Body experiences

 The audience at Crescent Moon Space for the recent performance of Bo Kittiphon’s “A Foetus’ Dream” (“Khwam Fan Khong Tua On”) enjoyed a rare treat: the chance to see a unique work that cannot be revived.

It started with four performers in costumes and make-up reminiscent of butoh, the Japanese dance of death, re-enacting the physical movements and various emotions of a foetus in a mother’s womb. Towards the end, Bo, whose baby is almost due, made a surprising entrance. Her movements were much more gentle than in her previous works, almost as if she were herself floating in a womb, yet when she carefully touched her belly, we felt that what’s inside her womb was moving and communicating with her as much as us. 

Among her four performers, veteran actor Grisana Punpeng, who co-directed this work with Bo, set the bar so high with his physical and emotional expressions that the other three young performers couldn’t quite match him. And that made the performance somewhat unbalanced, until Bo’s entrance of course. 

The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre’s third annual Performative Art Festival began late last month with a series of dance workshops for youths from around Southeast Asia. It continued this month with Crescent Moon Theatre’s restaging of “Shade Borders” (“Ngao Rang”), which closed the “Silpathorn: A Decade of Success in Thai Contemporary Art” series this March. 

In creating the work, Silpathorn artist Sineenadh Keitprapai was inspired by the visual art pieces of her Silpathorn compatriot Pinnaree Sanpitak. This restage, with less visual presence of the latter’s works, looked and felt as if the theatre director had more time to select and digest the ideas and concepts. As in the premiere, Sineenadh revealed a personal secret that was as shocking as it was poignant. 

With their wide variety of body types, the five performers, Sineenadh included, reminded us that most women in the world do not look like those in K-pop music videos and showed how natural bodies, something of a rarity in these cosmetically-challenged times, are indeed beautiful. 

As they arrived at the studio, audience members were asked to write on a Post-It what first came to mind when they heard the word “nom” (“breast” or “milk”) – the answers varied from “Mum” to “Linda” – then post them on a wall. Selected audience members were also requested to point a laser stick to specific parts of the performers’ bodies and the performers voiced their opinions on those parts. Here, most of the answers were negative. This was and still is my favourite scene as it shows how commercialism and capitalism have made women dissatisfied with their bodies.

As the lighting and other visual effects were less showy this time, more focus was given to the performers and what they said and did. They also grew more confident in their movements though in such a movement-based performance, the audience has the right to demand a higher standard. 

Both thematically intriguing works remind us that the female bodies we see in mainstream media like television, movies and on Instagram, are actually only a small part of the whole. These performances also prove that female artists remain a strong force in the development of contemporary Thai dance and theatre.

 

 UNTIL SUNDAY