Showing 1 - 6 of 6
In the presence of others
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 14/07/2022
» My experience with Samara Hersch's online version of Body Of Knowledge (At Home), which was part of Germany's Impulse Theater Festival last year, has since got me interested in the question of what it is we do in theatre as audience. In Body Of Knowledge, the audience engaged in conversations with teenagers via WhatsApp, they in their own home, we in ours. The performance made me more attuned to the act of listening -- something we do in theatre without thinking or being asked to.
Strangers, neighbours, others
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 09/06/2022
» For me, the word "ritual" evokes tradition and cycle. And there's plenty that is traditional and cyclical at this year's Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa). But with a new festival director, Natalie Hennedige, the programme under the theme "Anatomy Of Performance: Ritual" also embraces questions of the future and the digital space.
The evolution of khon
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 22/04/2021
» Choreographer Jitti Chompee's ongoing khon project, which includes Melancholy Of Demon, a dance performance that I reviewed earlier this month, is supported by the Ministry of Culture and departments and offices under its umbrella. This is a surprising level of governmental support granted to a contemporary dance artist who wants to do not-so-genteel things with khon and the character of Tossakan. I still remember how in 2006 the Ministry of Culture reportedly forced Somtow Sucharitkul to change the scene in his opera Ayodhya that depicted the death of Tossakan (Ravan in the opera version) onstage, a practice that is considered a bad omen in Thailand.
Thailand in a room
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 05/02/2015
» None of us own Bang-La-Merd, but we are all living in it. In Bang-La-Merd, you must be careful not to use the words "freedom" and "rights". The term "human rights" is especially sensitive and most likely prohibited, and in circumstances relating to the sacred, absolutely irrelevant. In Bang-La-Merd, it is advisable to not criticise all that you love and uphold for it is illegal to criticise those whom you must love and uphold.
Co-authoring, not performing
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 16/02/2012
» Tim Crouch went into acting with questions and uncertainty, rather than in hopes of achieving personal fame. When he decided to enrol at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, he said it was because he didn't think he knew what an actor was. And ultimately he felt that the training he got there didn't "show me what an actor is, only what he is not". He gradually came to the realisation that he had become an actor with a dead-end job _ acting _ and that taking part in conventional drama productions was preventing him from "authoring his creativity", as he puts it.
Steadily Forward
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 15/02/2012
» Before ushering the Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF) into its 10th year, Nut Nualpang, founder of Saosoong Theatre and this year's festival programme director, strapped the regular members of the Bangkok Theatre Network (BTN), comprising a handful of small professional theatre companies, onto the operating table. Not only did they come under the knives of fellow artists and audience members, these theatre practitioners also got to spill their guts in a series of informal talks called kheun khiang (literally "getting on the chopping block").