What we believe

CO-FOUNDER AND co-artistic director of Thailand’s most prolific company, B-Floor Theatre, Teerawat “Ka-ge” Mulvilai has bagged many awards for his solo works in which he commented on censorship, namely “Satapana: Red Tank” and “Satapana: Iceberg” seen last year respectively at the Pridi Banomyong Institute and the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts.
His last work three months ago “Iceberg: The Invisible” at Democrazy Theatre Studio also won rave reviews. However, his new work “Mano Land”, he says, differs from the triptych.
“Actually, it’s very different from all my works. Instead of criticising the socio-political structure or establishment, I focus more on the people who live within and make these systems work. Apart from the frequent changes of government that result in our political instability, there are people who support certain ideologies which are, in my opinion, not really democratic,” he tells XP.
“I think Thais suffer from irrational logic. Each of us has his or her own individual belief and while I’m not saying that all of us have to share the same belief – that wouldn’t be democracy either – I am wondering whether we can really live harmoniously and peacefully with our differences. In my opinion, that’s already proved to be untrue. Anyone whose belief differs from the mainstream or the norms set up by the state will get into trouble and we’ve seen many witch hunts, especially on the social media.
Teerawat is of the opinion that this has less to do with education than common sense.
“It’s clear that our common sense just isn’t working properly. Plus, our justice system isn’t fully functioning. What can we hold on to? Evidently, our patronage system is very powerful – if you want to be safe, you need to have a good back up – and that sounds a little like a mafia system. If this persists, I think it can eventually lead to such a bad scenario as a civil war, in which we kill one another.”
This is typified in his “Mano Land”, a state in which nobody is working together towards the same goal or is equal.
“Rather, it’s like if you have a louder voice, you can dominate others’ thoughts,” he says.
Billed as “an absurd dance performance”, Teerawat calls this work “dance theatre”, rather than physical theatre, the genre by which we usually define his works.
“There is text as well as dance movements. Actually there are certain sentences I’d prefer to vocalise but given the current situation we can’t, so these will be in dance movements.”
And unlike many of his works in which the visual and sound design play important roles, this time the stage will be an empty dance floor.
“There are no visual projections and for the sound, we only use one piano. I want to focus on the six performers and how they deliver the messages, instead of having them and our ideas overwhelmed or led by other elements.”
Among the six performers, he says, there’s only one veteran namely Vidura Amranand, last seen in her daring solo “One Night Stand”. The rest of the cast is made up of the newest members of B-Floor and young performers who recently joined B-Floor’s annual workshop B-Fest.
 IMAGINATION LAND
 n Part of the Diverse Arts Festival at the Pridi Banomyong Institute, “Mano Land” runs from tomorrow until Monday and from October 22 to 26. Shows are at 8pm except Sundays when the curtain time is 3pm.
n Tickets are Bt600 (Bt450 for students; Bt100 discount for advance transfers). Call (089) 167 4039, e-mail [email protected] or check www.BFloorTheatre.com, also on Facebook.