| Asian theater rising
By Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, DFA
Also published on page E1 of the May 16, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. AN INTEGRATED theater production built from traditional Asian art forms premiered in Taipei recently. Collaborating in producing this new work were the Philippines' Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG) and artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Cambodia. The project, which took a year to organize, was the brainchild of Asia Meets Asia (AMA), an artistic initiative based in Tokyo that facilitates the interaction of Asian artists and their works. AMA, having hosted four international collaborative projects since 1997, opens doors for artists to experience the practice of another. Working with AMA allowed us to explore creative possibilities beyond our paradigms. Its theater practice eliminates a script, a notated score, fixed choreography and repetitive rehearsals. The production-in-progress would have no fixed format and would have the artist's mind leading the body to create.  AMA dramaturge Kingsy Lok visited us in Mindanao in July. We agreed on these themes: fire and water, and the destruction of civilization. Common threads wove through our ideas: the emerging homogeneity of culture because of globalization, the marginalization of indigenous peoples and the destruction of indigenous cultures. Our creation was to be built around actual instances. We zeroed in on the Pol Pot genocide of Cambodia, Mindanao's refugee problems and the marginalization of our indigenous peoples, and the dissipation of Taiwan's aboriginal peoples. Mounting a method I formed a team with Melvin Pascubillo, Leilani Monterola and Wenna Balaido. The fifth member was Stanley Perry Fernandez, our marketing director, who accompanied us on his own expense to view the work for future exposures to larger audiences. In Taipei we were joined by the Sovanna Phum Association of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's biggest private theater group led by master puppeteer Mann Kosal, classical dancer Chumvan Sodhachivy and circus theater student Sam Pysak. I sensed that creating a new full-length work was going to be difficult in six days. We had no production itinerary, no schedule, no script and no play. We discussed among peers who spoke little or no English at all. Enigmatic The title of our production was enigmatic: "Reviving Subalternity." Subalternity is a neologism coined from post-colonial politics that means the destruction of the "minority. " This gave us an idea of the work at hand and the manner by which work would be conducted. Kosal who experienced first-hand the Pol Pot genocide suggested the idea of a killer who returns and confesses to his crime. We expanded the killer's image to the various depreciations of culture, to globalization, and to the homogenizing of theater and culture. We spent the next four days exploring various idioms of expressions. We introduced the pangalay, and the Cambodians introduced their rorbam boran, royal classical dancing. Alex Cheong, a Hong Kong artist, introduced to us the basics of kung fu in the Shaolin style. Not surprisingly, our dances shared the same techniques and principles of execution. I facilitated the drawing out of images and meanings through improvisations with exercises I innovated for this mix. We developed forms, and incorporated sounds and chants. We explored vignettes with beginnings and ends. We explored with sub-texts and conflict and kept the results for future reference. We improvised with the hoola hoop, a toy I found in one corner of the theater, which would later transform into a significant central metaphor in the production. The play took shape slowly. The plodding process made us anxious as the media and the artistic community were keenly awaiting the results. Our work was a recipe-in-process, but in reverse. While we already had the prepared ingredients (our inherent crafts), we still had to decide what to cook. At this point, I had drawn a shape in my mind. But while I did not wish to counter the essence of improvisation, I had to encode a written guide. Being a playwright, I do not only value text as a play's primary source but I also require some written code to guide me through my creation. The scenario helped me build block by block the emerging creation. I added or subtracted portions, or cut and pasted segments to establish some logic in the composition. Improvisation The dancers improvised vignettes that were framed by time limits rather than by measures or beats. We paced the movements well to highlight climactic portions. We mixed silences and noises. We choreographed certain portions but were careful not to execute uniform movements to keep the improvisatory quality in the process. We kept away from the linear narrative. The Ramayana back grounded the composition. The Rama story involves a lot of violence-in war, in deceit, in power plays, and even in its romance and was visualized by the puppets, chanted in the Khmer classical manner and merged with classical dance. To underscore the visual-aural complements, I merged contrasting colors creating a harsh mix of amber and lavender. A single key light projected from behind the white screen brought out the designs of the life-size leather puppets and produced the eerie feel. We reversed the process to musically score the composition: rather than have the dances created from composed music, music was created during the performance-in-progress prodded by the "feel" of the executed movements. We integrated traditional Asian instruments with the synthesized sounds of shrieks, screeches, and whatever electronic noise our equipment (an air synthesizer and a mini keyboard) would produce. Performance venue was the Hua Shan Art District, an open space with the ruins of a wine factory destroyed by Japanese war bombs. The audience sat on stone sculptures or stood on a sprawling lawn around the bean-shaped performance area. Opening with a Khmer chant, the prologue highlights Sam who enters tall on stilts. He is wrapped by a loop that holds two skulls. While Chumvan dances around Sam, the balloon slowly inflates. Clever use of the malong and gestures of the pangalay and langka silat (Philippine martial arts) evoke images of anguish, hopelessness and imprisonment. Sovanna Phum suggests war using the personages of Lakshmi who clash with Ravana, two flat puppets held high that flap at each other. Using the hoola hoops, the performers "hook" a few members of the audience who improvise with the artists. They then become parts of the sets. With the balloons inflated, Melvin ropes in all persons with a long red cloth. The rope becomes a large cloth and forms into a large bubble as it spreads over the space. Then firecrackers explode, and the space bursts into pandemonium. Silence. The space is flooded in red and broken by the creases of the cloth and the immobile bodies. The one-note tone of a bamboo flute cuts the silence. Sam in stilts crosses the stage, but he is now handicapped supported by a high crutch. The dummy hangs by a rope around its neck. New aesthetics  There have been few attempts to explore new forms, new meanings and new manners. Bland is the manner of traditional forms plucked out of their original states and simply transferred to new space and time. But when traditional forms are used in another context, as in the Hua Shan performance, their original functions are transformed. They no longer signify their original meanings but transform into new idioms. The Khmer rorbam boran no longer suits the tastes of Cambodian royalty but narrates the new segments of the Ramayana. The pangalay is no longer the Tausug dance performed for Jolo's social gatherings but becomes a medium for new expressions. We borrow, recreate and build from traditions to explore how best we may reinvent these to sketch out new meanings in our "new" performances. "Reviving Subalternity" repeats in Tokyo in October. It will be different because the impulses that drove our artists to recreate sense in the Hua Shan performance cannot be duplicated. The expressions shall be shaped by an entirely different set of motivations in different conditions. Even with the facility for the artists to produce the pangalay, Cambodian Puppet Theater, the rorban boram and Shaolin kung fu, these expressions are insipid without the prodding of the mind and the passion of the heart. | 
