Crossing boundaries

Early last year an extraordinary collaboration was launched at the Kobe-Asia Contemporary Dance
 Festival # 3. It featured playwright and director Toshiki Okada, textile artist Tomoko Soda and our very own Pichet Klunchun who needs no further introduction.
Many theatre fans still have fond memories of Chelfitsch Theatre’s “Five Days in March”, brought to Patravadi Theatre’s Studio 1 by the Japan Foundation and written and directed by Okada, whose works are now being staged in many festivals in Europe and Asia.
For her part, Soda creates fabric works she refers to as “objects unsuitable for the pig-headed.
NPO Dance Box’s director Fumi Yokobori brought the three together for the festival, which was on the theme “My home is shivering and changing, or is it me and my body wriggling?” in early 2014.
The two Japanese artists spent a few weeks in Thailand in late 2013 while Pichet headed to Japan in early 2014.
In Kobe, I watched as Pichet, dressed in grey pyjamas, handed out objects in different colours and sizes, all designed and crafted by Tomoko Soda, to audience members seated on the two sides of the performance area. A sewing machine with red threads was also a dominant feature and even the stage lighting apparatus above it was as carefully put together as an artwork. Among these lights was a TV monitor on which we could see the still image of a man sleeping on a sofa.
While Pichet was upstage making only minimal movements, his company member Kornkarn Rungsawang started the machine and the threads were sewn together. She then started recounting episodes of incidents, each ending with the sentence “Your dream ends there”. Interspersed with these were actress Mika Masuda’s monologues, accompanied by the physical movements Okada is also known for. The experience continued for over an hour.
Now thanks to the support from the Wa project of the Japan Foundation’s Asia Centre, we’ll get to witness this interdisciplinary work right here in Bangkok.
Almost a year has passed since the world premiere in Kobe, and Pichet notes, “Now that the three of us have spent more time together, we are less kreng jai, or considerate, of one another’s work, and that’s crucial for any successful collaboration, especially an interdisciplinary one like this. Initially, I think we worried too much that, despite working on the same keywords, our works wouldn’t connect in this piece. In the end, they did. And now that we’re really voicing comments and sharing opinions, the work is much more unified.”
“There are a few changes too. First, Okada has changed Masuda’s story from travel tales to those of everyday living and since we’re now performing outdoors, we’ve added a few set pieces. Thanks to her recent collaboration with another Japanese artist at the Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) earlier this month, Kornkarn is tackling this work differently – and, in my opinion, the result is better.”
Last year Pichet curated a festival to mark the 10th anniversary of Silpathorn awards, which saw him promote interdisciplinary collaborations. “It’s difficult for that to succeed in Thailand,” he notes. “It’s not only because of how artists in different genres are being trained and educated separately, even in the same school, but it’s also because of all hierarchy we have here – seniority, and so on.”
As the main direction of the Wa project is the promotion of exchange between Japan and Southeast Asia, we’ll witness how “Toshiki Okada x Tomoko Soda x Pichet Klunchun”, as the work is titled, can serve as an example of collaboration for the future.
“After this work, our Chang Theatre will go under a major renovation for about a year,” Pichet adds. “There will no longer be an outdoor theatre, but a theatre building.
The writer would like to thank Japan Foundation’s Kazue Suzuki for all assistance.”
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- “Toshiki Okada x Tomoko Soda x Pichet Klunchun” will be performed at 7.30pm on Saturday and Sunday at the Chang Theatre on Soi Pracha Uthit 61 in Thung Khru, Thonburi.
- Tickets are Bt600 (Bt300 for students).
- Call (080) 924 0002 or check Facebook.com/PKLifeWork.