Get outside that comfort zone

THE 14TH edition of the Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF), the region’s largest contemporary-theatre showcase, drew its curtains on November 19 in the auditorium of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, which hosted it as part of the ongoing sixth annual Performative Art Festival. 
The Thailand section of the International Association of Theatre Critics opened the event by presenting 12 awards for outstanding stage works by Thai artists that premiered in Bangkok from January through October. 
The presentation was well attended by theatre artists, but unfortunately, unlike in previous years, it drew little attention from the Thai press.

B-Floor’s “Blissfully Blind” gave the audience a unique experience at Bangkok CityCity Gallery./PHOTO: TEERAPHAN NGOWJEENANAN

The year’s biggest winner was B-Floor Theatre’s experiential show “Blissfully Blind”, which premiered in July at Bangkok CityCity Gallery. It won in all categories where it was nominated – best movement-based performance, best performance by an ensemble, best direction, and best art direction. 
Having already scooped up several awards in past years, B-Floor, now officially Thailand’s most-awarded theatre company, might need to buy a new cupboard to store them all. 
Director Dujdao Vadhanapakorn humbly accepted all the awards, bringing to the stage her collaborators, light-installation designer Mont Watanasiriroch and performer Amornsri Pattanasitdanggul. 

B-Floor’s Dujdao Vadhanapakorn and Zeight’s Mont Watanasiriroch accept the Best Art Direction award.PHOTO: NAPHATRAPEE SUNTORNTIRNAN

“For this work I got slightly out of my comfort zone,” Dujdao said. By that she meant, for example, working in an art gallery and with some artists for the first time. Apparently these were risks well taken and duly noticed.
Another major winner was FullFat Theatre’s “[Co/Exist]”, which won best play and best original script. Having been nominated for these awards many times in the past and always shut out, the honours were indeed long overdue for veteran playwright, director and actor Nophand Boonyai and his cast and crew.
While Fascinating Four won the best musical award for their first professional stage work, “21 3/4 seen at Thonglor Art Space, it was Maya: The Art and the Cultural Institute for Development that won the best book of a musical award for “Let’s Move the Mountains” at Mayarith Theatre. 
Accepting the latter, veteran theatre maker Santi Chitrachinda cheekingly noted that “a play is a play no matter who is the target audience”.
The year’s most prolific company, Splashing Theatre, was honoured with best adapted script for “Teenage Wasteland: Summer, Star and the (Lost) Chrysanthemum”, seen at Creative Industries. 
Thanaphon Accawatanyu and Thongchai Pimapunsri’s script for their company’s largest production to date was inspired by Stephen King’s “It” and “The Body”, Hajime Yatate’s “Mobile Suit Gundam”, Hideaki Anno’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and the writings of the late political activist Chit Phumisak. 
New York-based Thai actor Danainan Kridakorn won best performance by a male artist for his work in Life Theatre’s “LifeX3”. And another B-Floor Theatre member, Sasapin Siriwanij – a nominee in this category last year – won the female counterpart for her performance in ForWhat Theatre’s “Oh Ode”, which also took her out of her comfort zone.
Chulalongkorn University dance professor Sirithorn Srichalakom introduced her senior colleague and highly revered dancer-choreographer Naraphong “Khru Tam” Charassri, who the critics unanimously selected for a Lifetime Achievement Award. 
“A lot of the intercultural experiments we’re doing now in contemporary performing arts – for example, combining various traditions in contemporary practices – Khru Tam was one of the Thai pioneers,” Sirithorn pointed out.

Young members of the mime troupe Kon Na Khao paid tribute to their master, who died during the festival./PHOTO: NAPHATRAPEE SUNTORNTIRNAN

 As the transition into BTF Awards by IATC Thailand and to honour the late pioneer of pantomime in Thailand, Paitoon “Kon Na Khao” Laisakul, his last work was staged at BTF this year. This was followed by a heartfelt speech by Bangkok Theatre Network’s founder and president, Pradit Prasartthong.
New this year to BTF was the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting, one section of which was a showcase of performances from India, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand. The critics watched and considered these works for BTF Awards as well. 
This part started with IATC Thailand honorary president Kittisak “Khru Daeng” Suwannabhokin announcing two “Special Mention” awards for exemplary works that did not fit other categories. 
The critics honoured Tookkatoon Studio and Theatre’s “Nemirath: The Musical Puppet Show” and Mahachai-based Burmese Youth Theatre’s “Fish, No Feet”. 
“Tookkatoon is already a significant puppet troupe, but for this work they’ve ventured into a genre they’ve never been known for – musical theatre,” Khru Daeng said. The latter he called “a children’s-theatre work that stunned adults”, and noted that the performers were immigrants from a neighbouring country.

Taiwan’s MOVE Theatre’s “Kuang Qi” is an interdisciplinary and intercultural work./PHOTO: TEERAPHAN NGOWJEENANAN

The biggest winner was the music-theatre work “Kuang Qi” by Taiwan’s MOVE Theatre, presented at Chulalongkorn’s Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts. Makeup artist Wu Dong Sheng rushed to the Culture Centre as soon as he heard their work was nominated in five categories. 
“Kuang Qi” finally won four – best movement-based performance, best script, best art direction and best direction. The fourth time Wu ascended the stage, his acceptance speech was the shortest, he having run out of people to thank. “Welcome to Taiwan!” he said to loud applause and laughter. 
Critics commended the multiple artistic and cultural layers of “Kuang Qi”, which reinterpreted the Chinese classical dramas “The Peony Pavilion” and “The Butterfly Lovers” in a contemporary queer context and combined Kunqu opera drumming with Western music instruments. 
It’s also noteworthy that MOVE Theatre is normally a physical-theatre company, like Thailand’s B-Floor, and had never before taken such an artistic risk.

Oriza Hirata’s “Bangkok Notes”, a JapanThailand coproduction, won the best play award./PHOTO: TEERAPHAN NGOWJEENANAN

Japan Foundation Bangkok director Norihiko Yoshioka accepted the best play award for “Bangkok Notes”, a Thailand-Japan collaboration by Oriza Hirata, Bangkok Theatre Network, Japan Foundation Bangkok and the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre. 
The ensemble for the Thai adaptation of “Crimes of the Heart” also got a BTF award, as did pantomime artist Nuttapol Kummata for his performance in “No Name”, his collaboration with Nikorn Sae Tang, and Claire Stanley in Peel the Limelight’s “Spoonface Steinberg”. 
Noticeably, foreign works led the list of award recipients. While this proves that the BTF is becoming more international and receiving more attention from foreign artists, producers, presenters and programmers, it’s perhaps also a strong note on the quality of Thai works presented at the annual festival.
There is also the question of whether the festival itself remains the highlight of Bangkok’s theatre season, notwithstanding its praiseworthy fringe-festival spirit of allowing and supports artists to present any works they’d like to.

WHAT’S NEXT?
To read more about what critics think about contemporary Thai dance and theatre, visit www.Facebook.com/IATC.Thailand.
To check what’s currently onstage and the preparation of next year’s BTF, see www.BangkokTheatreFestival.org.