now ignoring these works and prioritising original scripts, the audience is always curious as to what playwrights in other countries are writing about.

Photo/Chutima Tatanan

Having been honoured with top theatre awards in theatre capitals on both shores of the Atlantic, French playwright Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” is a domestic black comedy set in one afternoon in the living room of a mother and father whose son has severely been injured by the son of another set of parents who are visiting them. As coffee is replaced by alcohol, conversation turns into an argument not only between the two pairs of parents but also shifting from childhood to parenthood and contemporary society.

For any aspiring playwrights, this play is a prime example of how to develop a dramatic situation and to set an entire play in one time span in one location, and that’s why Roman Polanski’s film adaptation, with Oscar-winning actors, didn’t work as effectively as the original play.

Photo/Chutima Tatanan

Thailand’s most prolific stage director Damkerng Thitapiyasak is a master of translation, and proof is in his “Bupphakali”, his Thai tradaptation of “God of Carnage” now onstage at Thong Lor Art Space. The Thai title is already a cheekily comical wordplay as, at first glance, it appears to be a misspelling. He deftly adjusts some specific references so that this 11-year-old French play better communicates with the contemporary Thai audience. For example, while in the original, Veronique was writing about Darfur, here Uma is writing about the Rohingya. Unlike his other adaptations, he keeps many references from the original and these make the two families credible as middle-class and upper-middle class Thais.

Damkerng also reminds us that casting is one of the most important parts of the director’s job, especially in the so-called “actor’s play”, in which the four actors are onstage throughout almost the entire play. The four not only live their characters but are believable as husband and wife, as well as parents, even though only one is an actual parent in real life.

Photo/Chutima Tatanan

Duangjai Hiransri as writer Uma and Kamonpat Pimsarn as her wholesaler husband Witsanu may seem softer than the other pair but they never lose a battle. Kriangkrai Fookasem is arresting as lawyer Kritsana who’s so busy with the drug company case on his mobile phone that he cannot find a way to win this living room battle. Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon is having a ball – as are we watching her – as his wife Matthani, who says she’s working in asset management, though one has to wonder about the nature of the assets she is managing. She also delivers the funniest physical comedy moment in the play.

With the amount of laughter heard last Thursday on opening night, much credit is due to Damkerng as the director – especially when we consider that only Kriangkrai is known for his comedic skills and that Kamonpat is much better known as a sound designer and musician.

Less than a year ago, Life Theatre staged the English translation of Reza’s “LifeX3” at the same venue, and at the turn of this century, Dass Entertainment, now known as Dreambox, staged the Thai translation of her “Art”. Coupled these with two Thai translations of her contemporary, Pascal Rambert, seen here in recent years, the Thai audience is also now wondering about other contemporary French playwrights whose works might be relevant to us. Perhaps the French Embassy and the Alliance Francaise can slightly shift their focus from contemporary dance, nouveau cirque and hip hop and provide some answers soon.

THREE MORE WEEKS

“Bupphakali” continues until April 9 at Thong Lor Art Space, a short walk from BTS Thonglor station. The new entrance is right on Sukhumvit Soi 55, next to a flower stand.

It’s on from Thursday to Monday at 8pm in Thai with English surtitles. Tickets are Bt650 (Bt400 for students), at (095) 924 4555.

Find out more at “ThongLorArtSpace” Facebook and Line.