Theater director and critic Kamaluddin Nilu of the Dhaka-based Center for Asian Theater sums it up when he asserts that, “this is the best Ramayana version I have seen.” The same glowing reviews have lighted the showcase marquee of the collaborative post-modern production of the Iligan-based Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG) and the Sovanna Phum of Phnom Penn.

            IPAG resident company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology representing the Philippines joined over 50 other theater and dance artists in the Asia Meets Asia Theater Festival in Tokyo from October 16 to 23 where groups from the U.S., Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Amman, Tokyo, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong shared theater and their dramaturgies. The festival is an international exchange forum for international theater companies in Asia.

Basking in their post performance critical-acclaim, IPAG in ollaboration with Sovanna Phum performed Reviving Subalternity that deconstructs from the Rama-Sita-Ravana narrative of the Ramayana. The multi-media production interposes images of the conflicts of the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge and the Mindanao strife. “Subalternity” is a neologism from post-colonial politics that means the destruction of the minority.

The production was performed to two standing-room-only audiences at the Azabu Die Pratze Theater, an important center of Tokyo’s experimental theater. Immediately after the first performance, Japanese critics requested for a press conference where the next day, a 2-hour interview of the company ensued. Seen in the next day’s performance too were the same critics and several members of the same audience who also witnessed the opening performance.

Using the classical rorbam boran, leather puppets, circus theater, and traditional chants, the Cambodian artists merged their dramaturgy with that of the IPAG that used the Philippine pangalay, langka silat (both indigenous dance forms of the Sulu Archipelago), song, ethnic-adapted music, and contemporary dance.

The 8-day festival allowed theater artists a taste of each others styles and methodologies, and found common grounds in their histories, performance techniques, and collective psyche, among others. Besides the performances, the event allowed the artists time to learn about each others’ dramaturgy in workshops and forums.

The performances were varied. From among several Asian artists from Bangladesh, Amman, New Delhi, Vietnam, Tokyo, and Hongkong was the collaboration Unbearable Dreams, an exploration in movements and sounds on the thesis “Who Am I?” Bond Street Theater of New York with Exile Theater of Afghanistan presented a play documentary of Kabul stories set amidst the Afghan’s torrid history. Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek City Drama Theater mixed film and their musical theater in Omur, a play about a mother and child and their journey through life. Three of Tokyo’s innovative theaters performed a varied repertoire of dance, plotless collage of scenes, and a modern Japanese version of Hamlet.

Reviving Subalternity was produced through workshop sessions late last year and subsequently premiered at the Hua San Art District in Taipei City. Initiated by dramaturge Kingsy Lok, the play is co-directed by Dr. Steven P.C. Fernandez (who also designed the sets, co-composed the music, and wrote the scenario) and Mann Kosal with choreography and performance by Amado Guinto, Wenna Balaido, Leilani Monterola, and Melvin Pascubillo. Completing the Tokyo cast are Lok, Kosal, Chumvan Sodhachivy Sam Pysak and Racquel de Loyola of New World Disorder. Stanley Perry Fernandez manages the IPAG and handles the lights.

Plans are afoot to bring the play to the Edinburgh Fringe and other sights in Europe.