The crowds may have been small, but the Bangkok Fringe Festival 2008 started off its first week [the press preview on Thursday, January 16 and regular performances on Friday to Suday] with style, with Patravadi Theatre's Theatre-in-the-Garden offering two triple-bill performances of grooves and movements that drew enthusiastic applause.

From acrobatics to various forms of dance to physical theatre, this "Home for the Performing Artists" is certainly versatile. Also, the annual showcase, despite last year's gap, proves Thailand's capability in bring together local and international artists and allowing them to express themselves and share their stories with us.

Patravadi fans flocked to the opening show, which was staged on both Thursday and Friday, eager for another chance to catch "Osmosis", a stunning showcase of acrobatics by young Thai talent Rajanikara Kaewdee in collaboration with Canadian musician and director Jerry Snell.

Sitting on his knees under the spotlight against the dark stage, Rajanikara reached down to pick up two Thai swords then gradually unsheathed them. Then, to the accompaniment of music by industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, he drew the audience into his arm movements, which progressed to the whole body with increasing intensity. As he twirled the swords around his legs and neck, it seemed as though he would surely cut himself but no, he remained confident and assured. Then he moved to a long piece of red cloth hanging from the ceiling, climbed up, and intertwined himself in different ways before letting himself fall to the ground, saved only by the tie at his ankle or another body part.

All through the 20 minutes of this aesthetically fulfilling show, the audience could see traces of traditional Thai dance movements. Rajanikara is a consummate performer, as those who have seen him as Studio 9 already known, and his artistic acrobatics are far from mere circus thrill as he guides the audience's emotions from serenity to rage and reminds us of our willingness to take risks.

Anita Ratnam from India was next to take the stage with "7 Graces", a contemporary dance described as a "solo operatic offering into aesthetic realms of Goddess Tara". Unfortunately, the fact that it followed Rajanikara's high-energy piece killed it for most of the audience. Ratnam started by walking backwards around the stage, dragging an invisible rope. The only thing she did after that, at least for this reviewer, was to drag the performance on for another 30 minutes. The show was lacklustre, there was little to offer from a choreographic standpoint and it felt endless.

The last part in the first triple-bill performance was the contemporary dance "Past is Simulation - the Ladies of the Sea vs Nora, and Other Stories of Society" by Norwegian company herStay, which was inspired by Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea" and "A Dolls House". Although the innovative interaction between a dancer and a radio-controlled plane caught the audience's attention at the beginning, the performance went downhill the moment the toy aircraft landed. Overall, it was visually pleasant, but emotionally very monotonous.

Dance was again on the Fringe menu on Saturday and Sunday evenings, and while none of the dancers from Kuala Lumpur's National Arts Culture and Heritage Academy possessed perfect dancers' bodies or exceptional techniques, "Freedom @ Boredom", which explored the mutual relationship between deliverance and ennui, produced great energy.

"When They Cut off the Light", another short solo from the same troupe reflected how humans struggle in the hectic, industrialised world, using jerking actions along with projections juxtaposing images of congested roads with countless chicks on a conveyor belt.

In contrast, the American and Indonesian multimedia collaboration "The Sound of Ashes" took audience members to a state of stillness and meditation. Alex Dea led us through Javanese rituals and abstract video patterns of the sea and traditional court dance, suggesting two sides to everything.

The first weekend closed with another intercultural collaboration - the US and Germany's "Preservation (A Bird Mutation)" by kInDeRdeUtScH pRoJeKtS.

Although this physical theatre piece was somehow very "verbal", there were some clever movements and they contributed to brief laughter. The piece was interestingly performed within a small white space on stage and featured white props and three actors all dressed in white, with the spoken languages shifting back and forth from English to German (with English surtitles). The play explored sexual desire and painful memories caused by wars through the "long-lost, now-found" woman who was "left-for-dead" by her sister.

written by Jasmine Baker

published in The Nation on Thursday, January 24, 2008

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Presented as part of the ongoing Bangkok Fringe Festival 2008 at Patravadi Theatre's Studio 1 on the afternoons of Saturday and Sunday, January 19 and 20, Spanish puppet theatre troupe Yheppa's "@s" offered two thematically relevant short plays about children and showed how worthwhile life lessons can provide excellent entertainment for both the young and the young at heart.

"Lilith", adapted from the contemporary Spanish children's story "Rosa Caramelo" by Adela Turin, revealed the disparities between the two sexes. The grey-skinned Cucuye boys are having fun as they run freely in the forest, playfully picking fruit from the trees. Their feminine counterparts in pink aprons, though, are confined to a fenced garden, and have to eat flowers so their skin will turn pink. Lilith's parents are worried because their daughter's skin is not pink, and if this persists, no one will want to marry her.

Lilith wants to escape, and after a dream and the help of a snake, she finally does. The other girls follow and now they too are enjoying the freedom to play in the forest. Finally, there are no more Cucuye girls and boys - they're all Cucuye kids.

In the second play "Aron", adapted from Tomie de Paola's "Oliver Button es una nena", the young title character wants to be a ballet dancer. The idea is well supported by his mother but not by his father who would prefer to see him on the football pitch.

His friends bully him while his teacher comforts him and later enrols him in a talent contest. Even though Aron doesn't bag the top prize, his father and friends now understand his artistic potential and accept him as he really is.

Obviously, sexual identities and stereotypes are being questioned here. Most kids want to fit in but often their natures and desires are in conflict with societal and parental expectations. Childhood should be the time for boys and girls to learn and explore anything they want, before choosing what they want to do when they grow up. Parents, many of whom do not really understand their kids, dominate and overrule when it's time for their young ones to make important decisions.

The puppet masters' simple yet significant message is clearly universal. Watching these two plays, I was reminded of my teenage years when I had to decide whether to concentrate on the sciences or languages at high school. It's felt that most boys prefer the former to the latter and indeed, many parents also believe that the sciences are for the smarter ones. Had my parents not been so understanding, I might not be writing this article.

At the post-show interview with The Nation, Diana Yolanda Marcos and Carlos Diez, the troupe's two main collaborators, further elaborated. "In Spanish, masculine words end with the plural morphemes '-os', and feminine ones with '-as', and yet the former takes control when it comes to collective words, like 'ninos'. Nowadays, newly coined neutral words like 'ninos/as' are widely accepted, hence we called these plays '@s'.

"We view this issue as one of the major cultural problems in Spanish society today, and we want to further illustrate it with our stage work. We hope to promote sexual equality and hope that our audiences will help rid of this problem."

Apart from numerous performances at home, the puppeteers have presented their shows in Mexico, Venezuela, Turkey and Japan, where audiences listened to the Japanese translation of the text on headphones. "We've found that these countries share the same problem. In Japan, for example, the audience felt as if the show had been created especially for them. We know, though, that gender is not such a major issue in Northern Europe so we've never performed this play there."

Yheppa puts the children first, and, in their other works throughout the past 18 years, has used various forms of puppet theatre in presenting a wide variety of issues that range from migration to water contamination. "We want them to create a better world for the future."

In the 45-minute "@s", Marcos and Diez worked efficiently individually as well as collectively in their skilful performance. The near-full-house Bangkok audience witnessed their puppetry magic as they brought all the characters to life with their able hands and voices.

A minor letdown was the fact that the 50-minute "@s" was performed entirely in Spanish, with no English surtitles. Although every audience member received a Thai and English synopsis at the entrance, many details were lost in the wordy dramatic tales. Many young Thais could be heard asking questions of their parents during the performance. With the Thai and English surtitles, perhaps, the memorable production could have been staged for a wider group of spectators here, and hence been able to communicate a more meaningful message.

The Bangkok Fringe Festival 2008 continues every weekend until February 17 at the Patravadi Theatre. Details at www.Patravaditheatre.com. The Spanish Puppetry troupe's website is www.Yheppa.com (in Spanish only).

Special thanks to Darintip Chansit, who is studying Spanish languge at Chulalongkorn Univerisity's Faculty of Arts,  for her help in translating the interview from Spanish into Thai.

written by Pawit Mahasarinand

published in The Nation on Monday, January 28, 2008

Yheppa photos by Anant Chantarasoot