DasArts / Master of Theatre

The semester started on 1 March 2004 and ended on 31 August 2004 and the thematic block started on 16 February and ended on 25 April 2004

Locations

In and around the building of DasArts, Mauritskade 56 in Amsterdam and in the Center for Asylum Seekers Amstelveen

Mentor

Ong Keng Sen (SG)

Activities

• ‘Reconciliation of the Past: Collaboration with Asylum Seekers’
• visit and stay at the Centre for Asylum Seekers in Amstelveen, participation in and contribution to the programme of the asylum seekers, such as: creative therapy, child development and psychology, coaching and training, welfare and legal advice
• ‘Ancient Technologies: Noh Theater, Kutiyattum, Classical Thai Painting’
• training/workshop Noh Theater, training/workshop Sanskrit theatre Kutiyattum, workshop classical Thai Painting
• ‘New Media: Tsunamii.net’
• workshop new media and computer games
• ‘Fantasy as Transcendence: Exotica!’
• workshop Japanese bondage, dominatrix, sado-masochism
• ‘Movement and Cultural Theory’
• workshop dance and choreography, discussions museumculture and representation strategies
• ‘Self, City and Daily Narrative’
• installations and performances on location, video-viewings, lectures and video self-portraits

Presentations

• 5 Open Labs by guest teachers
• 4 Open Labs by participants with individual and group presentations, installations, performances, video-presentations, texts, sketches, speeches

Visits to

• conference: ‘Almost Real – on rural intervention’, Centraal Museum, Utrecht
• film: ‘The Adventures of Iron Pussy’, Rialto, Amsterdam
• DasArts Exotica! Fetish Diva Midori, supperclub lounge, Amsterdam
• performance: Lady Aoi, Kanze Ryu Noh-no-Kai, Schouwburg Amstelveen
• 27th Annual Plenary meeting IETM in Budapest, Hungary: ‘Traditional Culture, Contemporary Arts and Cultural Identity’, participation in workshops and discussions, network activities and visits to local performances

Participants

Michiel Alberts (NL), Oumar Mbengue Atakosso (SN), Alexandra Bachzetsis (GR/CH), Hassan Choubassi (LB), Jeanette Groenendaal (NL), Birgitta Hacham (S), Rima Kaddissi (LB), Zbigniew Maciak (PL), Marta Pisco (P), Anat Stainberg (IL), Margreet Sweerts (NL), Ji-Hyun Youn (KR), Peter S. Petralia (USA)

Guest teachers

Richard Emmert (J/USA), Wu Wen Guang (CN), Sakarin Krue-On (TH), Vivian Lee (SG) assistant, Charles Lim Yi Yong (SG), Andy Logam-Tan (SG), Margi Madhu (IN), Akira Matsui (J), Fetish Diva Midori (USA/J), Matthew Ngui (SG/AUS), Marian Pastor Roces (PH), Margi Ramanunni (IN), Aida Redza (MY)

Content of Block 20

This block focused on the continuum between contemporary practice and ancient Asian arts, ranging from Sanskrit theatre (Kutiyattum) of 1000 years ago to Thai classical painting to the Japanese Noh theatre of Zeami. How can contemporary practice draw from the conceptual frameworks of these ancient arts, for instance? In particular, Block 20 extended beyond aesthetics to question where borders lie today. How can we initiate creative interventions, which would transcend these borders? What are creative individuals suggesting as strategies for transcendence in the foreseeable future?

The block juxtaposed encounters with young asylum seekers who are suspended in a threshold zone between memory and a sustainable future in a new country, ethnic conflicts and religious movements, which have banned art forms, based on charges of animistic shaman beliefs. The urban Asian societies of today, with their increasing embrace of consumerism and functionality, have relegated traditional arts into rarefied, endangered spaces. How do these ancient practices fight back and continue to engage the life of the future? Some of them have harnessed the border itself to create further borders of 'high' esteem, such as the classical, hermetic value of the Noh theatre of Japan. Block 20 further proposed the precision of these traditional forms (which are based on codified instruction) to be ancient technologies, programmed by books such as the Sanskrit Natyshastra, the bible of performance in India.

Concurrent with the strategy of ancient technologies, which advocates one way of transcending borders, the practice of tsunamii.net, a new media art group, also interrogates technology. Working with the students of Block 20, tsunamii.net pointed to the continuing limitations in the technological wave of the future. In the middle of Block 20, students were introduced to EXOTICA! They were encouraged to transgress borders through entering the performative dimension of everyday fantasy, bondage, adventurous sex of bdsm (bondage, dominatrix, sado-masochism). In sessions with Fetish Diva Midori and Bangkok queer artist Michael Shaowanasai. Juxtaposed with these ancient technologies and EXOTICA! was the interrogation of museum culture in order to reveal the politics of representation. Alternative strategies to the museum for a new age will be examined with the students. Informed by inclusion. Inclusion is the antithesis of borders. In the final phase of Block 20, students brought everyday life, daily narratives, into the space of art. Challenging the borders of art itself, students documented narratives on the margins. Through a series of fractures, disjunctures and a subsequent wondrous reconstruction, the ultimate transcendence came through the seduction of a specific viewpoint that disrupted and realigned.

Week 1: 16-20 February

Reconciliation of the Past: Collaboration with Asylum Seekers
During the first week, mentor Ong Keng Sen and the DasArts Block 20 participants visited and stayed at the Centre for Asylum Seekers in Amstelveen. They contributed to the daily programme of the asylum seekers, including creative therapy, child development and psychology, coaching and training, welfare and the practical organization around asylum seekers and refugees. More importantly each day, the participants of DasArts (coming from diverse backgrounds around the world) shared with the young people workshops in fixed sessions; a space of play which negotiated the youth's fairly fractured recent past and insecure present as they wait for the bureaucratic red tape to clear.

The students and Ong Keng Sen spent the first week living at Amstelveen Centre for Asylum Seekers. These are a group of individuals who are refugees and seeking citizenship in The Netherlands. The mentor did not know at the time that he proposed it that it would be a very fashionable subject. Right now in The Netherlands, the entire country is in a furore about the fact that the Minister of Justice wants to repatriate 26000 such asylum seekers. These centres, like the one that we were cooperating with, were built as temporary measures to house asylum seekers for a period of 6 months or so, but some individuals and families have been waiting for 6 years for their papers. There is a primary school (up to 12 years old) in the compounds, a computer room, a medical centre, a legal centre and an administrative centre. The latter acts as a gate keeper to ensure that normal Dutch citizens are 'protected' from these refugees but they also assist refugees on housing issues and other situations which concerns the outside world such as temporary licences/permits which allow teenagers to go to ordinary schools etc.

The refugees have an allowance of 35 euros a week and they live in apartments where eight people or so share one apartment. Amstelveen Centre has about 300 refugees who are caught in a liminal zone between past memory and future potential, waiting for Godot to come. Most of the residents are simply waiting, becoming debilitated in the process. During their time there, the participants facilitated various workshops in contemporary dance, visual arts, tango, media, mask, script writing, belly dancing for the residents particularly the youths. (The belly dancing was an exception in that it was for middle aged to elderly women who came after cooking and washing for their families - theirs was a closed-door workshop where no men entered). Daily, they had different perspectives from sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, artists who were formerly refugees etc. Broadly the day was divided into three parts with the participants following the daily schedule of the Centre, hanging out at the computer centre to talk to the residents, visiting the primary school, the Dutch classes, sitting in the legal, administrative sessions, where a host of problems would be discussed ranging from housing to the status of the refugees perhaps the most humiliating session was the 'stamping' sessions where each resident gets a new stamp to enable them to be 'legal' and to stay in the Netherlands for another week.

The participants and Ong Keng Sen began their week there with a big party for the community and ended with a lunch-tea party for the staff of the centre as well as the residents. As a closure, they celebrated the work the residents had made with the students in the week long workshops. The participants had a host of different interphases with the residents ranging from intimate encounters (mostly with the chefs who opened their kitchens for us) to formal encounters. For instance, there were no showers in the quarters and the participants had to borrow showers from the residents themselves. Some of the participants made friends with the one artist in the community who had just been admitted into art school in Amsterdam. Throughout their time there, the participants questioned why they were in Amstelveen and what their position was. The initial idea to create a newsletter with and for the residents quickly dissolved into more personal letters which was shared with one or ten residents; some gave out that thoughts as a mass flyer; others chose to keep their writings private; one participant created a video letter by the residents to the authorities; another even chose to release her writing into the wind becoming litter which floated around the desolate landscape. At the end, these sheddings were collected, their detritus into a large box to be unpacked in the future. Looking at the process in this way, most of the participants became less concerned about creating well-made pieces of art.

Week 2: 23-29 February

Ancient Technologies: Noh Theater
The second week - sheddings on the frontline. In the second week, the participants went from facilitating their workshops in a chaotic, turbulent environment to the austere discipline of Noh classes led by Akira Matsui (J) and Richard Emmert (J/USA). In a fairly rigorous programme of 6 hours of Noh a day, the students were exposed to dance, chant, music and context. Usually each day was closed with Ong Keng Sen drawing some red lines with the participants. The aim was not to produce Noh pupils but for the participants to make work from the philosophies and conceptual bases of Noh. Further the juxtaposition with Amstelveen was inevitable. The participants looked at the borders which are built around Noh to make it culturally precious and which hence ensures its survival. Some of the participants also compared the gatekeeper of the asylum to the gatekeepers of Noh who ensure the 'authenticity' of Noh. These gatekeepers of Noh validate certain practices and reject others as experiments, which contaminate Noh. As the week drew to a close, the Noh sessions opened up to look at how the generative grammar of Noh can be harnessed for new work. This new work is both a transgression of the borders as well as an open space. I held individual clinics with each of the participants to discuss how they would generate a response to Noh, framing it for the public.
27 February: The second week ended with an Open Lab 109 presentation on by Akira and Richard, which was very well attended, followed by a presentation, which was the participants’ response to the Noh workshops. The aim of this continuous stream of public presentations by the participants was to keep them flexing the creative muscle, whether the work is complete or incomplete. Artists are often on the frontline and should not be afraid of this interphase with the public. After all, these sheddings are but drafts, studies, sketches to be remade in the future.

Week 3: 1-5 March

Ancient Technologies: Noh Theater
The colour of the third week was a more of collaborative process with the Noh teachers. Surprisingly many of the students were continuing the questions, which were encountered in Amstelveen. It resulted in 13 creative responses to Noh by the DasArts participants during the Open Lab 110 presentation on 3 March 2004.

Week 4 & week 5: 8-21 March

Ancient Technologies: Kutiyattum, Classical Thai Painting and New Media
Week 4 and week 5 concentrated around the workshops in Sanskrit theatre (Kutiyattum) of 1000 years ago, in classical Thai painting and New Media.

The guest teachers were:
• Margi Madhu (IN), Margi Ramanunni (IN) for Kutiyattum
In terms of international theatrical history, Kutiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre if Kerala, can perhaps well claim the greatest antiquity. Kutiyattam is a form of theatre that originated in an ancient past, dating back to about two millennia. One of the most remarkable traditions of world theatre, it draws on the plays of the eminent Sanskrit dramatists of India. In recent times, Kutiyattam has gained the attention of theatre people and scholars from all over the world. Recently, Kutiyattam has been declared as among the ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ by UNESCO. It is for the first time in the history of UNESCO that select art forms across the world have been given this recognition as part its effort to safeguard expressions of oral heritage and traditional culture which are in danger of disappearing due to the effects of globalisation. While the performing tradition of Sanskrit plays have ceased to exist elsewhere in India, the continuation of an unbroken tradition of theatre surviving in Kerala, the southernmost tip of India is historically interesting. Kutiyattam is performed by a community of male actors called Chakyars and female performers called Nangiars, assisted by drummers called Nambiars, in theatre houses called Kuttampalams. Kutiyattam is an inclusive term that refers to more than one art form. Apart from Kutiyattam, the mode of theatre in which the Chakyars and the Nangiars take part together, it also integrates Nangiarkoothu, the theatre exclusively performed by the Nangiars, and Prabandha koothu (or merely Chakyar koothu, as it is otherwise known), the verbal narrative drama of the Chakyars. The prefix ‘kuti’ in Malayalam language primarily means ‘combined’ or ‘together’, and ‘attam’ means ‘acting’: therefore, the word ‘kutiyattam’ means ‘combined acting’. Simply put, it is a theatre in which several characters come together on the stage.

• Sakarin Krue-On (TH) for Classical Thai painting
Sakarin Krue-On is the director of the Thai traditional art department at Silapakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. He is an expert craftsman in Thai traditional technique of painting, sculpting and decorative art. He has represented Thailand in the Venice Biennale in 2003 under the direction of Dr. Apinan Poshyananda.
Sakarin has taken the traditional Thai art form into the contemporary art scene by incorporating it into computer and graphic design. In his recent work, Sakarin creates video installation based on Thai mythology. Sakarin lives and works in Rajaburi province, Thailand.

• Tsunamii.net (SG) for new media and computer games
Tsunamii.net currently consists of 2 artist: Tien Wei Woon and Charles Lim
Formed in 2001 in Singapore tsunamii.net by artists, Tien Wei Woon (*1975 Singapore) and Charles Lim Yi Yong (*1973 Singapore) and Scientist, Melvin Phua (*1975). Since then the theme of the internet and geography has been prominent in their series of work, alpha 3 series. Their Exhibitions (selected) include: Documenta 11, Kassel Germany (2002), MediaCity, Seoul, Korea (2002), Nokia Singapore Ar, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2001), tsunamii.net is currently working on alpha 3.8 translocation a net commission awarded by the Walker Art Centre (2003).

Week 6: 22 March - 26 March

Fantasy as Transcendence: Exotica
In the middle of Block 20, the participants were introduced to EXOTICA! They were encouraged to transgress borders through entering the performative dimension of everyday fantasy, bondage, adventurous sex of bdsm (bondage, dominatrix, sado-masochism). In sessions with Fetish Diva Midori (J/USA) and Bangkok queer artist Michael Shaowanasai (USA). Michael Shaowanasai is an American multi-disciplinary artist. He works with photography, video, installation and film. He is the co-founder of project 304, a non-profit art organization in Bangkok, Thailand. After 3 years in Thailand, he represented his homeland in the Gwang Ju Biennale in 2002, EVA 02 in Ireland, and the Venice Biennale 2003. He is the creator of ‘The Adventures of Iron Pussy’ video series, which debut as a feature film in the Tokyo Film Festival 2003. The film was also invited to the Berlin Film Festival 2004. He lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand, as a director and actor. Guest teacher Fetish Diva Midori (J/USA) is author of the book ‘The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage’, Midori is a performer, an educator and writer on SM, fetish and human sexuality. Raised in a feminist intellectual Tokyo household, she holds a degree in psychology from the U.C. Berkeley. She has written for many publications and books including, ‘Readings in Contemporary Sexuality’, ‘The Beauty of Fetish’ and many regular magazine columns. Her work has appeared on HBO BBC, Mademoiselle, Playboy, Der Spiegel, Wired, British Esquire, Vogue, Surface and many more.Among many recognitions, she is also the Pantheon of Leather Woman of the Year 2003 and Member of Mama’s Family. On 25 March: DasArts Exotica! took place: Fetish Diva Midori gave a performance on location, in a joint venture with the supperclub lounge in Amsterdam.

Week 7: 29 March -2 April

Movement and Cultural Theory
Juxtaposed with these ancient technologies and EXOTICA!, the central theme in this period was the interrogation of museum culture in order to reveal the politics of representation. Alternative strategies to the museum for a new age were examined with the students and guest teacher Marian Pastor Roces (PH) In the mornings, movement and choreography trainings were given by Aida Redza (MY). Aida Redza is a Malaysian choreographer and dancer whose works are known for their energetic, physical and eclectic fusion style of contemporary dance with commitment to tradition and reinvention. Her works and body vocabulary today have been shaped by her early training in sports and martial arts. She is inspired mainly by the disciplines of Malay Silat, aesthetics of QiGong and the Yang style Tai-chi. As a performer she is influenced by the intrinsic presence of ‘angin’ in the Malay psyche and the parallel study of ‘chi’ in the area of meditative Qi Gong. Her current choreographic compositions today demonstrate the interaction and juxtaposition of the Oriental concept of movement in stillness and the power of the will. This enables her to embody internal energy and the perpetual dissolving, reforming force of her movement explorations. She explores the presence of a performer that transcends the physical body, enabling the ‘chi’ or ‘angin’ to dictate the method of organizing inner attitude/energy through the technique of chance discovery, push-hands play, concentrated motor drills on body isolations, dislocation and distillation as the core of her creative expression.

Marian Pastor Roces (PH) is a critic and independent curator living in the Philippines. Published internationally, her writing is focused by her interest in clothes, cities, museums, the construction of minorities, and contemporary art that exercises scepticism about art and culture. She is currently working on 19th century universal expositions in relation to 20th century international art events. Pastor Roces is also principle partner of TAO Management Corporation, which provides curatorial, cultural planning, design, and architectural services for museum, exhibition, and urban design projects. TAO approaches its projects as engagements in the politics of memory, and in re-shaping notions of community. On 29 March, The Block 20 participants gave a creative response to the workshops with Michael Shaowanasai and Fetish Diva Midori. Outside, in the garden, guest teacher Aida Redza gave a solo performance.

Week 8 & 9: 5-19 April

Self, City and Daily Narrative
In this final phase of Block 20, the participants brought everyday life, daily narratives, into the space of art. Challenging the borders of art itself, the participants documented narratives on the margins. They worked with documentary filmmaker Wu Wen Guang (CN) and visual artist Matthew Ngui (SG/AUS) by throwing darts on the map of Amsterdam; the specific sites/working spaces for each individual participant were decided by 'fate'. Matthew Ngui (SG/AUS) has been a practising visual artist since 1988 after graduating from the National University of Singapore with an LLB (Hons). He started a fulltime art practice by working closely with sculptor Ng Eng Teng for more than a year where he observed Ng's thinking behind his sculptures, drawings, ceramic works and paintings as well as the techniques involved in producing them. Ngui then went on to obtain a BA (Fine Art) and Postgraduate Diploma (Visual Arts) in Australia. In 1992, Ngui started teaching at the Canberra School of Art (Australian National University) where he taught with David Watt for two semesters. He also taught at Curtin and Edith Cowan Universities. While in Perth, he started running the In The Dark contemporary performance programme for the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art and working with its Artistic Director, Noel Sheridan and later, Sarah Miller. At this time, Ngui’s ideas cantered on formalising space and making connections with landscape and culture. This provided a base from which he began to work site-specifically and processing information in-situ, while bringing to the space more personal or individual concepts or processes of working. In 1996, Ngui was selected to represent Singapore at the young nation's first participation in the 23rd Biennale of Sao Paulo in Brazil. In 1997, Ngui was invited to design, install and perform a major work at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany. In 2002, he installed two other self-reflective pipe structures in Spain (EACC) and the Gwangju Biennale.Ngui’s use of anamorphosis have been further explored in exhibitions in Denmark (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art), Singapore (Singapore Art Museum), (Art Gallery of Western Australia) and at the 2001 Venice Biennale where he attempted to create a moving anamorphic image through the use of live cameras and video. He is currently working on projects in Singapore, Switzerland and Australia.

Wu Wen Guang (CN) graduated from the Department of Literature at Yunnan University in 1982. Wu joined the Kunming Television and China Center TV in 1985, to work as a news journalist for four years. In 1989 he left the TV station to become an independent documentary filmmaker and freelance writer. In 1991 Wu founded the Documentary Film/Video Studio in Beijing. In 1997 he received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) and researched film in New York, for the period of four months. In January 1998, as a visiting filmmaker, he set up the workshop for documentary film in California Institute of Art. As a playwright, actor and producer, Wu has been collaborating with experimental theatre/dance performers in China since 1994. Wu founded the independent art magazine Next Wave in July 2001. Invited as a visiting filmmaker, Wu set up the film/video course in the Media & Journalist Studio of Beijing Normal University in 2001. Wu Wen Guang was a member of the jury of the Singapore International Film Festival in 2001, and a member of the jury of International Forum of New Cinema in Berlin Film Festival and Cinema, Visions du Reel in Nyon, Switserland in 2002. On 8 April, during Open Lab 115 Wu Wen Guang and Matthew Ngui gave a presentation about their work. On 19 April, during Open Lab 116, the final presentation of the block took place. As a conclusion of the 10 weeks and as a creative response to the guest teachers Wu Wen Guang and Matthew Ngui, a series of thirteen installations/exhibitions and performances were presented. In a Filmhouse session in Studio East, the participants presented 13 video self-portraits.

Week 10: 20-25 April

Visit IETM: Traditional Culture, Contemporary Arts and Cultural Identity
During the last week of the block the participants, Ong Keng Sen and the DasArts staff participated in workshops discussions and network activities at the 27th Annual Plenary Meeting of the IETM (Informal European Theatre Meeting) in Budapest, Hungary. Besides, visits to several local performances took place.

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