Showing 31 - 40 of 72
Haiku as modern dance
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 22/09/2016
» When French theatre company Adrien M/Claire B first came to Thailand four years ago for the La Fete festival, they brought with them Cinématique, an exhilarating and mesmerising interaction between humans and technology. At this year's La Fete, the company treated Bangkok with another performance that boasts innovative interactive technology, Hakanaï, which ended its three-day run last Thursday.
The past that haunts
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 30/06/2016
» More and more, theatre artists are tucking messages about memory, history and tyranny into the crevices of the quotidian. More and more, between the lines of mundane conversations among siblings in the home, lies something political.
Going through the grieving process
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 09/06/2016
» On the Thai stage, we rarely get to see domestic scenes with nuanced emotional conflicts. No sooner does tension begin to form than it is resolved by a comedic means. In our everyday life, too, Thais prefer to avoid discussion of our emotions. Most Thais don't spend hours in therapy sessions every week. Our first instinct is not to seek out professional help to fix our psychological health.
A colourful unpeeling of youth sexuality in Paula Vogel's play
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 10/03/2016
» After the success of The True History Of The Tragic Life and Triumphant Death Of Julia Pastrana, The Ugliest Woman In The World, Peel the Limelight returns with another thought-provoking and emotionally nuanced play, Paula Vogel's 1998 Pulitzer Prize–winning How I Learned To Drive. At once gentle and disturbing, funny and poignant, the play tells the story of Li'l Bit and her unusual relationship with Uncle Peck during her adolescence.
India takes centre stage
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 03/03/2016
» NUNi Productions, a young Thai opera company, has been known to make the genre more digestible for the younger generations and novices. In the hands of versatile director and NUNi co-founder Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon, opera suddenly feels malleable and full of possibilities. In the past two years, she and Saran Suebsantiwongse, opera singer and NUNi co-founder, have been putting together the jigsaw puzzle that is Sakuntala.
Quirky Mahabharata epic that feels just a bit outdated
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 03/12/2015
» Literary epics are often treated with pomp and sumptuousness on the stage. Japanese theatre director and writer Hiroshi Koike brings the Mahabharata epic down to earth in his ambitious if clumsy Mahabharata Chapter 2.5.
What it is to be human
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 27/08/2015
» For some of us, many of us even, a future in which we exist alongside robots so advanced they seem to have a mind of their own and bear a cunning resemblance to humans is a scenario that resides only in the realm of the imagination -- a stuff of entertainment, an overexploited narrative.
Casualties of war
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 18/06/2015
» When we watch Thanapol Virulhakul's conceptual contemporary dance work, we are never only a member of the audience. We are witnesses to, sometimes even implicit in, the transgressions that are being played out on the stage — transgressions that are often masked in seemingly neutral and harmless images.
Life on the small stage
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 13/05/2015
» Three new English-speaking theatre companies in Bangkok make a name for themselves.
An eclectic mix of shows from last week
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 05/02/2015
» This simple dance creation by Sun Tawalwongsri and Chatchanok Hemachandra may have sprung from a loose and hackneyed concept — our relationship with other human beings and our surroundings — but it succeeds in being minimal and controlled. Sun and Chatchanok are athletic dancers and move with clean precision. They are not identical, however. Sun usually has a penchant for melodrama, but here he keeps it under control. Chatchanok is more matter-of-fact when she dances but still knows how to show her vulnerability. The two have found an interesting way of incorporating pedestrian movements into their choreography; they not only dance with their arms, legs and feet but are also very expressive with their hands. For a piece about relationships, the show feels emotionally disjointed, and the dancers could have had more of a connection with each other. The most touching scene comes at the end when Sun backs away from Chatchanok as she continues to feel his imaginary form with her hands. The sense of absence and loss in that simple moment makes more of an emotional imprint than all of the other scenes combined.