A fine final

The Office of Contemporary Art and Culture’s celebration dubbed “Silpathorn: A Decade of Success in Thai Contemporary Art” came to a close last Sunday at the Chang Theatre in Thon Buri.
Even taking account of the remote location, the fact that it was followed by very few media and that audience numbers averaged 100 on each of the 10 days clearly show that this is not the best way to spend our tax money on the promotion of contemporary arts.
On Saturday evening, the first recipient of Silpathorn award in performing art, Pradit Prasartthong and his Anatta Theatre, staged, what he referred to as the first part of, “Mangkon Salat Kled” (literally, “a dragon shakes off its scales”), which premiered at Bangkok Theatre Festival 2013. In his introduction, Pradit explained that “Mangkon” is part of an ongoing project in which he’s retelling the life stories of important Thai people not yet widely known to the public in the theatrical genre known as lakhon rong.
Last year, it was Poonsuk Banomyong and now it’s Puey Ungpakorn, an internationally revered economist and former president of Thammasat University who went into exile after the 1976 student uprising.
Before the play, there was a screening of Silpathorn filmmaker Thunska Pansittivorakul’s short film “The Terrorists”, which asks whether we remember what didn’t really happen or forget what really happened. The film’s intense tone balanced well with the play’s comic and happy one. Set during the bitterness between the Thais and the Chinese in Thailand seven decades ago, the play showed how we can live with our differences. The audience was easily able to make the connection between the two and ask themselves if we can do the same in the heat of our current political differences.
The following afternoon in an air-conditioned studio about 30 participants attended a forum titled “Creating Cross-Cultural Works”, in which Silpathorn artists Manop Meejamrat and Sineenadh Keitprapai shared their experiences of working cross-culturally with foreign artists, either in productions or workshops. Both voiced positive opinions on the impact on their artistic development, agreeing that the experiences have unconsciously penetrated the way they work.
“I used to carefully think about the ratio of Thai and foreign elements when I created a work – not anymore.” Manop noted.
When a participant asked whether a Thai contemporary work is only limited to the artist’s reinterpretation of a traditional work, both Manop and Sineenadh explained that the scope is much wider. When another asked what our government plans to do in terms of cultural exchange in the wake of the upcoming AEC, neither had an answer.
Part of the answer was possibly given at the outdoors theatre after a four-hour interval where Myanmar performance artist Moe Satt, a guest of the festival, staged “Face and Fingers”. This began with a short film in which the audience saw various faces and foods from our neighbouring country. Later on, when Satt sat down centre-stage, we watched, with both delight and intrigue, how different combinations of hand gestures and facial expressions can create different meanings.
However, like the other two guest artists from Asean countries seen earlier here, the artists and their works had too negligible a relationship with the rest of the programme as well as too little interaction with our Silpathorn artists, meaning their presence was like OCAC’s fulfilment of the government’s AEC mission.
Back indoors, Sineenadh led her Crescent Moon Theatre in “Shadow-Body”, inspired by Silpathorn visual artist Pinnaree Sanpitak’s works. Notwithstanding the overwrought lighting design, sentimental music score and the fact that some of the performers were not good movers, parts of the performance touched and moved the audience.
Feeding the entire audience breast-shaped coconut jelly, Pinnaree was also in the audience and spoke during the post-show Q&A. I wish, though, she had been involved more in the creation of this performance and the two woman artists would have created a totally new collaborative work together.
As in many one-off events organised by government agencies, the Silpathorn celebration had both promise and problems and these should be seriously followed up instead of simply let go.