ORGANISED by International Cultural Promotions, Bangkok’s 20th International Festival of Dance and Music has wrapped up after five weeks of operas, symphony concerts, classical ballets and a few other entertainments, some of which were quite commercial in comparison to the rest.

And while, as in its previous editions, there were no local works in the entire line-up, it was the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (RBSO) that accompanied the three performances by the Moscow State Classical Ballet in the first weekend of October.

As a result, this festival remains the only one of its kind on the planet that doesn’t present any local works.

The first-week programme was simply the best curtain-raiser ever in the festival’s history of two decades.

Zubin Mehta: Photo by Supachat Vetchamaleenont

The audience had a special treat in two performances – Teatro di San Carlo’s “Carmen” with Zubin Mehta conducting and two programmes of classical music with the same world-renowned maestro conductor.

And that’s also truly the highlight of the yearlong Italian Festival in Thailand, which is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations.

In the very same weekend, Taiwan made a strong case for cultural diplomacy with a percussion concert that bridged West and East, the traditional and the modern. In subsequent weeks, the Western classical spirit continued with memorable performances by the Korean Symphony Orchestra and Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra.

Korean Symphony Orchestra 

The Moscow Classical Ballet was also present for one weekend with works that are rarely seen here, like “Firebird” and “Rite of Spring”, and the opposite, “The Nutcracker”.

The classical ballet programme then continued with performances by Singapore Dance Theatre and the Karlsruhe Ballet, making its third trip here in less than a decade.

So this festival was clearly a major showcase of Western classical dance and music. I cannot recall any international performing-arts festival in Asia presenting these many Western classical works before.

That’s a reason to celebrate, and some audience members who attended all these programmes might not need to watch any more until September 2019, when the festival begins anew.

Michael Jackson Tribute Concert

On the other side of the coin, most of the contemporary counterparts seemed to be more commercial choices chosen to entertain the audience.

Examples included a magic show titled “The Magnificent Seven”, the Bollywood show “Taj Express” and the rock-legend homage “Michael Jackson Tribute Concert”. Many observers must have wondered why these were part of the same festival as Zubin Mehta.

It was as if the festival plan, if there was one, was to convince people that the classical always reigns supreme and the contemporary will never be able to match.

Apart from ICP’s sheer dedication in presenting Western classical works on the grand stage of colonisation-free Thailand, which deserves much applause, Bangkok’s 20th International Festival of Dance and Music had many other helpers.

These included the Crown Property Bureau, Bangkok Bank, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, BMW Thailand, B Grimm |Group, Dusit Thani Bangkok, Indorama Ventures, the Ministry of Culture, Nation Group, PTT, Singha Corp, Thai Union Group, Thai Airways International |and the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Mark That Calender

Bangkok’s 21st International Festival of Dance and Music is booked for September 9 to October 19, 2019.

Keep track of developments at http://www.BangkokFestivals.com.

THE AUSCHWITZ museum on Tuesday unveiled its largest-ever exhibition of the art of David Olere, a survivor of a World War II Nazi death camp who detailed his experiences in the gas chambers on canvas after the conflict.

“His work is exceptional because, without him, we wouldn’t know what was going on inside the crematoria,” says Serge Klarsfeld, president of Sons and daughters of Jewish deportees of France.

Olere survived a World War II death camp, later transcribing his memories to canvas and paper. The works are currently on view at a memorial in Oswiecim, Poland. /AFP

“We wouldn’t even know what the gas chambers looked like,” he says at the site of the former death camp set up by Nazi Germany in the southern city of Oswiecim in then-occupied Poland.

“This exhibition comes a few days after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. Anti-Semitism is still active, perhaps more than ever,” Klarsfeld adds, referring to the murder of 11 Jewish people in the US city on Saturday.

Titled “David Olere: The One Who Survived Crematorium III”, the exhibition features 19 paintings from the museum’s own collection and more than 60 other works loaned from Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, among others.

Born in 1902 in the Polish capital Warsaw to Jewish parents, Olere studied art there before moving to Berlin in 1918 and later settling in Paris.

AFP

He belonged to the so-called School of Paris, which included Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amadeo Modigliani and Henri Matisse, and earned a living creating set designs, costumes and advertising posters for film studios including Paramount Pictures, Fox and Gaumont.

Deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz in 1943, he was forced to work in the camp’s so-called Sonderkommando, a unit that assisted in the operation of the crematoria and gas chambers.

AFP

In January 1945, Olere was among Auschwitz prisoners evacuated by the Nazis to the Third Reich, where he was liberated by American troops the following May.

Dozens of drawings and paintings he later created show the life and death of prisoners in raw and disturbing detail.

“This unique collection of works is the only iconographic source of those events, performed from the perspective of a first-hand witness,” says Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian in charge of the museum’s collection.

Olere’s grandson expresses hope the exhibition will serve as a warning.

“Currently there is a very disturbing rise of nationalism and |populism in Europe,” Marc Olere says.

“I hope this exhibition will help to inform the younger generation of the dangers of these kind of ideologies and that it will contribute to protect them.”

Olere died in Paris in 1985.

Auschwitz-Birkenau has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of European Jews, with one million killed at the camp between 1940 and 1945.

Prasopsuk Ratmai, chief of the sculpture unit at the Office of Traditional Arts of the Fine Arts Department, said Pitak Chalermlao was pronounced dead at 12.50am on Saturday at Phra Mongkut Hospital.

He had been receiving treatment at the hospital for lung cancer for about four months and was admitted to the hospital a week before he died.

Pitak made the earth mould for the main garuda sculptures at four directions of the Royal Crematorium.

He was a sculpture artist of the Office of Traditional Arts.

A funeral service will be held at Wat Saket on Sunday.

The hit anti-dictatorship rap song riling the junta-led government, “Prathet Ku Me” (“My Country’s Got…”), has also roused debate and hinted at change in both the political and arts spheres in Thailand, say multidisciplinary scholars.

The 10-member group Rap Against Dictatorship (RAD) used social media as an artistic weapon, its music video-as-political message garnering more than 25 million views on YouTube to date.

The government tried to ban the hit tune, warning that its message and video footage replicating the 1976 massacre at Thammasat University violated the Computer Crime Act’s strictures against information inconsistent with the truth and also threatened national security.

The effort failed. RAD has cheated the censors by using blockchain technology to prevent the government from deleting the video or barring access to it.

But that hasn’t stopped debate from reaching both extremities of pro and con among people from all walks of life, from scholars and politicians to teenagers and monks.

Anthropologist Sorayuth Aiemueyut, who lectures on visual culture at Chiang Mai University, said people incensed by the limits placed on freedom of expression by the government via the use of laws such as Article 44 of the Constitution have found the song liberating.

“The impact of this phenomenon reflects the fact that many Thais are under pressure for calling for democracy under a dictatorial government,” Sorayuth told The Nation Weekend. “The political-art movement deploying new technology is also animating the current political situation, with thoughts being shared in both the virtual and real worlds, something called ‘digital immateriality’.

“In the social media community, technology is the key tool for social change,” added Sorayuth, a PhD candidate in visual and media anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. “This rap song has raised the level of debate about the arts, politics and music, as well as technology.”

Also drawing junta was Anocha Suwichakornpong’s internationally acclaimed movie “By the Time It Gets Dark”, which similarly took inspiration from the 1976 Thammasat tragedy.

Overt political activity is just now resuming after being banned since the 2014 coup, but arts-related socio-political activism has steadily spread, both online and off. Art happenings, posters and music concerts have given voice to campaigners pressing for a return to democracy.

In some cases the authorities have reacted, in one instance arresting demonstrators outside the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. Anti-junta artists began adopting “guerrilla” tactics to get their messages out.

The junta-led government has banned many political artworks, songs, films and stage productions. Individuals and groups targeted included Faiyen, a pro-red shirt band living in exile, and graffiti artist Headache Stencil, whose murals have depicted a black leopard and Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan’s luxury wristwatches.

Soldiers stormed Bangkok’s Ver Gallery to shut down an exhibition called “Whitewash”, featuring the politically charged conceptual photography of Harit Srikhao. Online political cartoonist Kai Maew had to set up a fresh link (Kai Maew X on Facebook) after being banned for a while. Also drawing junta was Anocha Suwichakornpong’s internationally acclaimed movie “By the Time It Gets Dark”, which similarly took inspiration from the 1976 Thammasat tragedy.

Rising from the underground

These were hardly the first times Thai artists were moved by bloody political events. Photography artist Manit Stowanichapoom and conceptual artist Nutdanai Jitbunjong have used historical image in their work too, though neither faced a ban.

“RAD moved the art up from underground to protest the junta government, using both online and offline platforms,” said visual-arts lecturer Thanom Chapakdee of Srinakharinwirot University.

Manit Sriwanichpoom’s 2001 conceptual photography “Horror in Pink”

“However the long-time ban on political activism under the military junta forced the RAD artists to look for alternatives.”

The song speaks about the hypocrisy of military dictatorship, the deep political divide, deaths on both sides of the divide and the failure of self-righteousness.

“As artists, we want to reflect the truth of the society we are living in under dictatorship,” a RAD member identified only as Hockhacker told The Nation Weekend. “Thailand seems to be caught in a loop of dictatorship. We want to voice what the majority cannot say directly. The lyrics were based on information we collected on social media, reflecting the sickness of our society.”

Thammasat law lecturer Sawatree Suksri said dictators ban political art because of the strong impact it can have on citizens. It’s easy to understand and thus makes convoluted political issues understandable, she said at a recent seminar on “Art, Power and Disobedience” held at her university.

Rap Against Dictatorship’s music video “Prathet Ku Me” (“My Country Got’s…”) hits more than 25 million views on YouTube to date.

Thanom noted that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has often used culture as a form of “soft power” to promote nationalism in conservative ways, like dressing in traditional Siamese garb and crooning mild pop tunes. Most recently, if tardily, he’s jumped onto the new media with posts on Facebook and Twitter as he woos voters ahead of the February poll.

Meanwhile the recently founded pro-democracy Future Forward Party is tapping artists to help its election campaign. Targeting younger people, the party is hosting the “Future Fest: Art, Music, Culture” this weekend at Bangkok’s Jam Factory, with political art and an open discussion about it.

Another RAD member known as the Liberate P initially planned to attend the fest but changed his mind because he didn’t wish to be seen as supporting Future Forward either.