The Esplanade’s Huayi-Chinese Festival of Arts is as old as the organiser itself, and having found a solid agenda and format of 10 days during the Chinese New Year, it has struck the right chord with the audience. As Esplanade producer Mimi Yee says, “Each year, the festival galvanises everyone – Chinese and non-Chinese audiences – to celebrate Chinese New Year at Esplanade by offering a wide range of programmes by outstanding Chinese artists for everyone to enjoy.”

“Huayi is a multi-genre festival dedicated to showcasing the dynamic artistic expressions of Chinese artists, from traditional to contemporary and mainstream to the experimental – as compared to, for example, The Theatre Practice’s Chinese Theatre Festival which focuses only on theatre,” Yee explains.

“Huayi presents a very strong festival atmosphere for people to gather in celebration of Chinese New Year and to catch arts performances by Chinese artists at the same time. This is similar to the Esplanade’s other cultural festivals such as Pesta Raya, the Malay Festival of Arts in celebration of Hari Raya season, Kalaa Utsavam, the Indian Festival of Arts in celebration of Deepavali, and Moonfest, a Mid-Autumn Celebration, all of which present opportunities for different communities to gather at Esplanade during the festive seasons and celebrate these occasions through the arts.”

That explains the wide variety of activities, held both indoors and outdoors, which include workshops in Chinese yo-yo, ink painting and heart knot bracelet-making, and the screening of the short film “Havoc in Heaven” followed by a talk on how “Journey to the West” has been adapted. There are also talks, in Mandarin, on such topics as “Auspicious Monkey and its Cultural Symbolism” and “Visual Language of Advertising”.

Other activities are a perfect fit for Valentine’s Day, which falls this Sunday.

Highlights on stage include a performance by Taiwan’s U-Theatre, whose work has been described by The Times as a “synthesis of theatre, percussion and meditation”.

There’ll also be shows by upcoming forces in dance and theatre such as Taiwan’s Huang Yi who will perform his contemporary dance work with a robot Kuka, Hong Kong’s Dionysus Contemporary Theatre, which will stage a Mandarin version of French playwright Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” and China’s Full Show Lane Theatre, which is working with Japanese master Tadashi Suzuki on a satirical take on the “Scottish play”.

Indie music fans will be delighted to hear that this year’s line-up includes Taiwan’s Hello Nico and Fang Wu, Singapore’s Dawn Wong and the Ark Royal and Hong Kong’s SIU2 who fuses sheng, sanxian and guzheng with piano, bass guitar and drums.

There’s also a highly anticipated concert by Gong Linna whose voice was commended by the New York Times as “a mixture of traditional and contemporary styles … commanding and full of feeling”.

In this new year of the monkey, the “dragon”, China itself, continues to fly high.

“There’s a lot being done for the development of traditional and contemporary arts in China. Esplanade has been introducing both traditional and contemporary Chinese arts to audiences in Singapore during Huayi and Moonfest, a festival that showcases solely traditional Chinese arts,” says Yee.

“Esplanade is always open to collaborating with artists from China, as well as from all over the world, to present works that are meaningful for both the Singapore and Chinese audiences. Besides, Esplanade is in constant close contact with the arts scene in China. We often welcome study trips from arts centres and arts groups from China to the Esplanade and have organised exchanges with centres and presenters exploring collaboration opportunities.”

The writer thanks the Esplanade’s See Ling Ling for all assistance.

ENTER THE DRAGON

– The Huayi-Chinese Festival of Arts runs from Friday until February 21 at the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay in Singapore.

– Many programmes are free. For tickets, check http://www.Sistic.com.sg.

– More details can be found at http://www.HuayiFestival.com.

 

With the National Artist herself at the helm of the productions, occasionally performing in them and oftentimes collaborating with other renowned professional artists, the Patravadi School’s annual stage production has given a whole new meaning to the “school play” for the last four years. Unlike most student efforts, the youngsters at this private school work hand-in-hand with teachers on all aspects of the production, both on and off the stage, including designing the poster and programme. And as this is not a performing arts school – though many people think it is – Patravadi “Khru Lek” Mejudhon carefully selects the source material for each year’s production, making sure that her students can apply it to as many classes as possible.

Following contemporary adaptations of Thai literature classics like “Viva Phra Samut”, “Rocking Rama” and last year’s “Vetal”, Khru Lek’s adaptation of Chit Burathat’s “Samakkhi phet khamchan” (“Chant of the Ununited Nation”) opened over the weekend at the Vic Hua Hin.

“Teaching Thai literature to the students these days, I find that they’re not interested in it partly because the language is very difficult, even for me, and partly that they can find little relevance to here and now,” Khru Lek tells XP.

“Then, most exams seem to only test them on basic information like the name of the writer and the synopsis. Literature is also about the beauty of language and those who want to excel in performing arts need to have great language skills. And so in this annual project, I use my performing arts skills in helping them understand Thai literature better – and it helps me as well.

“Chit Burathat’s ‘Samakkhi phet khamchan’ is short and yet it needs careful and deep analysis in order to fully understand it. Its themes are related to Buddhism, which I’m also teaching here.

“We started working in June, rehearsing once a week, all day, and added more rehearsal time in the evenings as the performance time approached. It’s also a good training in discipline and physical exercise for the students, and for me as well – it’s like an indoors PE class,” she laughs.

Based on a story during Lord Buddha’s time, “Samakkhi phet khamchan” tells how King Ajatashatru of Magadha city used trickery to destroy the unity of the people of Vajji city. King Ajatashatru then beat up and exiled Watsakara Brahman – performed by Khru Lek herself – from the city. King Litchawi of Vajji accepted the wounded Brahman with mercy and assigned him to teach the princes and princesses. The break-up of unity started with these young people and then spread far and wide, and in the end Vajji was easily conquered by Magadha.

Back in October, Khru Lek and I were at the Toki Arts Week in Nanjing where we watched – and were enthralled by – a classical Indian dance performance and workshop by Hyderabad-based master Kala Krishna. At Khru Lek’s invitation, Krishna was at her school in December, teaching not only student performers but also Silpathorn artist Manop Meejamrat who’s portraying King Litchawi as well as creating dance choreography for the production.

Given the English title and considering our political turmoil, one wonders if this production is slightly political. To that, the national artist answers, “People are welcome to come up with their own interpretation of course. There is, for example, one scene where students get free tablet computers.”

That’s another reason I’m planning a quick weekend getaway to Hua Hin.

TWO MORE WEEKENDS

– “Chant of the Ununited Nation” continues on Saturday and Sunday and February 13 and 14 at the Vic Hua Hin. Shows are at 7.30pm on Saturdays and 2pm on Sundays. It’s in Thai with some English translation.

– Tickets are Bt400 (Bt200 for students). Call (089) 255 0002 or visit http://www.PatravadiSchool.com.

 

THE RECIPIENT of the John D Rockefeller 3rd Award, Thai dancer and choreographer Pichet Klunchun is now bridging the Loei phi ta khon’s “open, improvisational, organic and intuitive nature” with his “contemporary choreographic system based on classical Thai dance” in his company’s new work “Dancing with Death”. He promises “choreography of continuous creativity and an image of ‘life after death’ as a never-ending cycle.”

“I’ve been working on this project for a long time and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay was the first producer to confirm its support two years ago. The starting point came from a desire to work on a folk tradition, which makes it very different from all my previous works,” he tells XP.

“I find the phi ta khon festival in Loei province fascinating. First, obviously, there’s dance performance in this tradition. Also, as the ghosts come out to play with the living people, it’s like a way of teaching us not to fear death. In Thailand, we talk about the concept of death through religion; yet in Dan Sai, they make it tangible and fun. Our costume designer Flynow’s Piyaporn Bhongse-tong has also been inspired by their costume and mask design, which comprises mostly everyday objects.”

Supported by Ministry of Culture’s Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Pichet and his dramaturg Orada Lelanuja then conducted research into epistemology.

“I was curious as to how these villagers attained perceived wisdom for their creative insight from perseverance. And from this knowledge, we started to create our choreography, which is of course based on each individual dancer’s perception and creation at each moment of the performance,” he explains.

Last month at the Chang Theatre’s outdoor space, the company staged two open rehearsals for dance and theatre artists, scholars and media, all of whom received this new work with both warmth and enthusiasm. On the oval sloping pathway and to music by Japanese composer Hiroshi Iguchi, who also deftly included the sound of the khaen, Northeast Thailand’s reed mouth organ, seven dancers, Pichet included, first moved only their legs, walking after one another slowly as if in a procession. Responding to one another’s movements, they later added the upper limbs. Repetitive at times yet never boring nor predictable, their movements were like contemplation of death itself – the knowledge that it’s lurking around us and we simply have to understand it clearly in order to continue our happy lives.

Pichet explains, “The slow walk is probably a signature of my work, one that you often find when I talk about the concept of death. For example, there are a few minutes of this walk in [his most famous and most frequently staged collaboration work with French choreographer Jerome Bel] ‘Pichet Klunchun and Myself’. It’s not my creation though. It’s traditionally Thai: you can see it not only in stage performances but also in traditional rites like, most recently, the funeral of the Supreme Patriarch.”

The company’s largest production to date and evidently the most highly anticipated, “Dancing with Death” has received strong and firm financial support from the Esplanade, the Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama 2016 Executive Committee, and Arts Centre, Melbourne. By contrast, no Thai producers have yet come on board.

For Bangkok, Pichet is looking at the possibility of staging this work at the M Theatre in early June, as it’s “more affordable than other venues of the similar size”. However, the overall budget is around Bt4 million so the company has adopted the crowdfunding strategy, inviting us to pledge our support at http://www.meefund.com by April 28.

At press time, they were still Bt3.5 million short.

GIVE A LITTLE

– The Pichet Klunchun Dance Company’s “Dancing with Death” will have its world premiere on February 7 and 8 at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre in Yokohama as part of Tokyo Performing Arts Market.

– It will be staged in May at the Esplanade Theatre in Singapore as part of the da:ns series, and at the Arts Centre in Melbourne next year. Discussions are underway to take the performance to Adelaide and Penang.

– To make the June performances in Thailand possible, donate at http://www.meefund.com/project/dancing-with-death-live-in-thailand.

– For more info, http://www.facebook.com/PKLifeWork

 

Peerapol Kijreunpiromsuk, now a core member of Democrazy Studio, has delighted theatre audiences in recent months with his acting prowess and charisma in such memorable works as “Girl X” and “I Am Thai”, both staged by Thanapol Virulhakul. He’s now ready to make his professional directing debut with an interactive performance “Plan B”. He’s not new to directing though: his graduation project, almost five years ago, was Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”

“Girl X” and “I Am Thai” allowed him to spend a long time last year in both Japan and Germany where he found himself taking a lot of photos.

“When I looked at the photos, I realised many of them showed homeless people. It’s a habit, I guess, as I have also returned from holidays in Austria, India and Nepal with much the same shots,” Peerapol says.

“Looking more closely at this habit, I realised that because I tend to travel alone, I often don’t know where to stay and what to eat. Does that make me sound like a homeless person?

“To better understand the situation of homeless people in Thailand, I visited the Mirror Foundation and Just Society Network. I also observed the homeless as they received free food from charities.

“My research showed me how easy it was for a Thai person to become homeless. That’s due, I think, to the lack of any system in our social structure to tackle this problem. In fact in Thailand, it’s never been regarded as a social problem, but as an individual failure. In some countries, they take much better care of this problem – for example, a homeless person is entitled to certain welfare benefits because after all he is still a citizen with rights.”

In his interactive work, Peerapol attempts to explore who in the audience has the potential to become homeless. The title, he explains, queries whether if we fail to meet our goals, we have a Plan B to fall back on.

“The homeless people’s Plan B may be to become homeless, as there is nothing in place to bring them back into the system.”

Peerapol picked young actor and director Kwin Bichitkul as his solo performer even before he had a definite idea of how the performance would turn out and that’s because “he’s very well trained. That became evident when I watched him in previous works.

“He’s also a free-spirited unique individual who leads his life like an artist. From my research, that’s a profession that is prone to homelessness.”

MAKE PLANS

– “Plan B” is at Democrazy Studio on Soi Saphanku, a five-minute walk along Rama IV Road from MRT Lumpini, exit 1. Shows are at 8pm from tomorrow to Saturday and January 26 to 30.

– Tickets are Bt480. For details, call (081) 441 5718 or check Facebook.com/DemocrazyStudio.

THE NEW YEAR gets off to a good start with the launch of new theatre company Bangkok Studio 41. The brainchild of young producer and director Chavatvit Muangkeo, it takes its name from his cosy studio and restaurant on Rama IX Soi 41.

Making good on his premise that “Entertainment in Bangkok can be sophisticated and funky at the same time”, Chavatvit is staging a new musical adaptation of national artist Krissana Asoksin’s novel “Mia Luang” – “The Wife” in English – on which he’s been working diligently with his musical loving friends for the past two years.

“I was finishing my master’s degree in India when my former classmate Malinda Pamornsuwan contacted me about this project,” says Kiattipoom Nantanukul, musical writer, composer, self-confessed musical enthusiast and one of Chavatvit’s collaborators.

“She had turned the 800-plus page novel into a musical book and Chavatvit was already on board as the director. And so I further worked on the book and asked other lyricists and composers to come on board. First staged in October 2013, it was a graduation project for a group of theatre students at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. We were determined that given the amount of effort we had put in, this wasn’t going to be simply a university production. Even then, we were challenging the student actors with the sophistication of the music and lyrics. We certainly had no intention of dumbing it down because it’s a school work.”

“After discussions with Chavatvit and Malinda, we agreed that this was not going to be staged in the all-too-familiar proscenium stage configuration. In short, it wouldn’t be fun. So we did it in a traverse stage set up with two groups of audience members directly facing each other. And that decision strongly affected the narrative of my musical book,” he explains.

“We got many positive comments, most memorably from the national artist herself.

Noting that we had managed to retain the heart of the story while being concise, she was very open-minded to our interpretation. We had to leave out many characters for this stage adaptation – for example, we kept only one male character Anirut, who, despite his limited stage time, caused a lot of trouble for others – and really focused on the protagonist Wikanda, the other women who came into her life and what they did to one another.”

And in comparison with many TV soap adaptations, he notes, “The audience, without judging who’s right or wrong, sees there’s more to the story than the fights between Anirut’s women.”

After the first production, the creative team kept working on “The Wife”, adding some new songs, cutting others and inviting some cast members to try them out to see how they worked. A Korean expat music director has also come onboard and, Kiattipoom notes, his limited command of Thai has been a plus for the creative process as he can listen to the music and lyrics from a fresh new perspective.

Having frequented musical play productions in New York for many years as well as taken musical book writing and composition classes at New York University, he also notes that most Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway works are traditionally not staged in proscenium settings.

“The audience is closer to the stage action, hearing the real voices of the actors who’re not on microphones, and the director can do much more with his staging. In Thailand, where the number of musical theatre fans keeps growing, I think the audience needs a new experience and so for this professional production, we’ll do it in an arena stage. With about 300 audience members in the theatre, we’re taking this as something like an Off-Broadway production with a piano and a violin and some percussion.”

Kanda “Net” Witthayanuparpyuenyong, highly commended for her title roles in “Miss Saigon” and “Cixi Taihou”, takes the female lead. Another magnet is Nansinee “Nooknick AF6” Namwong, as On In.

And unusually for a musical, “The Wife” will have English surtitles for all dialogue and lyrics, making sure that expat audiences can also get into the vibe of Thailand’s blossoming musical theatre scene.

MISTRESSES AND SONG

– “The Wife: A New Musical” runs from January 21 to 23 and January 28 to 30 at 7.30 nightly and 2pm on Saturdays at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts. It’s in Thai with English surtitles. The venue is on Henri Dunant Road, a 10-minute walk from BTS Siam, Exit 6.

– Tickets are Bt800 (Bt600 for four or more; Bt300 for students). Call (094) 931 3434 or visit http://www.BangkokStudio41.com.