Performing Southeast Asia: Performance, Politics and the Contemporary (Contemporary Performance InterActions) 3030346854, 9783030346850

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CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE INTERACTIONS SERIES EDITORS: ELAINE ASTON · BRIAN SINGLETON

Performing Southeast Asia Performance, Politics and the Contemporary Edited by Marcus Cheng Chye Tan Charlene Rajendran

Contemporary Performance InterActions Series Editors Elaine Aston Lancaster University Lancaster, Lancashire, UK Brian Singleton Samuel Beckett Centre Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Theatre’s performative InterActions with the politics of sex, race and class, with questions of social and political justice, form the focus of the Contemporary Performance InterActions series. Performative InterActions are those that aspire to affect, contest or transform. International in scope, CPI publishes monographs and edited collections dedicated to the InterActions of contemporary practitioners, performances and theatres located in any world context. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14918

Marcus Cheng Chye Tan Charlene Rajendran Editors

Performing Southeast Asia Performance, Politics and the Contemporary

Editors Marcus Cheng Chye Tan National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Charlene Rajendran National Institute of Education Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore

Contemporary Performance InterActions ISBN 978-3-030-34685-0    ISBN 978-3-030-34686-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © The Incredible Adventures of Border Crossers (Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015). Conceived and Directed by Ong Keng Sen. Courtesy of TheatreWorks (S) Ltd This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) in particular Sarah Martin and Rydwan Anwar, as well as Ong Keng Sen and Mervyn Quek from TheatreWorks (Singapore) for permissions with image reproduction used in the front cover. We would also like to thank Cambodian Living Arts, Phloeun Prim, Him Sophy, Rithy Panh, Trent Walker and Ming Poon for their time and commitment to the interviews. Our appreciation goes to the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network and Ong Ken Sen for so kindly allowing us to reproduce the interview in this book. We also thank Sean Tobin, Hiromi Maruoka and Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama (TPAM) for their assistance and support. Our deepest gratitude goes to Elaine Aston and Brian Singleton, series editors of Contemporary Performance InterActions, for their support of this project and their invaluable feedback. Our sincere thanks also go to Palgrave Macmillan for their commitment to, and assistance with, this book publication. Many thanks go to the collaborators of this volume whose contributions have been significant in helping to advance an underrepresented area of theatre and performance research. We also thank all artists whose performances inspire the writing and their kind permission to reproduce images of their work.

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Praise for Performing Southeast Asia: Performance, Politics and the Contemporary “Performing Southeast Asia: Performance, Politics and the Contemporary is an important reconsideration of the histories and practices of theatre and performance in a fluid and dynamic region that is also experiencing an overarching politics of complexity, precarity and populist authoritarian tendencies. In a substantial introductory essay and essays by leading scholars, activists and practitioners working inside the region, the book explores fundamental questions for the arts. The book asks how theatre contributes to and/or addresses the political condition in the contemporary moment, how does it represent the complexity of experiences in peoples’ daily lives and how does theatre engage in forms of political activism and enable a diversity of voices to flourish. The book shows how, in an age of increasingly violent politics, political institutions become sites for bad actors and propaganda. Forces of biopolitics, neo-liberalism and religious and ethnic nationalism intersect in unpredictable ways with decolonial practices—all of which the book argues are forces that define the contemporary moment. Indeed, by putting the focus on contemporary politics in the region alongside the diversity of practices in contemporary theatre, we see a substantial reformation of the idea of the contemporary moment, not as a cosmopolitan and elite artistic practice but as a multivalent agent of change in both aesthetic and political terms. With its focus on community activism and the creative possibilities of the performing arts the region, Performing Southeast Asia, is a timely intervention that brings us to a new understanding of how contemporary Southeast Asia has become a site of contest, struggle and reinvention of the relations between the arts and society.” —Peter Eckersall, The Graduate Center, City University of New York “Performing Southeast Asia—with chapters concerned with how regional theatres seek contextually-grounded, yet post-national(istic) forms; how history and tradition shape but do not hold down contemporary theatre; and how, in the editors’ words, such artistic encounters could result in theatres ‘that do not merely attend to matters of cultural heritage, tradition or history, but instead engage overtly with theatre and performance in the contemporary’—contributes to the possibility of understanding what options for an artistically transubstantiated now-ness may be: to the possibility, that is, of what might be called a ‘Present-Tense Theatre’.” —C. J. W.-L. Wee, Professor of English, Nanyang Technological University

Contents

1 Politics, Performance, the Contemporary and Southeast Asia  1 Marcus Cheng Chye Tan and Charlene Rajendran 2 ‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise’: Performing a Pan-ASEAN Archipelagic Identity at Age 50  35 William Peterson and Reagan Romero Maiquez 3 ‘Pornography Disguised as Art’: Bare/d Bodies, Biopolitics and Multicultural Tolerance in Singapore 61 Marcus Cheng Chye Tan 4  Baling in a Time of BERSIH: Embodying Historical Transcripts as Enactments of Resistance 85 Charlene Rajendran 5 Staging the Banality of Social Evil: Faust and/in Philippine Contemporary Social Politics113 Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco

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6 A Transformative Theatre of Dialogue: The Makhampom Theatre Group’s Negotiation of Thailand’s Likay (Theatre) State145 Richard Barber and Pongjit Saphakhun 7 Intervention, Openness and Ownership: Interview with Ong Keng Sen on Festival Dramaturgy171 Charlene Rajendran 8  Wayang kontemporer: The Politics of Sponsorship and Innovation195 Miguel Escobar Varela 9 Authenticity and Contemporary Musical Theatre in Thailand221 Wankwan Polachan 10 Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia—The Politics of Memory and an Aesthetics of Remembrance247 Marcus Cheng Chye Tan 11 The Wheres and Whys of Southeast Asia: Art and Performance in the Locating of Southeast Asia Today275 Farish A. Noor Index287

Notes on Contributors

Richard  Barber  is a theatre worker and independent scholar working with Free Theatre at Siteworks in Melbourne. He is a director, playwright, dramaturg and facilitator, specialising in intercultural and applied theatre practice in the Asia-Pacific region. He is a sessional lecturer with Victoria University’s Masters in International Community Development programme and coordinates Makhampom’s annual Applied Theatre Study Tour programme. He is also a founding member of the Moreland Civic Lab, a think tank addressing issues of local governance and public policy. Miguel Escobar Varela  is a theatre scholar, web developer and translator who has lived in Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore and Indonesia. His main interests are the digital humanities and Indonesian performance practices. His research has been published in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Theatre Research International, Contemporary Theatre Review, Asian Theatre Journal, Performance Research, The Drama Review (TDR) and New Theatre Quarterly. He is an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore and director of the Contemporary Wayang Archive (cwa-web.org). Farish A. Noor  is an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and Associate Professor by appointment to the School of History (HSS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is a member of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Religion and Politics and his research covers the political history of Southeast Asia and religio-political movements in the region. Farish is also the author of America’s Encounters with Southeast Asia 1800–1900: Before xi

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the Pivot (2018), The Discursive Construction of Southeast Asia in 19th Century Colonial-Capitalist Discourse (2016) and The Tablighi Jama’at in Southeast Asia (2014) among other notable books. Reagan Maiquez  holds a PhD from Monash University and was awarded with best research thesis on flow and performance in one of the Philippines’ biggest and grandest religious festivals, the Sinulog in Cebu. He has published critical works in theatre and performance in Text and Performance Quarterly, AKDA: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture and Performance and Performance Studies International’s GPS. He is also a dramaturg, poet, director, producer and playwright who is working with Filipino migrant and Karen refugee communities in Melbourne, Australia, in developing intercultural and cross-arts projects. William Peterson  is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Flinders University and former director of the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University. He was a foundational academic staff in Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore in the early 1990s. He is the author of Places for Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines (2016) and Theatre and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore (2001). He has published widely on religious performance in the Philippines, theatre in Aotearoa/New Zealand, intercultural theatre practice and international theatre festivals. His research focuses on Asian self-­ representation at international expositions. Wankwan  Polachan  is Assistant Professor and Programme Director of Media and Communications at Mahidol University International College, Thailand. Her research focuses on theatre aesthetics, performance training, popular theatre and comic performance. Her articles have appeared in the Asian Theatre Journal, and she has contributed a chapter to Ethical Encounters: Boundaries of Theatre (2010). Polachan is also a Thai contemporary theatre actor. Her performances, I Occupy (2016, the Esplanade Theatre, Singapore), Kafka and I (2011, Theatre Na Zabradli, Czech Republic) and Amnesia and Other Means of Escape (1997, Young Vic Theatre, UK), have been staged in both Thailand and around the world. Charlene  Rajendran a Malaysian theatre educator, dramaturg and researcher based at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests include ­contemporary performance, dramaturgy, arts leadership and play-based

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dialogic pedagogies. She has been a dramaturg for experimental performance and interdisciplinary engaged arts projects, including Both Sides, Now (2013–2018), In the Silence of Your Heart (2018), The Malay Man and His Chinese Father (2016), Ghost Writer (2016) and It Won’t Be Too Long (2015). She is co-director of the Asian Dramaturgs Network. Her articles have appeared in a range of academic journals, such as the Asian Theatre Journal and Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, and she co-edited Interrogations, Excavations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre (2018) with Ken Takiguchi and Carmen Nge. Pongjit Saphakhun  is a theatre director, actor, playwright and facilitator. She was Makhampom’s community programme director for 15 years and artistic director for 6 years. She is also a graduate of the John Bolton Theatre School in Melbourne and scholar of the Prime Minister’s Office King Prajadhipok Institute in Peace-Building and Governance, and has been a prominent figure in Thai peace-building and political reconciliation initiatives. Marcus Cheng Chye Tan  is Assistant Professor of Drama at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He researches in intercultural theatre, performance soundscapes, virtual theatre and performance theory. Tan is also author of Acoustic Interculturalism: Listening to Performance (2012), book chapters and articles in journals such as Performance Research, TDR, Theatre Research International and Contemporary Theatre Review, in these areas. Tan is also associate editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, co-convenor of the Music Theatre Working Group, International Federation for Theatre Research, online content editor for Theatre Research International, a dramaturg for a Singapore theatre company, Dark Matter Theatrics and a member of an international working group ‘Acoustic Histories/Historiographies.’ Sir  Anril  Pineda  Tiatco holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines (2015), the 2017 National Book Award finalist for Best Book in the Humanities Performing Catholicism: Faith and Theater in a Philippine Province and Buhol-Buhol/Entanglement: Contemporary Theater in Metropolitan Manila (2017). Tiatco is Associate Professor of theatre studies at the UP (University of the Philippines) Diliman Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

American President Donald Trump wearing the barong tagalog, traditional Filipino men’s attire, and posing with the ‘first couple of the Philippine State’ Cielito ‘Honeylet’ Avanceña and Philippine President Duterte at the Manila Summit Dinner Reception on November 12, 2017, at the SMX Convention Center. (Photo: YouTube, Rappler. ‘WATCH: Nov. 12, 31st ASEAN Summit.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ kbanTJhOIE)40 Fig. 3.1 Production image from Undressing Room (2017), choreographed and devised by Ming Poon. (Photo: Olivia Kwok) 76 Fig. 4.1 Baling performance at Salihara Gallery in Jakarta, September 2018, with performers Anne James and Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri. (Photo: Tan Kui Lan) 98 Fig. 5.1 ‘Gretchen desperately seeking the help of the Mater Dolorosa to revive her once peaceful life’ from Faust (2017), directed by José Estrella. (Photo: Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas) 130 Fig. 6.1 Clockwise from top left: The Blood Throne at Thammasat University in Bangkok in 2013; open dialogue in Drama Sunjon at the Makhampom Art Space in Chiang Dao in 2015; The Voice in Ubon Rachatanee in 2017; Holding Time in Songkla in 2016. (Photo: Makhampom Foundation) 156 Fig. 8.1 Aneng Kiswantoro’s Sumpah Pralaya. (Photo: Contemporary Wayang Archive, Miguel Escobar Varela) 212 Fig. 9.1 PR poster of Hom Rong the musical (restaged) in 2015 228 Fig. 10.1 The epilogue of Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia (2017). (Photo: Tey Tat Keng) 265

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CHAPTER 1

Politics, Performance, the Contemporary and Southeast Asia Marcus Cheng Chye Tan and Charlene Rajendran

Politics and Performance in Southeast Asia This book engages with performance in Southeast Asia, with specific focus on particular nation states, rather than as a region, and the shifting cultures and politics that inform contemporary life, particularly in the urban centres of Southeast Asia where many performances that are analysed here are created and performed. In a region haunted by political volatility and divergence, authoritarianism and militarism, religious diversity and ethnic strife, the chapters reveal how contemporary performance and performances in the contemporary reflect yet challenge dominant socio-political discourses. The authors consider the efficacies of performance as political intervention and ‘events’ in Southeast Asia in a time of seismic change, and examine issues of state hegemonies, censorship, the resurgence of authoritarianism, the persistence of history and tradition, the impact of finance and sponsorship, social liberalism and conservatism, and globalisation and cultural practice. The performance works considered

M. C. C. Tan (*) • C. Rajendran National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_1

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here are not overtly ‘political theatres’ of the socialist left, in the manner Erwin Piscator outlines in his book The Political Theatre (1929),1 or in the tradition of Brecht’s Lehrstücke. They are not necessarily ‘political’ in that they are not conceived solely to agitate political consciousness, though this can be the experiential outcome of spectatorship, but are works that are fundamentally ‘shaped by political commitment and conviction.’2 In ‘On Political Theatre’ (1975), Michael Kirby asks if all theatre is necessarily political given that the political can broadly be conceived as simply the ‘constellations of relationships we form.’3 The term ‘politics’ is itself highly amorphous in meaning and it has come to explain all facets of human relations in a given context. Kirby, however, believes that theatre is political only if it is concerned with governance and takes sides on the issue4; theatre is political ‘only to the extent that it attempts to be political […] Political theatre is intellectual theatre. It deals with political ideas and concepts.’5 Echoing this sentiment, Joe Kelleher posits that ‘politics’ should be taken to refer to the activities of governments and organisations, the study of such activities and systems or the processes of power, its distribution and struggle over it. Kelleher turns to Stefan Collini for a simpler explanation, which we find particularly applicable to the understanding of politics and performance as comprehended by the authors of this book. Collini defines politics as ‘the important, inescapable, and difficult attempt to determine relations of power in a given space.’6 Ontologically, politics is manifold in its definition and therein also lies the coinciding complexities of a neat comprehension. Yet the manifestations and consequences of the practice of politics are always salient; the root of political practices, in governance, organisation, culture or aesthetics, is the ‘relations of power’ or more specifically the struggle for power, what Jacques Rancière postulates as the ‘re-distribution of the sensible’—the tussle between the invisible and the visible. As he explains, the struggle against the police—society’s distribution of the sensible, or governance through an ordering of perception that organises bodies into common traits with the established order that then divides and partitions the people into groups relegated to specific modes of doing, places where these tasks and occupations are conducted and the modes of being that correspond to these occupations and these places7—engenders a moment of dissensus in which the invisible is made visible; contemporary politics is essentially, therefore, the redistribution or repartitioning of the visible. This book is then distinctly about performance and this (re)distributive relationship with politics, in the context of Southeast Asia at the turn of

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the century, where performance engenders potential for making the invisible visible. It engages ‘politics’ as ‘political ideas and concepts […,] [that make] explicit reference to contemporary governmental problems and issues’8—but also considers the ‘harder politics of performance that traces the associations of the social and interrupts the continuity of inequalities, suffering and loss.’9 The chapters here examine performance art, theatre and music but also politics as performance/theatre for, as David Apter advocates, politics can be aptly read as performance/theatre with the identical elements of spectacle, theatricality, agency, textuality and narrativity being evident,10 a view shared and further expounded on by Julia Strauss and Donal Cruise O’Brien (2007) who study the integrality of politics in performance and performance in politics by appraising ritual, theatre and micro performances as an imperative function of the political landscape in Asia and Africa. Theatre and performance can be considered ‘events’ that challenge or disrupt the political status quo and its distribution of the sensible, or are works that have become events because they were, inevitably, subjected to prevailing socio-political climates that deemed them controversial, contentious or threatening to the established order. As events, they are, as Jacques Derrida describes, ‘ruptures’— moments that decentre or recentre a structure through disruption11—or interventions, ontological disturbances which, as Alain Badiou further explains, change the rules of the situation in order to allow that particular event to be.12 In an article published in East Asia Forum, political scientist Thomas Pepinsky notes that contemporary politics in the region is characterised by a ‘politics of disorder,’13 evidenced by the prevalence of democracy but a(n) (re)assertion of authoritarian rule. The electorate in the respective countries are ‘voting against disorder’14 by advocating not law and order but ‘order over law,’ while politicians exploit disorder and its fears as campaign promises. The 2014 presidential candidacy of Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia, Thai electoral politics since Thaksin Shinawatra’s rise to premiership (and consequently fall) and, in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte’s recent presidency are some examples Pepinsky cites. The resurgence of strongman politics reifies Duterte’s emphatic announcement, ‘[t]he politics here in Southeast Asia is changing,’15 and also reflects Pepinsky’s view about the region’s politics of disorder. While Duterte was referring specifically to the possible termination of alliances between the U.S. and the Philippines, his observation rings true of a region that, in recent years, has seen significant political uncertainty,

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disorder, shifting sentiments between Southeast Asian nations and of the people and their governments. Duterte, a controversial figure in contemporary Philippine politics, is known for his radical politics, disregard for international human rights and the ‘war on drugs’ or rather extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and users in the Philippines—all in a bid to ‘contain’ disorder. His assumption of the presidency in 2016 reflects the wave of profound changes in global politics and polity in recent years where anti-globalisation sentiments (and movements), right-wing populism and nationalist revivalism have taken over. Such radical, disorderly politics is also evidenced in the success of the opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan (‘Alliance of Hope’), at the recent Malaysian general elections of 2018. Dr Mahathir Mohamed, once Malaysia’s iron-fisted Prime Minister who has now assumed office again, mended ties with his former political rival Anwar Ibrahim, to subsequently gain a clear majority of parliamentary seats to form the new Malaysian government. This unexpected victory reflected Malaysians’ intolerance of former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s neoliberal economic policies and alleged corrupt practices which saw the misappropriation of monies from the state sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Wearing yellow, in performances of protest and power, the rallying call ‘Bersih’ (meaning ‘Clean’) became the people’s performative act that shifted Malaysia’s political landscape by ending the 61-year rule of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (National Front). Other recent political developments signify the continued fixation with identity politics based on religious affiliation and fidelity in a region where secularism remains elusive for civil society. In 2017, Jakarta’s governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for alleged ‘blasphemy’ against Islam in his election campaign speeches, and while the veracity of that claim has been subjected to debate with some analysts believing this to be a religiously and racially motivated attack (Purnama, nicknamed ‘Ahok,’ is Chinese Christian), the tens of thousands of hard-line Indonesian Muslims who rallied in the city centre to demand his prosecution, and Purnama’s incarceration, exemplify identity politics’ stranglehold on civil society and governance.16 In Myanmar, the continued mistreatment and persecution of the Muslim minority in the Rakhine state has resulted in the mass migration of over 1,100,000 Rohingyas and this has consequently created a diasporic crisis across Southeast Asia, Bangladesh and India. A former champion of democratic rule in Myanmar’s 49-year military junta rule and Nobel Peace Prize winner, incumbent state

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counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is now disfavoured by the international ­community for her callous attitudes to what civil-society organisations and human rights advocates have called a genocide. While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has maintained a non-interventionist policy where state affairs are concerned, emergency talks of ASEAN leaders in Yangon on 19 December 2016 regarding the refugee crisis demonstrate growing regional uncertainties and fears of a replication of the Syrian refugee crisis. Internal relations within ASEAN states are frequently performed and projected at meetings of ASEAN leaders as strong and solid, but there are many fault lines that remain evident. In 2015, the Southeast Asian transboundary haze, caused by slash-and-burn agricultural fires in parts of South Sumatra and Riau, resulted in the highest levels of pollution recorded in the region and left countries such as Singapore and Malaysia choked in dense smog for several weeks. Hostility between Singapore and Indonesia came to a high point with Indonesian authorities rejecting foreign aid from neighbouring Singapore, and Indonesia’s Vice-President Jusuf Kalla criticising ASEAN neighbours for ‘grumbling’ about the haze.17 Territorial sovereignty and regional security have also been threatened by China’s claim to various islands in the South China Sea. Despite the Hague Tribunal’s ruling, Beijing has gone on to build new islands in the region and further militarise them. Ownership of these islands on the South China Sea has been, additionally, disputed by countries within Southeast Asia, with Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei staking claims on the Spratly Islands, for example. Held up as a global exemplar of effective multicultural practice, Singapore is nonetheless experiencing the wave of fundamentalist identity politics and nationalist revivalism seen in the West. Lax migration policies and anti-foreigner sentiments became ‘hot-button’ issues in the 2011 and 2016 general elections, with these being redolent of the nationalist trends prevalent in Europe today. In 2013, Singapore experienced the first riot since 1969. Occurring in a predominantly Indian enclave called ‘Little India,’ a group of almost 300 foreign workers from India turned violent in protest over the death of a fellow construction worker who was accidentally killed by a bus driven by a Chinese driver. While race cannot be ascertained as the cause of the resulting violence, online negative reactions were evidently racial, with some Singaporeans attributing the socially disruptive behaviour of the rioters to their race, nationality and their ‘foreignness.’18 More recently, Singapore society has been divided

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over the repeal of penal code 377A which criminalises sex between mutually consenting men. Encouraged by India’s Supreme Court unanimously striking down this colonial-era law in September 2018, the gay community and more liberal-­minded Singaporeans have petitioned the government to do likewise. The debate posited by religious and conservative Singaporeans reveals disturbing sentiments identical to the alt-right arguments heard in Trump’s America. Such conservatism has also been seen in the arts which has experienced stricter state censorship in recent years, oftentimes driven by public sentiment or complaint. In an interview published in Singapore’s broadsheet The Straits Times, internationally renowned Singapore theatre director Ong Keng Sen recounted the perils and problems with prohibitive state control in his time as the festival director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts.19 The relationship between performance and politics is, as Ong explicates in the interview, a multifaceted one and the chapters here examine that complex relation. Performances that expand the time and space for this relationship engage in the work of reimagining politics and Southeast Asia through mediums that allow for the fluctuations of the nation, and region, to be reflected and reflected on.

Performing Southeast (of) Asia: States of Imagination Southeast Asia, as a geopolitical entity or cartographic concept, is, to reiterate Benedict Anderson’s still pertinent thesis, an imagined community.20 The region, characterised by multiple dimensions of difference and distinction exemplified, both literally and metaphorically, by the topographical divisions in the Indochinese peninsula and the Malay Archipelago, has been described by Southeast Asian historian D.G.E. Hall, as a ‘chaos of races and languages.’21 Though one may contest his use of the term ‘chaos,’ Southeast Asia’s extreme diversity of ethnicities, cultures, religious beliefs and political affiliations have frequently resulted in difficult attempts at interpellating a common identity for the region. Geographically, Southeast Asia consists of thousands of islands and island states (Indonesia, for example, consists of 17,508 land masses of varied sizes); geopolitically, the region exemplifies Steven Vertovec’s concept of ‘super-diversity.’22 The sea is arguably then the common imaginary that has given the region a political will-to-power and unitary self-image. It is the bodies of

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water that divide but also unite: the sea separates and adjoins. The sea is also responsible for the maritime economy the region has become known for from the pre-colonial to the contemporary periods. Maritime trade from the West and East found intersection in ports such as Malacca, Singapore and Penang, along the Straits of Malacca, Batavia and Surabaya around the Java Sea, and Saigon and Manila on the South China Sea. This maritime intersection and waterborne traffic resulted in thriving urban centres of cultural interchange.23 Till today this economic imperative, based on the common imagination of the ocean’s vitalness (and vitality) to the region, is purported by ASEAN constituent states whose economies are dependent on the waterways. The sea can also be read as a metaphor for the volatile relations of countries in the region and of the imagined identity that is Southeast Asia; it is ‘the site of multiple relationships that are never fixed, but constantly in flux.’24 The intra-regional tensions over islands sprawled across the South China Sea illustrate the precarity and unpredictability of regional relations both within and without, and exemplify the ocean’s ever-changing currents.25 This arguably leads to a regional politics defined by an ‘archipelagic consciousness’—a fragmented yet connected fluid identity and relationality in local governance and regional engagement, one that resists the ‘simple enclosure of the cartographic boundary’26 and is also characterised by ‘fluid island-island inter-relations rather than the binaries of mainland/sea/island.’27 Recognisably, while Southeast Asia is also composed of countries in the peninsula, it is dominantly made up of archipelagic states.28 This archipelagic consciousness is arguably reflected in the constantly shifting political relations between the neighbouring countries of the region, relations characterised by obligated cooperation undergirded by caution and suspicion. The sense of changing boundaries is made palpable in some of the works analysed in this book and often the performances challenge audiences to rethink their sense of nation or culture, and to incorporate more porous, ‘fluid’ options. This fluidity and porosity in encountering ‘Southeast Asia’ is underscored by Farish Noor who, in his chapter ‘The Wheres and Whys of Southeast Asia: Art and Performance in the Locating of Southeast Asia Today,’ posits that ‘Southeast Asia’ remains an incomplete project. From a historical perspective, Farish shows how much of the region’s postcolonial history has been predicated on a modern understanding of the Southeast Asian nation state and has, consequently,

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elided the multiple, fluid and interconnected qualities of the cultures and peoples that inhabit the region. Citing Chaudhuri, Farish argues that transoceanic trade across the Indian Ocean created ‘a sense of a common shared space where identities were created, overlapped, inter-penetrated and mutually informed, enforced and determined one another.’29 More significantly, Farish posits that, given this complexity that is ‘Southeast Asia,’ a multi-­perspectival approach needs to be taken and this is where art and performance assumes this responsibility since it is with art that the narratives and histories which have been silenced by the official histories of states can be heard, and seen. Bearing in mind that Southeast Asia is often imagined in relation to dominant Asia, ‘Southeast’s’ adjectival position reflects the geopolitical realities and cultural conditions that prevail—the region is always ‘southeast’ of Asia: Asia dominant is China and India—their geographical size, economic power and cultural impact, historically and today, overshadow the smaller archipelagic nations scattered south or east of them. As historian Anthony Reid writes, Southeast Asia is often thought to be a cultural ‘hybrid’ of India and China when considering the popular beliefs, religious traditions and social practices, even though there are some significant differences.30 In studies of Southeast Asian theatre, what is often regarded as ‘Asia’ is dominated by discourses of East and South Asia; these two regions have become primary determinants of Asia. ‘Asia’ remains the key semantic particulate exemplified in the syntactic location of the noun with ‘Southeast’ as its modifier; ‘Southeast’ is then considered adjunctive to ‘Asia.’ References to Southeast Asia as such are often framed, possibly determined, by these cultural nodal points whose historically established performance traditions have been used as comparative ‘yardsticks’ of Southeast Asian styles, this despite the fact that Southeast Asia has its own distinct and unique performance traditions. Southeast Asian theatres are at times regarded as consequential to the performance traditions of China and India, given that much of the cultural heritage in the Southeast today owes some measure of its heritage to these Asian countries, and this leads to such inevitable referencing and association. Historians and political scientists of Southeast Asia purport that ‘this problematic nature of the concept of Southeast Asia is not the least due to its “non-indigenous” origins as a convenient shorthand for Western academic institutions and as a geopolitical framework for Western powers in the form of the war-time Allied Southeast Asian Command.’31 The strategic considerations of the

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Second World War and the consequent period of postcolonial modernity and post-war nationalism gave rise to the regional identity of contemporary Southeast Asia. The contemporary nature of Southeast Asia, as Christopher Roberts argues, is a consequence of the region’s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, an associated absence of a regional identity and a lack of region-wide and regularised interstate relations until independence from colonialism.32

The Contemporary in/and Southeast Asian Performance Central to this book’s objective is also an expansion of the representation of Southeast Asian contemporary performance in theatre and performance scholarship. In what is recognisably an area that has received little academic focus, Performing Southeast Asia provides analyses of recent performances, and issues related to performance, in Southeast Asia as they reflect the rapidly evolving socio-political and economic landscapes since the turn of the century. The term ‘contemporary’ is often understood to be ‘modern’ or ‘current’; it is framed primarily by a temporal dimension of the ‘present’ as opposed to the past. In scholarship that examines contemporary Southeast Asian theatre (and more broadly Asian theatre or theatre in Asia), the term is positioned chronologically in relation to the ‘traditional’ or more specifically ‘traditional theatre/performance’ and refers to performance forms and modes that are not characteristically indigenous and/or have been imported into, or influenced by, Western theatrical discourse. Such was the ethnographic concern and approach of thick description taken by early scholarship of Southeast Asian theatre. Kathy Foley, in her article published in the Asian Theatre Journal 28, no. 2, provides an excellent overview of the key players and founders of the field of Southeast Asian theatre scholarship, which we will not repeat here.33 The search for ‘authenticity’ in what was ‘ethnic’ and ‘local’ became a prevalent concern when theatre and performance became appropriated for national(ist) agendas, particularly in the years of postcolonial independence; ‘traditional’ art indigenous to the region became a means of stirring political consciousness that reified the demarcations between the newly independent state and the former Western coloniser. Evan Darwin Winet’s book, Indonesian Postcolonial Theatre: Spectral Genealogies and Absent Forces

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(2010) proves, for example, how colonialism’s dissolution of the Indonesian archipelago’s cultural complexity and heterogeneity into a simplistic distinction between Natives and the West persisted in the imaginations of national discourse. Contemporary Indonesian theatre as seen in Jakarta, Winet argues, has reified these distinctions in their adaptations of Western conventions and dramaturgies as they seek to transcend the parochialism of performances of the ‘local’ and ‘ethnic.’ Although there have been works that examine contemporary performances in the region, such as Doreen G. Fernandez’s Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (1996) and Nur Nina Zuhra’s An Analysis of Modern Malay Drama (1992), an engagement with the currents of modernity in confrontation with tradition, and the consequent evolution of these forms, seems inevitable. At this point, we would thus like to distinguish between ‘contemporary performance in Southeast Asia’ and ‘Southeast Asian performance in the contemporary.’ The phrase ‘contemporary performance in Southeast Asia’ encourages a discourse on the impact of modernity and its associate forces on traditional theatres. These include the ways in which traditional forms have become appropriated by governments for nationalist agendas, and now assume the former role of patron once held by royalty or religion, as national icons of culture and heritage, a view posited by Matthew Isaac Cohen and Laura Noszlopy in their introduction to Contemporary Southeast Asian Performance: Transnational Perspectives (2010). Additionally, Catherine Diamond’s Communities of Imagination: Contemporary Southeast Asian Theatres (2012) considers such transitions of traditional forms and evaluates the ways the traditional arts have evolved as a response and reaction less to artistic necessity and more from foreign or commercial forces; these changes are often seen ‘not as legitimate innovations but as bastardizations.’34 She succinctly charts the socio-political changes from traditional performance modes, with the introduction of Western forms brought about by colonisation, to modern hybrid theatres and spoken drama. In practice, reassessing forgotten histories, excavating quotidian memories and reconfiguring cultural boundaries as alternative strategies of decolonisation and reimagining the national were characteristic of initial approaches to creating contemporary performance that began in the 1960s. An ‘experimental passion’ which was ‘propelled by influences from Western avant-garde theatre’ marked a crucial ‘break with Western naturalistic drama’35 and informed the shift towards interdisciplinary,

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devised and multilingual forms that consciously reflected the pluralities of culture. Theatre doyens such as Arifin C. Noer in Indonesia, Krishen Jit in Malaysia, Rolando Tinio in the Philippines, Kuo Pao Kun in Singapore and Kamron Gunatilaka in Thailand responded to critical questions about becoming modern and revising the boundaries of what was local, attending in turn to issues of cultural change, social injustice and political bias, using Asian dramaturgies that were not determined in advance but which emerged as a result of particular fusions of performance forms and cultural vocabularies. Based primarily in urban centres, this work appealed to, and still does, an often ‘Western’ educated elite, seeking to be contextually grounded yet post-national all the same. Resisting the mainstream and inventing new frames for social and aesthetic engagement was effectively a ‘differing artistic response’ that practitioners took on to dismantle entrenched methods of artistic production, and thus veered towards ‘reacting more effectively to the demands of the immediate present.’36 This locates the impulses of the contemporary practitioner as critically responding to the political in the broadest sense, while no less affected by local convulsions that occur. Recognising the value of the approaches taken in earlier scholarship we have, as such, delineated the contemporary to, firstly, be demarcated temporally—as ‘contemporary performance in Southeast Asia.’ Three chapters—Varela’s examination of Wayang Kontemporer in Indonesia today, Polachan’s demarcation of authenticity in contemporary Thai musical theatre and Tan’s study of a recent Cambodian orchestral work, Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia—remind readers that theatre and performance in Southeast Asia today is inevitably tied to the past, to history and to tradition, their aesthetic practices, principles and beliefs, even if that relationship is marked by resistance and transformation. This umbilical affiliation reflects the inevitable regard of Southeast Asia’s identity (and its constituent countries) as a consequence of the postcolonial imagination. In ‘Wayang kontemporer: the politics of sponsorship and innovation,’ Varela writes about the transforming practice and reception of wayang kulit (Javanese shadow puppet) in Indonesia today. Wayang kulit being one of the oldest performance traditions in Java is a form that has been the target of government intervention, most notably during Suharto’s New Order (1966–1998). As Varela observes, wayang is a site of artistic contention and many contemporary experimental theatre companies have actively rejected wayang for its feudal values and antiquated conventions. Its elevation to the status of a national form also does not sit

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well with non-­Javanese audiences and artists. These critical attitudes have not been lost to the practitioners of wayang kulit, and several dalangs (puppeteer-directors) have been making widely experimental, controversial interventions in the form during the past 15 years. The chapter examines how some current practitioners of wayang employ a variety of adaptive strategies to remain relevant to a rapidly modernising Indonesia. These include explicit questioning of the feudal values of wayang and its transformation to explore the perspectives of urban, working-class audiences. Some performances uncouple wayang from its Javanese context by embracing languages, stories or aesthetic conventions that speak to the cosmopolitan sensitivity of younger Indonesians within and without Java; others introduce radical experimentation with the explicit aim of conveying and safeguarding traditional values. The chapter considers wayang performances today that are located in between teater (western influenced theatre) and wayang, freely juxtaposing wayang conventions with hip hop music, video projections, live actors and puppets made of unconventional materials. As Varela posits, wayang kontemporer (contemporary) must be read against the complex political history that has included attempts to co-opt, resist and reimagine the performance tradition. In her chapter, Polachan argues that contemporary Thai Broadway-­ style musical theatre produced by commercial theatre companies for commercial purposes, while perceived by the common imagination as that which is not ‘Thai,’ given that it does not explicitly present any traditional Thai aesthetics and is primarily a Western performance mode, embodies very much the qualities of authentic Thai theatre. Such forms of Thai theatre have been regarded by some Thai scholars as symptomatic of the current socio-cultural and political landscape of Thailand, which has seen significant Western influence in terms of capitalism, consumerism and materialism. One might then be led to believe that Thailand has lost its authenticity in the theatre arts as evidenced in these modern musical forms; these mainstream, contemporary musical productions, while based on Thai fables, folklore and novels, are staged in the format of Western musical theatres. By examining the various dramaturgical aspects, philosophies and principles reflected in Thai musical theatre, Polachan argues, on the contrary, that Thai contemporary theatre still retains authenticity amidst the shift to and adoption of Western performance principles and modes. Throughout history, assimilation and avoidance of confrontation have been core strengths of Thai culture, politics, religion and Thailand’s identity as a nation. Her research reveals that contemporary

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Thai theatre is authentic to the Thai core identity. Through assimilation, the main components of traditional Thai theatre are present in today’s Broadway-­ style performances: Thai contemporary musical theatre is a hybrid, a meeting of aspects of persistent authenticities in Thai performance and culture. Tan’s ‘Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia: The Politics of Memory and an Aesthetics of Remembrance’ analyses a recent polycultural and intermodal performance that toured the U.S., France and Australia. It was commissioned by arts collective Cambodian Living Arts and created by two artists who are survivors of the Cambodian genocide. An interplay between music, song, film and choreography, the production commemorates the 40th anniversary of the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in which as many as three million people were persecuted and killed from 1975 to 1979. Bangsokol is a performance of memory and forgiveness through an excavation of the past, where performance and ritual intersect. Through a performative reiteration of the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal governance, presented as the interaction of dramatic forms, the production sought to excavate the past so as to exorcise present hauntings and reclaim a future through reconciliation and remembering. By interweaving Khmer Buddhist funerary rites with the Catholic requiem, Western orchestral sounds with Khmer sonicities, Bangsokol took the audience on a journey from lamentation to liberation. The chapter examines the performance’s politics of memory and considers what Marianne Hirsch terms ‘an aesthetics of remembrance in the aftermath of catastrophe.’ 37 Tan analyses how the unique the polycultural and intermodal form in Bangsokol renegotiates history as legitimations of social and political power through an interpellation of shared affective memory to renew social memory: Bangsokol combined a Western requiem form with a libretto of Buddhist funerary texts in Pali, and the music involved sounds from a Western chamber ensemble, a traditional Cambodian court ensemble and Khmer smot chants. Such a polycultural dramaturgy advances Buddhist universal truth about suffering, hope and loving kindness. In its aesthetic politics, Bangsokol was not simply a performance of a ‘Cambodian experience,’ but a contemporary act of advocating the transformative potential and political responsibilities of performance in the contemporary. Attempting to engage ‘the contemporary’ more broadly beyond that which is not simply a temporal adjective but a geopolitical condition which shapes artistic and performance practices in Southeast Asia, instead,

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permits alternative considerations of performances that do not merely attend to matters of cultural heritage, tradition or history, but instead engage overtly with theatre and performance in the contemporary. Earlier notions of political theatre in Southeast Asia were often tied to the struggles of citizen-artists in newly formed nation states who addressed unjust practices and authoritarian structures of effectively neocolonial governments, ironically the new oppressors of the people. Giving voice to the disenfranchised in society and questioning prevailing policies of discrimination rendered some performance makers targets of the state and susceptible to scrutiny and censorship, if not detention, for their purportedly ‘dangerous’ activity. The arrests in the 1970s of theatre leaders such as W.S. Rendra and Kuo Pao Kun for allegedly ‘illegal’ involvements can be read as potent deterrents to others becoming similarly critical of the government. In some instances, particular artists were blacklisted, such as Cecile Guidote, who founded the Philippines Educational Theater Association (PETA), and other PETA leaders including Lino Brocka, Socrates Topacio and Lutgardo Labad who developed the idea of ‘theatre as a weapon for liberation’38 during the martial law period. More recently particular art forms have been banned, such as Forum Theatre and Performance Art in Singapore, which were effectively disallowed for almost a decade from 1994 due to their being ‘seen as indirect threats to the authorship, authority and political legitimacy of the state.’39 While this has never fully stemmed the tide of critique, with the effective use of allegory and metaphor to sustain oppositional voices and resist abuses of power, oppressive and suppressive climates also prod artists to innovate creative strategies for averting restriction and find loopholes that allow their work to continue being provocative, and remain incisive. As contemporary artists in the region are not always burdened by the weight of aesthetic tradition and neither do they feel the need to adhere to state-prescribed national styles and forms, what is meant by the contemporary is then enlarged by experiments that engage politically with emergent content and diverse forms, drawn from multiple, perhaps even disparate, sources. In the Asian Theatre Journal’s special issue 31, no. 2, editor Matthew Cohen observes that ‘a new paradigm is emerging in which Southeast Asian theatre and performance are not being treated as the West’s exotic “Other” or in relation to nation building but as a site drawing interested parties into a conversation regarding both local and global issues.’40 As inter-Asian cultural traffic increases, the notion of

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‘global’ is redefined for ‘global’ in the context of Southeast Asian performance and is ‘no longer a surrogate for Western neo-imperialism.’41 Performance in Southeast Asia is to be seen as a ‘site of intersection’42 that involves all communities from various cultures; contemporary theatre is a conversation of local particularities and shared global concerns. This forms the book’s second, more theoretical, underpinning of ‘the contemporary’ (as Southeast Asian theatre and performance in the ­contemporary) where local particularities attend to prevailing global concerns, such as the obscurity, precariousness and precarity of the political present consequent of the actions of and reactions against neoliberalism, accelerated globalisation and the ubiquitous influence of digital culture. This alternative understanding of the contemporary is one not demarcated temporally or comprehended simply as a periodisation articulated in the form of the ‘modern’ or ‘modernisation’ but one that, as Giorgio Agamben posits, is apprehended as a condition of increasing and profound dissonance, and a search for that singular relationship to one’s experience and time—to adhere yet to simultaneously keep a distance from this time. It is, more precisely, an experience of proximity, of disjunction and anachronism with temporality.43 The contemporary is an ahistorical marker for which there must be a critical gaze on one’s own present ‘so as to perceive not its light but its darkness.’44 Someone who claims to be contemporary must, as Agamben poetically proposes, stare into the obscurity of the present time to observe and translate the darkness so that one may welcome the light. To be contemporary then is to acknowledge ‘the untimeliness, the anachronism that permits us to grasp our time in the form of a “too soon” that is also a “too late”—of an “already” that is also a “not yet”.’45 The authors of the remaining chapters exemplify this notion of the contemporary—of being part of yet out of time so as to cast a critical gaze one’s own ‘dark’ present—for they examine how contemporary theatre and performance in the region demarcate, distinguish and deconstruct political hegemonies, state oppression, censorship and control, human rights transgressions, escalating right-wing conservatism and divisive identitarian politics. In the lyricism employed by Agamben, these performances (and their creators) encounter the ‘darkness’ so as to call out that which is ‘too late’ or ‘not yet’ in what they see as political contexts that need redressing. While context-specific, since ‘political theatre’ is only political in a particular society in time-space and place with its resonance as ‘political’ varying according to socially defined groups of people,46 the

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examples examined demonstrate how theatre and performance have been shaped by current social and political events (being in and part of the present) but also how they investigate and critique the aggregate effects of these prevailing political climates (the ‘untimeliness’ of being contemporary). Even though these performances do not posit simple solutions (if any) to these uncertain climates and times, the creators and authors ‘perceive, in the darkness of the present, this light that strives to reach us but cannot—this is what it means to be contemporary.’47 In ‘“Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promises”: Performing a Pan-­ ASEAN archipelagic identity at age 50,’ Peterson and Maiquez show how political events can be read as political theatre, what David Apter defines as politics as theatre—the ‘portrayals of power and powerlessness in which the respective roles of rulers and ruled are privileged theatrical roles by means of which symbols, ideas, and beliefs become personified, transformed from categories to performances.’48 The November 2017 ASEAN Summit in Manila, hosted by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, was an extraordinary performative event of pan-ASEAN strength and unity, bracketing the summit’s key proceedings with performances featuring live song and dance by many of the country’s most famous and revered artists. Through close analysis of these principal public performances—the Gala Dinner, Opening and Closing Ceremonies—Peterson and Maiquez consider how a pan-ASEAN identity and politics are imagined and performed in ways that they create a virtual, coherent and regionally constituted archipelago where real and imagined cultural flows link states and geographical locations. Interrogating these performances through Apter’s concept of a ‘theatre of virility’ and employing archipelagic frames to unpack the construction of a pan-ASEAN character and politics, the authors propose a pan-ASEAN identity seen through ‘strongman’ political figures and the spectacle of the summit; these performances and the performances of the actor-politicians engender an archipelagic trope that extends ‘Southeast Asia,’ or ASEAN, to other locations. Inevitably, such a performative identity exposes how the region is both a postcolonial invention and an intervention of previous imperial powers—a view iterated by historian Farish Noor in his chapter—and remains subjected to current neoliberal global flows and forces. In the chapter ‘Pornography Disguised as Art: Bare/d Bodies, Biopolitics and Multicultural Tolerance in Singapore,’ Tan examines the changing dynamics of biopolitics in Singapore as exemplified in the ways the state denied performance licences for two shows scheduled to be

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f­eatured at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival—an annual arts festival that presents contemporary progressive and socially engaged works—whose theme for 2017 was ‘Art and Skin.’ Ming Poon’s Undressing Room and Thea Fitz-James’s Naked Ladies were flagged for ‘excessive nudity which included scenes of audience-participants stripping naked, and graphic depictions of exposed genitalia.’49 While acts of ‘naked’ censorship are not uncommon in Singapore, the controversial incident reflected a shift in the state’s biopolitical practice for the call to censor these performances came from a Facebook group, ‘Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family,’ whose digital diatribe accused the government of failing to do its moral duty by permitting such ‘pornography disguised as art.’ This prompted the Singapore Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore to withhold performance licences just days before opening. Tan’s critical analysis of the preceding and proceeding events reveal the complicated intersection between the bare/d body in performance, biopower as exercised by the state and appropriated by a sectarian, conservative community and the limits of multicultural sensibilities. As Tan reveals, bodies that challenge ‘normative’ (Asian) values must be punished or purged since the biopoliticised body is produced as a consequence of the state’s narrow conception of multiculturalism, effected as ideological apparatus. Hegemonic state intervention and the paradoxical practice of ‘Asian values’ and economic liberalism have led to an increasing social divide along new lines which state multiculturalism can no longer contain. ‘The M1 Fringe Festival Controversy,’ as it is termed by local media, exemplifies Eric Bentley’s view that ‘in the theatre anything can become political by a sudden turn of events outside the theatre.’50 Rajendran’s chapter, ‘Baling in a Time of BERSIH,’ is a critical examination of the role of theatre in a time of radical politics in Malaysia in which the persistent call for ‘Bersih’ (Malay for clean) became an overt performative statement of resistance to state hegemony and corruption, most notably of former Prime Minister Najib Rajak who now, at the time of writing, faces 25 charges related to the 1MDB scandal including those of abuse of power and money laundering. Rajendran analyses Baling, a performance that is part of an ongoing project that examines history in relation to the contemporary. Conceived and directed by one of Malaysia’s leading directors Mark Teh, the work uses published transcripts from the historical Baling Talks in 1955 to create a documentary performance that questions official narratives and provides pluralist perspectives on issues of freedom and democracy. As a form of tribunal theatre, Teh juxtaposes the

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utterances of historical leaders such as Tunku Abdul Rahman, David Marshall and Chin Peng who met to end the Malayan Emergency, with personal expressions of contemporary performers who are also involved in political activism. He experiments with the intersections of past and present, real and fictional, to provoke questions about validity and integrity, framing unlikely characters as more or less ‘dangerous’ than they seem, repeating strategies used to garner support during the Emergency. Since 2005, Teh has generated several projects that draw on the Baling Talks, locally and abroad, which speak to a growing appetite across multiple spaces to review normative frames of power and perform resistance through participation and reconfiguration. Rajendran shows how Baling contributes to deepening discourses of political agency and repeats the ‘Bersih’ call for reform. The question of theatre and performance’s political value is further interrogated in Tiatco’s chapter. Through a close reading of a 2017 Philippine production, Faust, staged as part of the National Arts month and directed by well-known Philippine director José Estrella, Tiatco argues that the production was a powerful critique of political reality in contemporary Philippines. This adaptation of Goethe’s notable work mirrors Philippine contemporary social politics through the staging of what Hannah Arendt calls the unspeakable horror of evil and the undeniable absurdity of the people who perpetrate it. While Faust and the devil Mephistopheles (Mephisto in this adaptation) are obvious characters linked as perpetrators of evil, the current administration of the Philippines is also presented as a character in the production. Actual voice recordings of President Rodrigo Duterte echoing across the auditorium, and references to the alleged extrajudicial killings become part of the play’s dramatic narrative. Estrella’s Faust reminds its audiences that there are too many people in the country perpetuating obliviousness to human rights violations since the time of Ferdinand Marcos, and which continue in the current administration, by creating alternative facts. Estrella’s adaptation is then a performative pronouncement that despite ‘fake news,’ someone will always emerge to tell the real story: theatre can provoke, enlighten and herald political change. Barber and Saphakhun, on the other hand, demonstrate how the iron hand of the state can not only stifle the political efficacies of theatre and performance but also threaten its survival and the lives of artists. Yet, art always triumphs as it evolves, adapts and resists. Writing about Thailand’s Makhampom Theatre Group and their performance works, the authors

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explore the group’s negotiation of Thailand’s colour-coded, ‘Red-Yellow’ shirt political conflict and the military state apparatus through the dialogue theatre project. They consider the emergence of this new applied drama approach and its becoming as the performative identity of the group. In 2013, the Makhampom Theatre Group performed the likay-­ circus production, The Miracle of the Blood Throne, as part of a politically charged 40th year memorial event that commemorated the massacre of students at Thammasat University in Bangkok. Ironically, the popular ­success of this performance enmeshed Makhampom in the national political conflict and rising militaristic autocracy under the new military government of Prayut Chan-o-cha. Makhampom’s response to state persecution and intervention was to take its socially engaged practice into the national political sphere, and relocate the focus of their work to Northern Thailand. This occurred through the development of the dialogue theatre technique, devised by the group and applied through a national touring project from 2014 to 2017. Deriving from Makhampom’s participatory theatre and conflict transformation methodologies, the character-driven form initially reflected Makhampom’s community-oriented ‘peripheral’ praxis with the first work, Drama Sunjon, addressing questions of agency and structural ethnic discriminations at the provincial level. However, increasingly draconian military rule using tools of censorship, incarceration and intimidation saw Makhampom apply the dialogue theatre to address national political conflict as both reconciliatory and subversive in the second work, Holding Time. By the third year of the project, The Voice had sought to integrate the sensibility of the popular Thai likay genre in its third derivation of the dialogue theatre, as Thai performative language and socio-political thematics converged and the centre-periphery delineation of contemporary Thai theatre became challenged. Barber and Sapakhun demonstrate how through its explicit opposition to the military regime and prevailing politics, Makhampom’s ‘active mediatory role within Thailand’s pro-democratic movement signalled the group’s commitment to a politicised contemporary theatre practice.’51 ‘Intervention, Openness and Ownership: Interview with Ong Keng Sen on Festival Dramaturgy’ presents an edited transcript of a keynote dialogue delivered by Singapore theatre doyen Ong Keng Sen, held at the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network meeting in February 2017, in conjunction with the Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama, Japan. An established theatre director, well-known for intercultural and interdisciplinary productions such as Lear (1997), The Continuum: Beyond the Killing

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Fields (2001), Sandakan Threnody (2004) and, more recently, Trojan Women (2017), Ong articulates his festival dramaturgy for the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), which he helmed as Festival Director from 2014 to 2017. He considers how the arts can serve as political intervention even though it is itself subject to intervention. Ong enunciates the particular tensions of sustaining such an artistic approach and vision within the political and cultural landscape of Singapore, where issues of censorship and funding often affect the critical choices made by artists and a­ udiences. In explicating his role as festival director, Ong also suggests how this work can be regarded as a form of public office, akin to an ombudsman, who mediates between the state and the public regarding issues of transparency and policy. This produces a consciousness of the arts as a site for intimacy and difference, navigating hierarchies of power that prevail in Southeast Asian contexts such as Singapore. What appears to be a marked quality of current political performance in contemporary Southeast Asia is its reconnection with hidden histories, revitalisation of cultural memory and advocacy for political agency, even as artists extend beyond the local to incorporate aspects of the global through the digital, technological and environmental. While the political scene may have changed in terms of which regime is in power, or what ideology underpins governance, the stories of power remain similar. In the Philippines, where the days of martial law may seem distant, the importance of remembering this political chapter is underscored in a 2017 PETA production, A Game of Trolls: A Martial Law Musical for Millennials, which integrates the abuses of power, then and now, in a story about an internet troll whose mother is a former martial law activist. Here, as with other performances examined in this volume, there is conviction and hope that theatre and performance is experienced ‘not only as a tool of historical instruction, but more so as an impetus for discussion and enlightenment.’52

The Politics of Representation In concluding this introduction, we would initiate two provocations. The first concerns the book’s own politics of representation. While this collection has attempted to give representation to all constituent countries of the region and sought contributions from scholars in Southeast Asia who research on theatre and performance, we are regretful this has not been possible. In particular, scholarship on contemporary performance in Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Myanmar and Timor-Leste remains lacking. Such

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absent ­scholarship stems from difficulties in writing and language in which many Southeast Asian theatre scholars, whose engagement with English is frequently as a foreign tongue and, as such, do not have sufficient confidence to express their scholarship in a second language. Ironically, this continued condition of silence from non-English-speaking Southeast Asian scholars reifies and reflects the postcolonial condition in which the region continues to be haunted and which it is defined by. As Gayatri Spivak has ­criticised of postcolonial and subaltern studies as a perpetuation of the colonial enterprise—a First World, male, privileged, institutionalised discourse— academia today, unfortunately, is likewise a continuation of that colonial legacy, one where Southeast Asian scholars who do not have a commanding grasp of the English language will find little representation.53 Our provocation then lies between a reflexive recognition of our own linguistic privilege and cultural capital, and an anxiety about the discourses and knowledge forms constructed in and by the ‘Academy.’ For the former, we recognise, discomfitingly, the advantages awarded in receiving a postcolonial Western-oriented education, in addition to benefits gained from presently living and working in a financially formidable, socially stable and culturally composite First World former British colony whose operative language and lingua franca is English. Such environmental conditions have granted us a linguistic (and also cultural) privilege in being able to access and penetrate the competitive international publishing circles. Ironically, as we compose this introduction, we are keenly aware of how we remain complicit in, and even perpetuate, the institutionalised discourse Spivak fiercely critiques. Despite our attempts at locating scholars who live in the region and study contemporary Southeast Asian performance, unfortunately, we were unable to achieve that objective. We are thus plagued by this recurring sense of loss in not being able to more successfully renegotiate the representations of Southeast Asian theatre and performance scholarship, or inspire scholars in Southeast Asia whose voices have long been excluded from the global throughflows of knowledge exchange be it in ranked journals, book publications or the international conference circuits. While we do not believe that provenance or indigeneity grants one cultural conversance (and we certainly oppose the rising ‘nativism’ that is seen in the U.S. and the U.K. at the time of writing) or that ‘foreignness’ inevitably places one on the peripheries of cultural acquaintance and so prohibits one from speaking for an-Other, we do recognise the significant loss to scholarship in this area of study with the persistent circulation of English as the predominant language of knowledge

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and knowing, in addition to the Academy’s favoured modes of inquiry and writing. The regrettable outcome of such epistemological frames is the absent possibilities of alternative representations and critical perspectives that could be supplemented by Southeast Asian scholars who speak a different tongue. Perhaps future efforts could include the option for articles to be written in another language and subsequently translated into English, which would require working with translators as co-writers. That endeavour itself, recognisably, yields its own politics of re-presentation. The second provocation concerns the efficacy of political theatres and more broadly performance’s engagement with politics, specifically in Southeast Asia. Performance (and theatre) has frequently been regarded as a way of ‘articulating the conditions of contemporary society, and of pointing through the body of the performance to ways of defining, understanding and changing conditions.’54 This relationship between performance and politics has always been intimate, responsive and dialogic in the ways that scholarship has reliably sought to interrogate how performance addresses politics and the political, or excavate performance and performative processes of political events. In their book, International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice (2013), Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear contend that such approaches remain inadequate, possibly inappropriate, as there is a need, instead, ‘to think through politics and performance as modes and practices of aesthetic thinking, and to think them together as modes and practices of aesthetic politics.’55 Such a mode of thinking encourages a perception and analysis of performance and politics ‘as ‘folded’ in myriad and complex patterns, inter-animating one another as domains of political subjectivation and creative practices undertaken by aesthetic subjects.’56 Turning to Rancière to advance a concept of ‘critical aesthetics,’ Edkins and Kear underscore the need to regard politics and performance as practices of dissensus and agentic creation, and in so doing recognise the relations yet distinctions between an aesthetics of politics and the politics of aesthetics. To do this in a Southeast Asian context is to increase and deepen the opportunities for performance scholarship and political studies to intersect more consciously, if not become more wide ranging and interdisciplinary in the research and academic perspectives supported and nurtured by institutions and the state. This has not been a priority in Southeast Asian nations more concerned with building technological, economic and financial literacies than with advancing an understanding of aesthetics.

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Dismissing a privileging of the aesthetic and postulating a need for sustained interdisciplinary dialogue between performance and politics, Janelle Reinelt and Shirin Rai in The Grammar of Politics and Performance (2015) seek, instead, to investigate the imbrications between politics and performance so as to construct a ‘grammar’—an evolving yet identifiable set of features, codes and conditions—that governs both politics, which inevitably involves theatricality and performativity, and performance, which always consists of aspects of the political. More significantly, in this volume that regards both politics and performance as interrelated discursive and embodied practices,57 the editors are convinced that there is a ‘political necessity that confronts us by exploring ideas for better governance and the theatrical possibility of its imagining.’58 In particular, this is pertinent to the needs of Southeast Asia in the twenty-first century, which includes dealing with intense geopolitical changes, regional uncertainty and significant political shifts that question processes of governance and civic responsibility. But how can (and does) theatre and performance effectuate or offer possibilities for better governance? In other words, what is ‘the potential that theatre (and performance) may have to make the immediate effects of performance influence, however minutely, the general historical evolution of wider social and political realities’;59 what impact can political theatre, distinctively, have on its audience and the situations or conditions it seeks to critique even as it represents these? Theatre and performance are ontologically represented and themselves subject to a politics of representation, even in conditions where performance seeks to liberate itself from the confines of theatrical representation. Even where the transformations of ‘theatre,’ as a form, to ‘performance’—the movement of theatre ‘out’ of theatres to the streets and non-traditional venues as a means of ‘re-­ enchanting’ politics by weaving art, life and politics together in the hopes that performance could at the very least be a ‘rehearsal for politics’60— have occurred, how politically efficacious is a medium that, as Plato decried, is fundamentally mimetic? If, politics is about the determination of relations of power and also acting upon those relations so as to change them,61 can theatre and performance effect genuine social and political change not just because of its being ‘out of time, both with the world it addresses and itself as a mode of address,’62 but also because it is always already representation, persistently framed by that which is not ‘real life’? What then are the limitations of theatre and performance that is bound in its ontology as a re-presentation? It is worth pondering that theatre and

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performance can only simply observe and witness reality,63 without being more than ‘a useless instrument for the transformation of social institutions.’64 This is particularly pertinent in a time of persistent precarity. Drawing on Judith Butler’s patterns of precarity, Marissia Fragkou’s Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre (2019) attempts to ‘capture the feeling of living in precarious times’65 and the ways theatre has and can respond to a climate of political and environmental uncertainty. Examining theatre’s engagement with precarity, affect and politics in British theatre, the provocative work asks how theatre’s representational and affective devices invite audiences to care about precarious life, consequent of neoliberal theology, or of how theatre sustains representations of precarity as ‘crisis’ and so participates in discourses that perpetuate and normalise precarity as a threat.66 Summarily, Fragkou advances the belief that precarity, as a political theatrical trope, possesses the potential to ‘reanimate our understanding of identity and the “human” and our communal responsibility for the lives of Others against the backdrop of a spiralling uncertainty in the new millennium.’67 The book points to efforts that resonate with this need to ‘reanimate’ a sharper sense of criticality about what it means to be ‘human’ in the twenty-first century, and how performances created amid the fluctuations of political and personal identity propose temporal experiences of how else precarity can be experienced and encountered through the lens of politicised creativity. Lynette Hunter, in the introduction to Performance, Politics and Activism (2013), expresses a similar confidence in the power of performance and performativity to renegotiate contemporary political agency ‘because of the opportunity it offers to engage in making difference,’ and it is when ‘theatre engages its audience in the moment of making difference that the possibility for effective action becomes imaginable.’68 Political performance, whether it is produced on the scale of the local, national or transnational, engages audiences to co-create political meaning and perspective, and facilitate critique and criticism that can challenge and possibly break hegemonic discourses and certainties of governance. Through active performativity, performance, as Hunt proposes, can offer ‘radical alternatives’ and change political modalities.69 While it is not the intention of this book to address specifically the political dimension that neoliberal mechanics and mentalities occupy in contemporary Southeast Asia, or of how neoliberalism impacts Southeast Asian theatre and performance today, we share in the optimism of the scholars who have examined this relationship, such as Lara Nielsen and

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Patricia Ybarra (2012), Maurya Wickstrom (2012), Matthew Causey and Fintan Walsh (2013), Jen Harvie (2013) and Elin Diamond, Denise Varney and Candice Amich (2017), about the agentive and disruptive capacities that theatre and performance have on political hegemonies and structures of power and oppression, and the opportunities they provide (for both artists and audiences) to enact and envision alternatives. The chapters here see more urgent importance in investigating the ‘material and social structures of power and governance that politics has always been about’70 even as the conditions of neoliberalism and their consequences do feature in the social-political settings of the performances examined in the various chapters. This critical direction is taken into consideration for the state of politics in the region, outlined in the earlier sections, which differ significantly from the West in the ways that many of the region’s constituent states do not (will not, or are yet to) embrace Western (neo)liberal democratic ideologies and whose peoples continue to struggle against autocratic, militaristic or authoritarian regimes. Additionally, the location of identity, be it ethnic, racial, religious or socio-economic, and its accompanying rights and responsibilities, for example, remain a very real concern of many citizens in Southeast Asian societies even as these reveal a divisive politics of ‘them/us’ that characterises the legal and governing structures of individual Southeast Asian countries: the persistence of the bumiputera71 policy in Malaysia and faith politics—hard-line Islam’s influence on the polity—in Indonesia are salient examples of this. The realpolitik of the region thus continues to be dominated by issues of colonialism/postcolonialism, inclusivity/exclusivity, Sameness/ Otherness, haves/have-nots. For this reason, ASEAN’s motto of ‘One Vision, One Identity, One Community’72 is frequently undermined by the persistent political realities of the region. A serious political scholar or artist dealing with the intersections of politics and performance must then, as Reinelt and Rai suggest, attend to and grapple with the realities of identity and difference for these are the very real struggles in politics.73 It is with this perspective that we have gathered essays on ‘the interactions between performance and (how) its reception generate(s) politics.’74 If theatre and performance are, in the contemporary period, ‘an ethical encounter,’75 as Nicholas Ridout posits, then there must remain what Hans-Thies Lehmann terms ‘an aesthetic of responsibility (or response-­ ability)’76 for performance possesses the capacity to render ‘visible the broken thread between personal experience and perception. Such an experience would be not only aesthetic but therein at the same time

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ethico-­political.’77 Believing that the arts can ‘evoke and invoke silenced voices’78 of political, economic and ideological violence, we posit that theatre and performance retain the potential to not only confront the politics of its day but also antagonise and dislocate audiences from their settled modes of representational ‘reality,’ and in so doing rupture the appearance of normality and engender a space for social and political alternatives, a mode of political agency, because such a space can offer opportunities for difference. ‘Gazing’ into and engaging with the ‘darkness of the epoch,’ to return to Agamben, is then what being ‘contemporary’ is.

Notes 1. See Erwin Piscator, The Political Theatre (1929), ed., trans. Hugh Rorrison (London: Eyre Methuen, 1980). 2. Graham Holderness, ‘Introduction,’ in The Politics of Theatre and Drama, ed. Graham Holderness (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 3. For examples of these ‘political theatres,’ see Tiatco’s chapter on a recent production of Faust in the Philippines, Barber and Saphakhun’s exposition on the works of Makhampom theatre and Rajendran’s analysis of Baling. 3. E.J. Westlake, ‘Mapping Political Performances: A Note on the Structure of the Anthology,’ Political Performances: Theory and Practice, eds. Susan C. Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, Avraham Oz and E.J. Westlake (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2009), 8. 4. Michael Kirby, ‘On Political Theatre,’ The Drama Review 19.2 (1975): 129. 5. Kirby, ‘On Political Theatre,’ 130. 6. Stefan Collini, ‘On Variousness, and on Persuasion,’ New Left Review 27 (2014): 67. 7. Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. S. Corcoran (London: Continuum, 2010), 36. 8. Kirby, ‘On Political Theatre,’ 130. 9. Alan Read, Theatre, Intimacy and Engagement: The Last Human Venue (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 272. 10. See David Apter, ‘Politics as Theatre: An Alternative View of the Rationalities of Power,’ in Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual, eds. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason L. Mast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 11. See Jacques Derrida, ‘Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,’ in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 351–370.

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12. See Alain Badiou, Being and Event, trans. Oliver Feltham (London, New York: Continuum, 2005). 13. Thomas Pepinsky, ‘Democracy isn’t receding in Southeast Asia, authoritarianism is enduring,’ East Asia Forum, November 4, 2017, accessed October 12, 2018, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/11/04/democracyisnt-receding-in-southeast-asia-authoritarianism-is-enduring/. 14. Thomas Pepinsky, ‘Southeast Asia: Voting Against Disorder.’ Journal of Democracy 28, no. 2 (2017): 120. 15. Karen Lema, Manuel Mogato and Neil Jerome Morales, ‘Philippines’ Duterte: ‘bye-bye America’ and we don’t need your money,’ Reuters, December 16, 2016, accessed December 17, 2016. https://www.reuters. com/article/us-philippines-usa/philippines-duterte-bye-bye-americaand-we-dont-need-your-money-idUSKBN14528Q. 16. See Yenni Kwok, ‘Thousands of Hard-Line Muslims Rally Against Jakarta’s Governor for Alleged Blasphemy,’ Time, November 4, 2016, accessed December 18, 2017, http://time.com/4558113/jakarta-blasphemyprotest-basuki/. 17. See ‘Indonesia’s Vice-President Jusuf Kalla criticises neighbours for grumbling about haze,’ The Straits Times, March 5, 2015, accessed September 16, 2018, http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesias-vice-presidentjusuf-kalla-criticises-neighbours-for-grumbling-about-haze. 18. See Marcus Cheng Chye Tan, ‘Performative Silence: Race, Riot and the End of Multiculturalism,’ Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies 1, no. 1 (2016): 9–22. 19. See Charlene Rajendran’s chapter ‘Intervention, Openness and Ownership: Interview with Ong Keng Sen on Festival Dramaturgy’ in this book for more of Ong’s views on the Singapore arts scene and state intervention. See also Akshita Nanda, ‘Ong Keng Sen disappointed after 4 years as Arts Fest director,’ The Straits Times, 12 September 2017, accessed September 18, 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/director-leavesdisenchanted. 20. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London and New York: Verso, 1991), 3. 21. D.G.E.  Hall, A History of Southeast Asia (4th Edition) (London: The Macmillan Press, 1981), 5. 22. Steven Vertovec, ‘Super-diversity and its Implications,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30, no. 6 (2007): 1024. Although Vertovec’s consideration of the contemporary condition in Britain is distinguished by ‘a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, mul­ tiple-­ origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically ­ differentiated

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and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over the last decade,’ which has resulted in a new form of socio-political and cultural complexity previously not encountered, Southeast Asia has always been, arguably, a region of super-diversity given its pre-colonial, colonial, migrant and maritime histories; transnational and neoliberal trade and business practices adopted by individual Southeast Asian states today have further cemented the region’s super-diverse identity. 23. Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, Vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 6. 24. Marco Cuevas-Hewitt, ‘Sketching Towards an Archipelagic Poetics of Postcolonial Belonging,’ Budhi 1 (2007): 239–246, 244. 25. China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian nations Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei, all of whom have laid claims to various islands, or parts of them. 26. Paul Carter, Decolonising Governance: Archipelagic Thinking (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), n.p. 27. Jonathan Pugh, ‘Island Movements: Thinking with the Archipelago,’ Island Studies Journal 8, no. 1 (2013): 11. 28. Indonesia and the Philippines are distinctly archipelagic nations but Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei can also be considered as such, given Singapore is an island state; Brunei occupies part of Borneo and Malaysia is both Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysia Timur (Sabah Sarawak, Labuan). 29. Farish Noor, ‘The Wheres and Whys of Southeast Asia: Art and Performance in the Locating of Southeast Asia Today,’ 277. 30. Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 3. 31. Amitav Acharya, ‘Imagined Proximities: The Making and Unmaking of Southeast Asia as a Region,’ Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 27, no. 1 (1999): 55. 32. Christopher Roberts, ‘Region and Identity: The Many Faces of Southeast Asia,’ Asian Politics and Policy 3, no. 3 (2011): 365–382. 33. See Kathy Foley, ‘Founders of the Field: South and Southeast Asia Introduction,’ Asian Theatre Journal 28, no. 2 (2011): 437–442. We include here some of the major works of the field: Beryl de Zoete and Walter Spies, Dance and Drama in Bali (London: Faber and Faber, 1938); Tyra de Kleen’s Wayang (Javanese Theatre) (Stockholm: Ethnological Museum of Sweden, 1947); Jaap Kunst, Music in Java: Its History, Its Theory, and Its Technique (The Hauge: Martinus Nijhoof, 1949); A.C. Scott, Theatre in Asia (New York: Macmillan, 1972); James Brandon’s Theatre in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967) and On Thrones of Gold: Three Javanese Shadow Plays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970); Fredrik deBoer and I Made Bandem, Kaja and Kelod, Balinese Dance in Transition (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford

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University Press, 1981) later revised in 1995 as Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod. Even more recent scholarship has tended to consider Southeast Asian theatre as an anthropological excavation of what is ‘traditional.’ Some of these include Jukka O. Miettinen, Classical Dance and Theatre in South-East Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Mattani Mojdara, Dance, Drama and Theatre in Thailand (Centre for East Asian Studies for UNEST, the Toyo Bunko, 1993); Tan Sooi Beng, Bangsawan: a Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera (Oxford University Press, 1993); Andrew N.  Weintraub, Power Plays: Wayang Golek Puppet Theater of West Java (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004); John Emigh, Masked Performance: The Play of Self and Other in Ritual and Theatre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). Among the most significant anthologies of Southeast Asian theatre are James R. Brandon’s Theatre in Southeast Asia (1967); Chua Soo Pong’s (ed.), Traditional Theatre in Southeast Asia (Singapore: UniPress for SPAFA, 1995); Ghulam-Sarwar Yusoff’s Dictionary of Traditional South East Asian Theatre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 34. Catherine Diamond, Communities of Imagination (Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012), 4. 35. Krishen Jit, ‘A Survey of Modern Southeast Asian Drama’ first published in Tenggara: Journal of Southeast Asian Literature, 1989, republished in Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, ed. Kathy Rowland (Contemporary Asian Arts Centre: Singapore, 2003), 34–45. 36. C. J. W.-L. Wee, ‘Historicity and the Contemporary Theatre of Kuo Pao Kun and Krishen Jit,’ Southeast Asian Review of English (SARE) 55, no. 1 (2018): 2–3. 37. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 2. 38. Eugene Van Erven, The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 34. 39. Kenneth Paul Tan, ‘Forum Theater in Singapore: Resistance, Containment, and Commodification in an Advanced Industrial Society.’ Positions 21, no. 1 (2013): 204. 40. Wee, ‘Historicity and the Contemporary Theatre of Kuo Pao Kun and Krishen Jit,’ 353. 41. Matthew Isaac Cohen. ‘Introduction: Global Encounters in Southeast Asian Performing Arts,’ Asian Theatre Journal 31, no. 2 (2014): 354. 42. Cohen, ‘Global Encounters,’ 356. 43. Giorgio Agamben, Nudities, trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 12. 44. Agamben, Nudities, 13. 45. Agamben, Nudities, 15. 46. Maria Shevtsova, ‘Political Theatre in Europe: East to West, 2007–2014,’ New Theatre Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2016): 142.

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47. Shetsova, ‘Political Theatre in Europe,’ 15. 48. Apter, 238. 49. Akshita Nanda, ‘IMDA denies rating to two shows in 2017 M1 Fringe Festival for “excessive nudity,”’ The Straits Times, November 25, 2016, accessed 1 July 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/ imda-denies-rating-to-two-shows-in-2017-m1-fringe-festival-for-excessive-nudity. 50. Eric Bentley, ‘Writing for a Political Theatre,’ PAJ 112 (2016): 42. 51. Richard Barber and Pongjit Sapakhun, ‘A Transformative Theatre of Dialogue: The Makhampom Theatre Group’s Negotiation of Thailand’s Likay (Theatre) State,’ 166. 52. Karen Flores, ‘New PETA musical tackles martial law, EJK,’ ABS-CBN News, August 24, 2017, accessed December 12, 2018, https://news.abscbn.com/life/08/23/17/new-peta-musical-tackles-martial-law-ejk. 53. See Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak,’ in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1988), 271–316. 54. Lynette Hunter, ‘Introduction,’ in Performance, Politics and Activism, eds. Peter Lichtenfels and John Rouse (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1. 55. Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear, ‘Introduction,’ in International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice, eds. Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear (London and New  York: Routledge, 2013), 8. Emphasis in original. 56. Edkins and Kear, International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice’ 8. 57. Janelle Reinelt and Shirin M.  Rai, ‘Introduction,’ in The Grammar of Politics and Performance, eds. Shirin M. Rai and Janelle Reinelt (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 4. 58. Reinelt and Rai, The Grammar of Politics and Performance, 2. 59. Baz Kershaw, The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (London, New York: Routledge, 1992), 1. 60. Joe Kelleher, Theatre and Politics (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 59. 61. Kelleher, Theatre and Politics, 29. 62. Kelleher, Theatre and Politics, 54. 63. Avraham Oz, ‘Introduction: Performance As Sepulchre And Mousetrap: Global Encoding, Local Deciphering,’ in Political Performances: Theory and Practice, eds. Susan C. Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, Avraham Oz and E.J. Westlake (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009), 20. 64. Peter Handke, ‘Street-Theater and Theater-Theater,’ in Essays on German Theatre, trans. Joel Agee, ed. Margaret Herzfeld-Sander (New York: Continuum, 1985), 313.

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65. Marissia Fragkou, Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility (London: Methuen Drama, 2019), 2. 66. Butler, Frames of War, 3. 67. Fragkou, Ecologies of Precarity, 10. 68. Hunter, ‘Introduction,’ 4. 69. Hunter, ‘Introduction,’ 3. 70. Reinelt and Rai, The Grammar of Politics and Performance, 10. 71. ‘Bumiputera’ is a Malay word that is used to describe the indigenous peoples of the Malay archipelago and other Southeast Asian countries; it means ‘son of the land.’ As a (controversial) political policy, it was implemented in Malaysia in 1970 to offer greater opportunities and affirmative action for bumiputeras in education and public office and has clearly been regarded as a policy that advances discrimination and racism. 72. ‘ASEAN Motto,’ Association of Southeast Asian Nations, accessed September 19, 2018, https://asean.org/asean/about-asean/asean-motto/. 73. Reinelt and Rai, The Grammar of Politics and Performance, 9. 74. Reinelt and Rai, The Grammar of Politics and Performance, 14. 75. Nicholas Ridout, Theatre and Ethics (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 54. 76. Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre (London: Routledge, 2006), 185. Original emphasis. 77. Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, 186. 78. Nelly Richard, ‘Fugitive Identities and Dissenting Code-Systems: Women Artists During the Military Dictatorship in Chile,’ in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, eds. Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 415.

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Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. London and New York: Continuum. Bentley, Eric. 2016. Writing for a Political Theatre. PAJ 112: 39–52. Butler, Judith. 2009. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable. London: Verso. Carter, Paul. 2019. Decolonising Governance: Archipelagic Thinking. Abingdon: Routledge. Causey, Matthew and Fintan Walsh, eds. 2013. Performance, Identity, and the Neo-Political Subject. Edited by Matthew Causey and Fintan Walsh, 1–17. New York: Routledge. Cohen, Matthew Isaac. 2014. Introduction: Global Encounters in Southeast Asian Performing Arts. Asian Theatre Journal 31 (2): 353–368. Collini, Stefan. 2014. On Variousness, and on Persuasion. New Left Review 27: 65–97. Cuevas-Hewitt, Marco. 2007. Sketching Towards an Archipelagic Poetics of Postcolonial Belonging. Budhi 1: 239–246. Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. In Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass, 351–370. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Diamond, Catherine. 2012. Communities of Imagination. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press. Diamond, Elin, Denise Varney, and Candice Amich, eds. 2017. Feminist and Affect in Neoliberal Times. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Edkins, Jenny, and Adrian Kear. 2013. Introduction. In International Politics and Performance: Critical Aesthetics and Creative Practice, ed. Jenny Edkins and Adrian Kear, 1–15. London and New York: Routledge. Flores, Karen. 2017. New PETA Musical Tackles Martial Law, EJK. ABS-CBN News, August 24. Accessed December 12, 2018. https://news.abs-cbn.com/ life/08/23/17/new-peta-musical-tackles-martial-law-ejk. Foley, Kathy. 2011. Founders of the Field: South and Southeast Asia Introduction. Asian Theatre Journal 28 (2): 437–442. Fragkou, Marissia. 2019. Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility. London: Methuen Drama. Hall, D.G.E. 1981. A History of Southeast Asia. 4th ed. London: The Macmillan Press. Handke, Peter. 1985. Street-Theater and Theater-Theater. In Essays on German Theatre. Edited by Margaret Herzfeld-Sander and translated by Joel Agee, 311–315. New York: Continuum. Harvie, Jen. 2013. Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Holderness, Graham. 1992. Introduction. In The Politics of Theatre and Drama, ed. Graham Holderness, 1–17. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hunter, Lynette. 2013. Introduction. In Performance, Politics and Activism, ed. Peter Lichtenfels and John Rouse, 1–14. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Pugh, Jonathan. 2013. Island Movements: Thinking with the Archipelago. Island Studies Journal 8 (1): 9–24. Rancière, Jacques. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Translated by S. Corcoran. London: Continuum. Read, Alan. 2007. Theatre, Intimacy and Engagement: The Last Human Venue. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Reid, Anthony. 1988. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680. Vol. 1. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Richard, Nelly. 2007. Artists During the Military Dictatorship in Chile. In WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, ed. Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark, 414–427. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ridout, Nicholas. 2009. Theatre and Ethics. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Roberts, Christopher. 2011. Region and Identity: The Many Faces of Southeast Asia. Asian Politics and Policy 3 (3): 365–382. Shevtsova, Maria. 2016. Political Theatre in Europe: East to West, 2007–2014. New Theatre Quarterly 32 (2): 142–156. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorti. 1988. Can the Subaltern Speak. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–316. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Strauss, Julia C., and Donal B. Cruise O’Brien, eds. 2007. Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Tan, Kenneth Paul. 2013. Forum Theater in Singapore: Resistance, Containment, and Commodification in an Advanced Industrial Society. Positions 21 (1): 189–221. Tan, Marcus Cheng Chye. 2016. Performative Silence: Race, Riot and the End of Multiculturalism. Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies 1 (1): 9–22. Van Erven, Eugene. 1992. The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. Super-diversity and Its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–1054. C.  J. W.-L, Wee. 2018. Historicity and the Contemporary Theatre of Kuo Pao Kun and Krishen Jit. Southeast Asian Review of English (SARE) 55 (1): 1–20. Westlake, E.J. 2009. Mapping Political Performances: A Note on the Structure of the Anthology. In Political Performances Theory and Practice, ed. Susan C.  Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, Avraham Oz, and E.J.  Westlake, 7–15. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi. Wickstrom, Maurya. 2012. Performance in the Blockades of Neoliberalism: Thinking the Political Anew. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 2

‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise’: Performing a Pan-ASEAN Archipelagic Identity at Age 50 William Peterson and Reagan Romero Maiquez

Amidst China’s ascent as the world’s second largest economy and Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, Southeast Asian economies as a collective block have become increasingly important in recent years not only within the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), but also as key global trading partners. By 2025, all independent nations of Southeast Asia apart from Timor Leste plan to constitute an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). With a combined 662 million people and a $2.6T economy, AEC will compete against regions like the European Union, East Asia, Australasia, and countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China.1 This AEC builds on years of trade and cooperation, including annual ASEAN summits since 1976.2 A meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 2015 formalised a 2025 AEC blueprint,

W. Peterson Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia e-mail: [email protected] R. R. Maiquez (*) Philippine Studies Network in Australia, Melbourne, VIC, Australia © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_2

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which focuses on increasing the exchange of human resources, trade, and tourism within this region. In 2017, the Philippines hosted the leadership of ASEAN, which culminated in a summit in Manila from November 12 to 14.3 Events and performances in the gathering provide a fascinating case study into the ways in which theatre and performance in the service of politics can serve the needs of a host government while reflecting an aspirational ASEAN identity, one rooted in a mythic past and reflective of its archipelagic nature as a geopolitical, economic, and historical construct. In addition to the familiar spectacles of power associated with the public performance of diplomacy at such events, the summit also featured complex theatrical performances televised to audiences in the Philippines and subsequently distributed via Internet sites associated with the government of Philippines President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. The ‘second life’ of these performances domestically served to promote the work of the country’s controversial president and underline the leading role of the country in articulating and performing a group identity for ASEAN member nations: the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The summit also provided President Duterte an opportunity to assert himself on the regional and global stage as ASEAN nations were joined by regional partners China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, and leaders of the nations with which ASEAN has ‘Dialogue Relations’: Japan, Canada, Russia, China, India, New Zealand, and Australia. As 2017 marked the organisation’s 50th anniversary, the Manila meeting also served as a kind of ASEAN birthday party, offering an additional reason for the host nation to use live performances to set out both its aspirational identity and that of ASEAN nations through a series of spectacles that culminated in the event’s closing show: ‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise.’ We will argue that in addition to the public performance of diplomacy, the ASEAN spectacle also performed political and imagined pan-ASEAN identities through staged events that mobilised a vast team of human resources ostensibly in service of ASEAN, while very much aligned with promoting President Duterte’s government. Though the official ‘work’ of the meeting was, as ever, to ratify policy statements that had been previously crafted by lower-level functionaries, the publicly disseminated work of the event domestically celebrated the cultural might of the Philippines as a founding member of ASEAN and a lodestone in the bright firmament of this region’s collection of cultures united under the official motto, ‘One

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Identity, One Vision, One Community.’ The way in which we view politics as theatre in this analysis is largely drawn from American political scientist David Apter’s framework which considers how the ‘theatrical aspects of politics shape consciousness’ in concrete ways through techniques such as display, mimesis, metaphor, and manipulation that ultimately generate ‘that form of power we can call consciousness.’4 Apter’s consideration of how the ‘social text’ connects with political power through ‘the way people come to understand events and circumstances’5 will help us unpack specific moments from key contemporary performances associated with the summit that continue to find new audiences online. Furthermore, the summit’s contemporary performances described and analysed below demonstrate how a pan-ASEAN identity and politics were imagined and performed in ways that generate a virtual, coherent, regional archipelago where cultural flows, real and imagined, link states and geographical locations. Southeast Asia itself is both a postcolonial invention and an intervention of previous imperial forces, and the current neoliberal and late-capitalist geopolitical powers. With the exemption of Thailand, modern nation states of the region have all been colonised by European, Japanese, and American imperialist nation states. Because participants in the first of the final two full days of the ASEAN Summit in Manila included not only ASEAN member nations, but developed countries in the East Asian region (China, Japan, Korea), the Pacific (Australia, New Zealand), and the United States, as a diplomatic event, the event also reflected the region’s long history of colonialism and neocolonialism as it seeks internal unity through the ‘strength in diversity’ trope. From a critical examination of the ASEAN Manila Summit as a highly theatrical event that featured musical and dance drama framed by performances of politics as theatre, we argue that an archipelagic identity subjects and mobilises the production of events, programmes, and performances and ultimately a pan-ASEAN identity. We posit that this comes as an attempt to unify a highly diverse and fragmented region through the discourses and acts witnessed in the summit. The summit is a crucial annual event in terms of unifying a place constructed by ‘politics,’ global flows of trades, people, and culture, and historical development, marked by over 50 years of ASEAN’s goal for an economic and cultural integration. Parallel to this, an archipelago is shaped by both the actual movement and flow of people, culture, geo-climactic forces and narrative-­ discourses that justify coherence amidst insular, geographic, cultural, linguistic, and oceanic fragmentations. Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined

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communities’ cites Southeast Asian examples, most notably the two largest and populous archipelagos Indonesia and the Philippines, in examining the creation of modern and postcolonial nation states.6 More than this, Southeast Asia, as a geographic region is usually categorised in its insular/ peninsular landmass as an extension of the Asian continent, extending further to Island Southeast Asia as a continuity of territories bordering the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Australasia. Yet the reality is that fully half of the ten-member ASEAN nations (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei) are archipelagic in that they are constituted by a collection of far-flung islands (the Philippines, Indonesia); occupy a single island (Singapore); occupy a portion of an island (Brunei); or are both part of peninsular Southeast Asia and part of an island with shared sovereignty (Malaysia). Underpinning the archipelagic nature of the region is its long history of internal maritime trade along its coasts dating back to the Ming Dynasty, and continuing through the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British, and American colonisation and contestation of Asia-Pacific. Thus, even those remaining ASEAN nations that are not themselves archipelagic as geographic formations operate as though they were, particularly in today’s increasingly integrated ASEAN and containerised global shipping network. A further understanding of this frame lies within island, Caribbean, and archipelagic studies, including Elizabeth DeLoughery’s archipelagraphy that is ‘a historiography that considers chains of islands in fluctuating relationship to their surrounding seas, islands, and continents.’7 Similarly, and in ways that can be applied to ASEAN as an imagined and geopolitical formation, Benitez-Rojo asserts that ‘[t]he culture of archipelagos is not terrestrial, as are almost all cultures: it is fluvial and marine.’8 Like a ‘rhizomatic’ network that functions according to the movement and flows of people, culture, information, and things within an interconnected system and places, an archipelago is created by no less than the complex formation of meaning from the connections and disconnections, mobility and immobility, and flow between islands, borders, and through fluid, oceanic forces.9 It is with this archipelagic framing that we analyse contemporary performances in this chapter that were captured by digital recording and are currently circulating online and viewable by a global audience. Live witnessing was not possible as attendance at most of the events was specifically limited to members of the diplomatic corps and Manila’s political and social elites. On the other hand, video footage of the post-dinner entertainment prior to the formal opening, the cultural show at the formal

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opening on the second day, and the closing ceremony circulated by the Office of the President make clear that the executive branch of the Philippine government was well aware of how favourably this explosion of Filipino artistic excellence would be seen by those experiencing the event online. Through our examination below, events connected with the summit also reflect what David Apter calls a ‘theatre of virility,’10 where ‘[t]he spectacular is a form of captivation,’11 one that continues into the future through online platforms, connecting audiences across time and space.

Dazzling Dinner Display The first of the three major public performances associated with the summit was the official welcome dinner on November 12, 2017, at the country’s largest convention centre, situated near Ninoy Aquino International Airport and the enormous ‘Mall of Asia’ along Manila Bay. It was extraordinary for several reasons, not only for who was on the guest list, but for its glittering, all-star line-up of Filipino performers12 singing and dancing in a spectacle brought to life by four of the country’s most accomplished theatre artists and designers.13 The overall event featured live performance in service of the state as well as what Apter suggests is ‘politics as theatre’ set in a public space, one carefully transformed by a design team so that it constitutes what he calls ‘the semiotic ground that contributes to the authority’ of the performance itself.14 The event, comprising the post-­dinner entertainment, a staged entry of dignitaries into the venue, and a formal reception by President Duterte and his common-law partner Cielito ‘Honeylet’ Avanceña, remains widely available to the public through multiple websites connected to the Office of the President of the Philippines. These videos, on sites with names such as the ‘Duterte News Report,’15 are part of a larger series of videos variously showing Duterte at public and semi-public events that present potent displays of his power. In this manner, the future audience for these Duterte-themed events extends beyond the domestic television audience through presidentially curated online media. Featured ‘reports’ on these websites show Duterte as a tough-talking, virile man of action, famous internationally for his expletive-laden rants against those he regards as enemies, and popular locally for not just his words, but for his actions in his war against drugs, allowing enforcers to take the law into their own hands as they publicly ‘execute’ suspected drug dealers and users. In this respect he has assumed the role of what Apter terms the ‘purifying redeemer’16 in a national drama, one in which he is

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consistently represented as the protagonist in a ‘theatre of virility’ much as Russian President Vladimir Putin has created a similar image for himself as national redeemer, famously photographed riding bare-chested on a horse. A ‘report’ on the ASEAN dinner on one of the many Duterte websites features the first public encounter between the president and another ‘purifying redeemer,’ US President Donald Trump, who strides purposefully down a red carpet towards President Duterte and his partner, Avanceña.17 Wearing a custom-tailored, cream-coloured barong tagalog, the formal attire for men in the Philippines, Trump is greeted by the First Lady, who wears an elegant and shapely Filipiniana dress of silver-blue, with the so-called butterfly wings or terno which famously adorned the shoulders of former First Lady Imelda Marcos. Duterte appears with the top button of his barong tagalog unbuttoned and collar splayed open, which has become a signature feature of his sartorial presentation, even though it alters the design and shape of an iconic garment. Trump, like other foreign heads of state at this opening event, assumes the Filipino national garment and thus to a domestic audience watching on television, or later on video, he appears to have adopted a local custom thereby placing Duterte and Trump on an equal playing field visually (Fig. 2.1).

Fig. 2.1  American President Donald Trump wearing the barong tagalog, traditional Filipino men’s attire, and posing with the ‘first couple of the Philippine State’ Cielito ‘Honeylet’ Avanceña and Philippine President Duterte at the Manila Summit Dinner Reception on November 12, 2017, at the SMX Convention Center. (Photo: YouTube, Rappler. ‘WATCH: Nov. 12, 31st ASEAN Summit.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbanTJhOIE)

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The historical link between the United States and the Philippines, one in which the far-flung archipelago obtains legitimacy through American validation, is underscored by comments responding positively to the pairing of the two men in the video. One such comment exclaims: ‘President Trump you look very gorgeous wearing our national Pilipino Barong Tagalog. Good luck and God bless you always!’18 Yet another demonstrates how this ‘news’ has effectively reached its target audience: ‘The international biased fake media didn’t report this … alams na (now we know).’19 Viewer comments also reflect how for many Filipinos the country serves as an archipelagic extension of American culture, and only secondarily linked to ASEAN.  Roberts and Stephens define ‘archipelagic Americas’ as both the inclusion and extension of the United States’ imperial archipelago so that the term designates islands that have been America-­ affiliated and America-constituting in ways that precede and exceed traditional narratives of US imperialism and US governmentality.20 Indeed, the hosting of the Philippines as the domestic goddess for this party and region enacts how important the country is as an archipelagic geography, a former American colony, while remaining a neocolonial state that extends the reach of the American empire to the ASEAN region and the Asia-Pacific. The dinnertime entertainment is posted in its entirety for viewing on a Duterte website under the banner ‘PH News Unfiltered,’ with the official designation ‘Presidential Communications’ appearing in the lower right corner of the screen.21 The message is that this is a ‘trusted source,’ though presumably this is the same or similar to professionally shot footage domestic viewers would have seen on television. Billed as a ‘Live Musical,’ the website proclaims the content as Grabe ang Galing or ‘seriously good,’ and is followed by viewer comments praising the performances. The most popular comment displayed at the top of the feed points to the larger sociopolitical ends served by this dazzling display of domestic talent: ‘This is our talented young Filipino youth, That’s why PRRD [President Rodrigo Roa Duterte] hate so much drug coz he would not allow destroy the brain of our youth they are our future. God bless PRRD Administration. God bless Asean Leaders. God bless Philippines.’22 The viewer here is responding to the ubiquity of young people featured in the presentation, with youth consistently foregrounded in performances over the next two days. According to Nestor Jardin who was in charge of all ASEAN ­performance events, the many youthful performers suggests we ‘are all about the future’ and that ‘[t]his means innovative, cutting-edge, with a focus on developments on Philippine arts and culture.’23 Of the estimated

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600 performers in the evening show, the vast majority were young people, with many in their early teens, virtually all of whom would not have been paid for their participation.24 Kicking off the evening entertainment was the most ubiquitous of Filipino musical institutions, the marching band, led by baton-twirling majorettes. American colonisation brought the marching band tradition to the country at a time when the grand marches of John Philip Sousa were hugely popular in the United States, with Filipinos quickly becoming acknowledged masters of the form. In a nod to the Manila 1970s music scene when the country was under Martial Law, the first third of the programme consisted of a medley riffing from the breezy rock song ‘Manila,’ which celebrates the city’s charms, made famous by the iconic Filipino band Hotdog. But in this presentation, the lyrics, which speak from the position of a homesick overseas worker or expatriated Filipino, are absent, with only the refrain, which punctuates the word ‘Manila’ on continual repeat by a trio of young female singers. The Manila medley incorporates the virtuosic violin playing of Joseph Bryan Cimafranca and the impressive cello playing of nine-year-old Damodar Das Castillo, known for his appearance on the television series Little Big Shots, the Filipino version of an American show created by Ellen Degeneres which features talented kids between the ages of 3 and 13. The next section, complex in its fusion of different dance forms, incorporates Spanish-inflected La Jota, classical ballet, tap, swing, hip-hop, and modern dance with the onstage band moving seamlessly between musical styles. With the exception of the graceful and energetic fusion dance La Jota Manileña, which involves the use of castanets and exotic-looking hats for the men, all are culturally imported forms. Hip-hop, which has been widely adapted by artists rapping in the Tagalog language, was presented with pre-recorded North American and Chicano voices providing the penultimate sequence, followed by a number which unites all diverse dance troupes. The final section of the entertainment brought together the country’s most celebrated singers—child stars Darren Espanto, Elha Nympha, and Sam Shoaf, all featured on The Voice Kids (the Philippines), big-voiced Jed Madela, and two of the current reigning super-divas of the Philippines, Lani Misalucha and Jonna Viray—in a musical medley arranged by the highly acclaimed Filipino composer Danny Tan. Combining almost exclusively American songs as diverse as ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, and Josh Groban’s ‘You Raise Me Up,’ the musical journey

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moved dizzyingly upward as it concluded with the rousing refrain from ‘Climb Every Mountain.’ The final line from this song, ‘Follow every rainbow, till you find your dreams,’ was virtually guaranteed to bring everyone present out of their chairs and up on their feet, which is exactly what it did. Monino Duque, the show’s director, was reported in the press as suggesting that the songs chosen for this number ‘inspire and celebrate the human spirit. [These were] Forward-looking songs of hope that celebrate victory.’25 Indeed, in the footage appearing on two Duterte online networks, Trump captures the camera’s eye in a rapturous curtain call, standing next to Duterte, wildly clapping, at one point raising both fists in the air as if victory had been achieved as he was clearly impressed by the musical triumph of America’s former colonial subjects. At this moment the spectacular as ‘a form of captivation’26 is realised. Here the Philippines puts on a show that in form and content largely follows that of an American music and dance variety show, validated by the enthusiastic response of an American president who famously has great difficulty finding artists willing to perform at official White House functions. What remains of the performances for online viewers is the apparent connection between two strongmen, the leaders of the Philippines and the United States, seated next to one another throughout the dinner, while Duterte’s political power is enhanced through the marshalling and spectacular display of enormous domestic cultural resources to entertain not just ASEAN, but the American president, and ultimately a regional and global audience. But it was President Duterte’s rendition of the popular Tagalog love song, ‘Ikaw’ (You), purportedly ‘upon the orders’ of President Trump, immediately following the dinner that garnered the most international press attention. According to Jardin, Pilita Corrales, a 78-year old, full-­ voiced diva, known locally as ‘Asia’s Queen of Songs,’ had been personally invited by Duterte to sing after dinner as a prelude to the main show.27 In reporting the event, The Guardian story appeared under the headline ‘Philippines’ Duterte sings love song for Trump: “You are the light,”’28 providing a video clip of the song with the translated lyrics, ‘You are the light in my world, a half of this heart is mine.’ Viewing a more extended version of the song, however,29 it appears that Duterte joined in the singing near the end of the song using the microphone on the table at which he had been seated, a position far removed from the stage. Duterte’s ­comment that he sang ‘upon the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States’ evoked widespread laughter, though there is nothing captured in the clip to suggest he received such a command.30

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It bears noting that Duterte was merely doing what Filipino politicians have long done at political rallies, civic or government functions that publicly celebrate an achievement. The Philippines has a long history of politicians picking up the microphone and crooning popular songs, even when, as is the case with Duterte, they lack the vocal prowess of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, famous for bursting into song at public events and forever associated with her favourite song, Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way.’ As Peterson has observed in his consideration of the way music functions at Filipino political campaign rallies, songs serve to connect individuals to a larger sense of nationhood and national belonging, a collectivity known as bayan, a shared consciousness that is felt rather than something that is always capable of being externally recognised. Bayan is created through joint activities that are rooted in performance, and it is in the repetition of such activities, often with song as the centrepiece, that the self in relation to others is understood and experienced in the Philippines.31 Thus, the entire evening’s event in many ways could not have been more Filipino in terms of its structure and larger sociopolitical function, even as the music and dance choices might have seemed utterly American to most of the attending ASEAN delegates. What we have described above can also be viewed as a Trump-Duterte Strongman performance of power before ASEAN and assembled world leaders, while the light but dazzling spectacle offered on a single night continues to circulate, thus reaching and linking an audience beyond the borders of Southeast Asia. In this sense, the twin performances of political theatre and theatre in service of politics demonstrate the might of an archipelagic network between the Philippines and the United States, one in which the regional bloc of ASEAN is to an extent linked to an American Archipelago in Southeast Asia, with the Philippines as the lynchpin. At the current moment, one in which China and the United States engage in a power play over dominance in the Asia-Pacific region, with China clearly advancing its interests more successfully than the United States in recent years. Not only ASEAN nations, but also the other regional powers, notably Japan, Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand, are bound up in this larger political and economic drama framed by the world’s two dominant superpowers. Whether it be territorial disputes such as those that have arisen in the so-called Spratly Islands off the coast of Philippines but claimed by China, China’s expansionist economic policies reflected in its recent Belt and Road initiative, or the rise of an increasingly authoritarian nationalism within the region and globally, ASEAN, in spite of its claims to unity, is increasingly

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porous and linked by historical and current geopolitics. Perhaps this is why, as we shall see in the next two sections, the need to create, reinforce, and celebrate unity through theatrical spectacles is more essential than ever.

The Parade of National Artists Evoking the ASEAN Spirit The next morning, the first official day of the summit began not at the Convention Center where the ‘work’ of the summit was later to take place, but at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Here the 19 principal international dignitaries along with their negotiating teams gathered inside the main theatre, the Tanghalang Nicanor Abellardo, for a two-part spectacle of the Opening Ceremonies that departed from the American-inflected routines of the previous evening.32 The seating arrangement, which had the heads of state seated in large white arm chairs at the edge of the stage, placed Duterte in the centre, flanked by Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, with the three routinely appearing together in cutaway reaction shots broadcast live and later through online content. A vast children’s chorus opened the event with ‘The ASEAN Way,’ a Soviet-style, martial-like hymn to regional unity with predictable, awkward English-language lyrics,33 created by a Thai team in a 2008 competition. This was followed by ‘ASEAN Spirit,’ a new song commissioned by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) to commemorate the nation’s presidency of ASEAN.34 The song, which marshalled the artistic labour of two highly acclaimed artists, National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario and renowned composer Josefino ‘Chino’ Toledo, invoked ASEAN unity through heavenly guidance: ASEAN Spirit free us From the tyranny of ignorance Release us, release us From the shackles of intolerance And help us, and help us Divine in united governance.

Given Duterte’s authoritarian tendencies, coupled with the retreat of democracy and stifling of political opposition throughout much of Southeast Asia—a tendency accelerated after the election of US President Trump—ASEAN leaders at the summit such as Duterte, Cambodia’s Hun

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Sen, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, and Thailand’s Prayuth Chan-ocha seem to be encouraging both the ‘tyranny of ignorance’ and ‘the shackles of intolerance.’ As with the previous evening’s performance, many of the country’s most prominent artists with long careers in the public eye were recruited to devise and deliver the entertainment, something deeply troubling as this suggests that the public value of art is largely its ability to glorify the state. The designation of ‘National Artist,’ introduced in 1972 during the Marcos years, while never totally free of politics, risks becoming increasingly politicised if such artists, upon achieving what is essentially a career achievement award, are placed directly in the service of the Office of the President. Following Duterte’s brief opening remarks, the performance programme continued, introduced by an unseen master of ceremonies, a male voice with a distinctively American accent accompanied by an enthusiastic Hollywood style of delivery. Asserting that ‘We are connected by our common aspirations!’ marimba music suddenly began and three young female dancers in tights with flowing, brightly coloured sashes around their waists floated gracefully onto the stage.35 They were joined by other young dancers, similarly attired, in a reprise of Magkaugnay, a contemporary dance piece by choreographer Agnes Locsin, another highly acclaimed Filipino artist with a significant body of work. Associated with the development of a ‘neo-ethnic’ dance movement vocabulary, Locsin’s choreography is recognisable for its reliance on indigenous dances, particularly through her stylised recreations of actions connected with village life and interactions with the natural world. In the repetition and further aestheticisation of such movements, her choreography imbues the dances with an abstract quality, giving them a second life, reconceived as contemporary forms. For those unfamiliar with Locsin’s work, the presentation would have been pleasant, colourful, and generically ethnic, an experience enhanced by the punctuated rhythms of the neo-ethnic band providing a World Music-­inflected sound and vocal track. Locsin’s choreography reflects a long tradition of engagement by largely Manila-based artists with regional and particularly indigenous dance forms, as well as a practice of reinventing and repackaging those forms for contemporary audiences, most famously exported since the late 1950s by the flagship Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company. This intraculturalism through dance has, over the last 50 years, become an important international marker of Filipino cultural identity, which here is placed in the service of the state in ways that suggest a kind of generic, imagined regional unity in the pre-modern era.

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Evidently, Locsin’s work offered a repackaging of traditional dance in an accessible style, making the second segment of the three-part programme work as a combination of musical theatre and ballet in line with the larger, pan-ASEAN agenda. Here again the artistic work of the country’s most senior, acclaimed artists was showcased, this time with a dance sequence from the 1980 pop ballet musical The Rama Hari, based on the Indian epic The Ramayana, as choreographed by Ballet Philippines founder Alice Reyes, with lyrics by fellow National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera and music by acclaimed composer Ryan Cayabyab. The American-accented voice-over introduced the work, setting out its pan-­ ASEAN significance: ‘The epic narrative Ramayana is a shared heritage of all ASEAN cultures, the story of a just, strong, and virtuous leader in the person of Rama, and his quest for solidarity, harmony, and peace, symbolising the region’s shared goals and aspirations,’ namely the use of Ramayana.36 The problem with offering The Ramayana as a mythologising epic underpinning the entire region’s archipelagic identity is that this supposed unity is a false narrative. While the Hindu epic has spiritual, religious, and cultural significance expressed in a range of traditional and court dance-drama forms in Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, and Malaysia, it did not circulate in any significant manner throughout the Philippines prior to the age of modern air travel, it has no cultural position in Vietnam, nor is it reflected in any deep, historical way in Singapore outside the minority Indian community. Yet artists seeking a pan-ASEAN story and mode of representation have long held on to the notion of The Ramayana as the great unifier of the region’s cultures. Ironically, and in spite of its lack of an organic or historical connection with the Philippines, there is a significant history of Filipino artists taking the lead in Ramayana performance projects across ASEAN.37 The excerpt performed from The Ramayana, entitled Awit ng Pagsinta, or ‘Song of Endearment,’ follows more closely the musical conventions of mid-century American musical theatre made famous by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein III than indigenous Southeast Asian musical structures, while the separation of the singers from their all-dancing balletic counterparts in the work recalls Agnes De Mille’s famous ‘Dream Ballet’ sequence in the 1943 musical Oklahoma. The scale of the artistic labour was again vast as the Philippines Philharmonic Orchestra joined by dancers from Ballet Philippines restaged a segment of an old chestnut from the repertory, following a song and dance style still largely associated with American culture. Filipinos are rightly proud of their contributions to

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musical theatre internationally, most famously through Lea Salonga, who at age 18 originated the role of Kim in Miss Saigon, initially in London’s West End and then on Broadway. Indeed, Filipinos have a long history of mastery of American musical forms across a wide range of genres, a legacy of American colonisation, but also due to the lengthy musical history of Filipinos working with and adapting Western musical forms going back to the very beginning of its colonisation by Spain. Thus, the Philippines remains perhaps the only country in the region capable of successfully marshalling domestic musical theatre and dance resources to successfully present a pan-ASEAN story using the increasingly international form of musical theatre. The final sequence started with the fiercely energetic and dynamic dancing of young Filipino hip-hop artists, supported by a clever, flexible live musical score. The group was joined by dancers from each ASEAN member nation via a giant video projection at the rear of the stage in which successive groups presented a short sequence taken at public, iconic, national locations. Once again, an American-accented voice-over proclaimed the message of unity: ‘We are one ASEAN, moving as one community, towards the same shared vision, and leading the way are the dynamic youth of the ASEAN. Different steps, different moves, yet moving in synch and in rhythm, towards a dynamic future [sic]. Sama sama, all together!’38 While the use of dance in the service of the well-worn ‘unity in diversity’ trope has a fairly recent history, as previously noted, imported musical forms have long been used to express national themes. The Filipinised version of the Spanish musical theatre form, the Zarzuela, from the earliest years of the twentieth century was used to communicate local content and values, while much the same can be said of Komedya, which, though descended from the Spanish Comedia, is considered by many to be a virtually national performance form. But what we see with the use of hip-hop here in the final sequence is altogether different: Because of the ease with which the form has been able to be taken up in a mediatised age, and also as it requires no external artistic infrastructure, youth around the region have equal access to a form that provides the medium through which the local can be expressed.

‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise’ The theme of the final performance event closing the summit, ‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise,’ possibly speaks to the actual rather than aspirational ways in which the region is coming together. With classical

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strongmen running the Philippines, Cambodia, and Thailand,39 and with increasingly authoritarian governments in place elsewhere in the region, perhaps all that remains are yesterday’s dreams, forever deferred, and empty promises made by strongmen leaders such as Duterte and Trump to whom we find ourselves in obeisance. At this performance, however, Trump, along with other non-ASEAN heads of state, was absent, making this event one that could be pitched more exclusively to ASEAN themes and sensibilities. The director of the closing ceremony, Cultural Centre of the Philippines’ Production and Exhibition Manager Mauro Ariel Yonzon, produced this vaguely futuristic, youth-inspired and energetic, American-­ pop inflected, rather glamorous work, one which according to him was inspired by the images of flight, kites, balloons, and reflected the dreams and hopes of both the Filipino people and the ASEAN region.40 The 30-minute closing programme,41 once again, showcased Filipino talents and ranged from choral renditions, orchestral music, to pop American vocal acts. The spectacle mobilised the sonic resources of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the nation’s most prestigious and well-funded musical group, under the baton of senior conductor Herminigildo Ranera. It serenaded spectators with original Filipino music, including Freddie Aguilar’s classic and much-covered folk-pop song ‘Anak’ (Offspring), a tune recognisable by many Filipinos both in the homeland and diaspora, rendered and ‘mashed-up’ with ‘Sarong Banggi’ (One Night), a Filipino folk song from the Bicol region. After this number, the audience was requested to join in with a young female performer, Alexandra Lagman, and a choir from the city of Iloilo to sing The ASEAN Anthem. The now-familiar American-inflected voice-over narration then explained the overarching narrative behind the musical design and choices of the show, which is about celebrating the achievements of the ASEAN region over the last 50 years while looking towards the future through its large pool of young talents. The voice-talent narrator explained that the first part of the show entitled ‘Visions’ revisited how ASEAN started reaching its dream, ‘a better society and community,’ while the second part, ‘Hopes,’ portrayed the soaring of the region ‘amidst all the din and confusion of the present and towards the future.’ This musical revue, with a touch of pop, hip-hop, reggae, and musical theatre, was entitled ‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise,’ expressed primarily through English-language lyrics, and interpreted by the creative labour of Filipino performers, many in their twenties or teens.42

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While Filipino singers effortlessly sang Asian pop songs with Americanised beats and accents, including an Rock and Ballad (RnB) version of Matisyahu’s ‘One Day’ performed by Bugoy Drilon, and an original piece, ‘While We Are Young,’ by a young Filipino RnB duo Keiko Necessario and Quest, pan-ASEAN and Filipino folkloric sensibilities were infused into other aspects in the performance. In one act, Filipino dancers dressed in Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Burmese, Malaysian, Filipino, Singaporean national costumes performed traditional and modern movements while Alexandra Lagman sang ‘No Sky Too Big,’ an uplifting and musical-­ theatre-­inspired composition originally sung by the Filipina Broadway star Lea Salonga. In ‘Saranggola ni Pepe’ (Pepe’s Kite), colourful paper kites attached to poles, which possess an iconic value in some of the member countries, notably Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, were flown by dancers dressed in rural, farming garb. This was then followed by an original Filipino music medley by nationally famous young Filipino pop artists, during which several circus players performed risky acrobatic manoeuvers through silk trapezes as the singers soared to their highest notes. As Apter observes, ‘political theatre becomes most significant in politically rupturing moments,’ which is to say ‘when it seeks to capture and encapsulate in performance such solemn occasions as the founding of new societies or states, or moments of revolutionary transformation, or redemptive moments.’43 Indeed, this runs parallel to how a mythic narrative of a robust, virile and cohesive ASEAN region now and in the future was theatricalised in a closing salvo, which eventually ended with a chant-­ like rendition of a Filipino indigenous-inspired Itneg song ‘Iddem De Malidda,’44 which was belted out by Bituin Escalante, yet another television singing contest winner. As the powerful vocal delivery of the singer escalated, a melange of Filipino ethnic dancers from the highlands, the lowlands, and pre-colonial animist groups entered the main stage. A dancer dressed in a vibrant bird-like costume and with a bird-puppet contraption attached to his body, known in the Philippine Tagalog folk belief as the magical utopic bird or Ibong Adarna, entered as Escalante’s vocalisation became stronger and higher while a chorus of singers added a dramatic atmosphere to her singing. Also, in this sequence, orchestral music contributed to the flair and flurry as dancers in various Philippine ethnic costumes dazzled with their highly stylised performance. The musical act concluded with a circus-like entry of yet another Adarna bird made of light and colourful materials, one bearing a god-like man wearing a colourful neo-ethnic crown. The dramatic intensity of the song came to a peak

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as the god-like performer landed on the stage and stepped out of his bird-­ like skin, emerging as if from a chrysalis, arms aloft to the heavens much like he were a supernatural conquering hero who had come to save and unify humanity. Overall, the drumming beats and rhythm, the soaring voices, the theatrical spectacle of flight, and the programming of this closing event based on the directorial concept by Filipino creatives put forward a message of creating a stronger ASEAN community. Moreover, it conveys that the leadership of ASEAN through the Philippines and its current leader, Duterte, is a strong one, perhaps closely resembling the climactic scene of the programme. Once again, a virile theatre was marshalled through the performances of young talents and a creative labour force, captivating the audience and interpreting the dreams and collective hopes of the people in this place we call Southeast Asia. The circus-like musical segment invoking pan-ASEAN solidarity was then followed by a section that formally concluded the summit, which featured a speech from President Duterte,45 taking a considerable detour from the spectacular mythologising view on the contemporary, virile, futuristic vision of the region. Not surprisingly, Duterte proclaimed the success of the summit, the gains of bi-/multilateral talks, and pointed to agreements that promised a progressive roadmap for the region, including the ‘historic’ signing of the ‘ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers,’46 important domestically given that the Philippines is ASEAN’s second largest exporter of labour and human resources. In the end, however, it was the vision of ASEAN 2025 integration that he stressed, emphasising the concept of 3Cs, ‘Community, Centrality, and Connectivity.’47 Duterte ended his short speech with a recognition of the next head of state and host of the ASEAN chairmanship and summit, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Lee then proceeded to congratulate the Philippines for hosting the 50th Summit and Duterte’s leadership in this regional bloc. As the next host and chair of ASEAN he then set out his own vision, a region unified by its dreams of becoming an important place for commerce, tourism, education, innovation, integration, and continuous trade between the region and the superpowers of Asia-Pacific, notably China, Japan, and Australia. As he spoke, the camera captured the faces of the other ASEAN leaders, including Aung Sang Suu Kyi whose now iconic traditional Myanmar clothing set her apart from the other male leaders in their dark suits and ties, all appearing attentive and engaged, which had

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not always been the case during the earlier part of the programme. This visual cue is a reminder that the performance of diplomacy was at the heart of this staging of political theatre. Yet for the domestic audience within the Philippines and among Filipinos in the diaspora, the spectacle, both as it was broadcast on television and through its future circulation via YouTube and through links on the official-looking Duterte ‘news’ sources, what was offered in the show was a remarkable, spectacular mobilisation of the creative labour of well over a 1000 individuals in the service of the state, united under what has come to be known as a Philippine Strongman, ‘Tatak,’ or ‘Brand Duterte’ alongside a sustained reinforcement of a unified ASEAN region and pan-ASEAN identity.

Conclusion Fundamentally, the ASEAN Summit in Manila offers and repeatedly strengthens a discourse of unity amidst regional diversity by offering a ‘story of the ASEAN’ as a young (but not too young in a historical sense) place for integration, vitality, and harmony. The ASEAN meetings and performances in Manila in fact build on and are consistent with prior archipelagic tropes imbedded in the overriding official themes for each year, notably: ‘Partnering for a Change, Engaging the World’ (2017); ‘Turning Vision into a Reality for a Dynamic ASEAN Community’ (2016); ‘Our People, Our Community, Our Vision’ (2015); ‘Moving Forward in Unity to a Peaceful and Prosperous Community’ (2014).48 Similarly, the use of catchphrases such as ‘Unity in Diversity,’ ‘One Vision, One Community, One Identity,’ ‘Community, Centrality, and Connectivity,’ ‘Yesterday’s Dreams, Tomorrow’s Promise’ (2017) in the crafting of an ASEAN motto, anthems, production of spectacle, and as an extension and translation of diplomatic talks related to the agenda of integration, compels one to think about what actually coheres. ASEAN nations are plagued by unequal wealth distribution, enforced migration due to poverty, ethnic and religious conflicts, state repression, as well as disconnections created by diverse languages and dialects, religions, and complex layers of racial, ethnic, and diasporic identities, rendered even more complex by the large number of East Asian and South Asian migrants contributing to cultural identity in individual nations in the region. But through the ASEAN Summit and performances that communicate the idea of integration and politics, we witness how the discourse of unity amidst diversity is rein-

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forced, in fact rendered in what we are arguing as archipelagic framing in understanding contemporary performance in Southeast Asia. A key feature of the summit was its focus on the centrality of youth in the generation of a pan-ASEAN dream. We have seen how the performances at the summit’s opening, gala dinner, and closing ceremony created a discourse regarding the future and dreams of this region generated by energetic, youthful, and modern approaches to dance, and culture, fusing the theatricality of the old with the new. In much the same dialectical way, the discourse proclaiming ASEAN’s ‘Yesterday’s Dreams and Tomorrow’s Hopes’ enforces the production of a trite, often contrived entertainment programme by the Philippines’ ‘world-famous’ creative labour force, as instructed, funded, and supported by the Office of the Philippine President and through numerous national artistic agencies. We can agree that a diverse place is surely a productive place, though it is not free from conflict and misunderstanding. But what the ASEAN promises through its integrative, EU-style, and neoliberal blueprint is anchored on mobilising a highly valued pool of human resources of young, abled, and skilled workers that are also prone to abuse and exploitation. In an increasingly mobile world of information and precariat work, ASEAN/Southeast Asia becomes an archipelago where agile and nimble labour can be sourced by itself and by advanced capitalist nations as explicitly demonstrated by the wealth of Filipino performers doing risky acrobatic routines, soaring in their highest tunes, and dancing to the delight of powerful world leaders and business people. We have examined a pan-ASEAN identity and politics that are closely intertwined with the recent ASEAN Summit in Manila. Through a detailed analysis of some of the spectacular events over a three-day period of a regional caucus, we argue that an archipelagic vision, tropes, and condition emerge through a critical reimagining of events and performances designed to construct a pan-ASEAN identity of Southeast Asia at a time when the region is moving rapidly towards economic integration. While Southeast Asia continues to be a diverse, territorially fragmented place as seen from disputes over the South China Sea and the refugee crisis in mainland Southeast Asian countries, we believe that the metaphorical and geographical lens of an archipelago offers a much stronger cohering concept to understand the region’s cultural and political flows, and ultimately its attempt to forge an identity for a global and geopolitical audience. Elizabeth DeLoughrey, following from the island discourses set out by Edouard Glissant, Epeli Hau’ofa, and Derek Walcott, argues for a reading

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of an insular location through ‘archipelagraphy,’ a historiography that considers chains of island in a fluctuating relationship to their surrounding seas, and islands, and continents.49 DeLoughrey’s critical statement can be applied to our current geopolitical climate in this age of fake news, social media, and populism, a time when information flows can make or break a democratic state through a powerful global network we call the Internet. Consequently, the ASEAN Summit, including its theatre of politics and spectacle-led remaking of a Southeast Asian archipelago, offers up such an ‘archipelagraphy’ by extending itself beyond its geographic limits. Southeast Asia as an actual and imagined place is in fact mediated by ‘yesterday’s dreams,’ a nearly 500-year history in which colonial powers governed two or more vastly detached places, as in Manila-Madrid via Acapulco, the Philippine Commonwealth-Washington, Rangoon-London, Malaysia/Singapore-the British Empire, Malacca-Portugal, the Dutch East Indies-the Kingdom of Netherlands, and Indochina-France. In this way, with its current and future promise of integration marooned by leaders that perform dangerous forms of virility, contemporary Southeast Asia incorporates distant places, continents, while empires past, present, and future become part of its seemingly absurd cartographic charting.

Notes 1. ‘ASEAN Economic Community,’ Association of Southeast Asian Nations, accessed August 6, 2018, http://asean.org/asean-economic-community/. 2. ‘ASEAN Summit,’ Association of Southeast Asian Nations, accessed August 6, 2018, http://asean.org/asean/asean-structure/asean-summit/. 3. ‘31st ASEAN Summit Manila,’ Association of Southeast Asian Nations, accessed August 6, 2018, http://asean.org/?static_post=31th-aseansummit-manila-philippines-13-14. 4. David E. Apter, ‘Politics as Theatre: An Alternative View of the Rationalities of Power.’ In Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual, ed. Jeffrey Alexander, Bernhard Glessen, and Jason L. Mast, 218–219, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 5. Apter, ‘Politics as Theatre,’ 220. 6. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London and New York: Verso, 1991). 7. Elizabeth DeLoughrey, ‘“Litany of Island, The Rosary of the Archipelagoes:” Caribbean and Pacific “Archipelagraphy”,’ ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 32, no. 1 (2001): 23.

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8. Antonio Benitez-Rojo and James Maraniss, trans., ‘The Repeating Island,’ New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly 7, no. 4 (1985): 439. 9. In addition to DeLoughrey and Benitez-Rojo see Edouard Glissant and Pierre Joris, ‘Introduction to the Poetics of the Diverse,’ Boundary 2 26, no. 1 (1999), and Elaine Stratford, Godgrey Baldacchino, Elizabeth McMahon and Andrew Harwood, ‘Envisioning an Archipelago,’ Island Studies 6, no. 2 (2011). 10. Apter, ‘Politics as theatre,’ 231. 11. Apter, ‘Politics as theatre,’ 230. 12. Cathy Cañares Yamsuan, ‘A cast of thousands for ASEAN Summit,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 19, 2017, accessed August 29, 2018, https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/philippine-daily-inqui rer/20171119/282428464484461. 13. Thelma Sioson San Juan, ‘“FuntaSea” for Apec: PH takes a long-awaited bow,’ Philippines Inquirer, May 24, 2015, accessed August 29, 2018, http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/194219/funtasea-for-apec-ph-takes-a-longawaited-bow/. The events coordinator was Mike Miñana whose company, Themeworks Events Co. Inc., had designed and managed a range of complex events in the last three presidential administrations. Nestor Jardin, a senior figure in dance and arts management and former president of the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, was the coordinator of all ASEAN-­ related performance events. The artistic team included renowned lighting designer Monino Duque and acclaimed designers Gino Gonzales and Ito Kish. 14. Apter, ‘Politics,’ 221. 15. Duterte News Report, ‘Wow, Tagumpay [success]! President Duterte and President Trump @ 31st ASEAN Summit Manila Philippines!,’ YouTube. November 12, 2017, accessed July 6, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MwfmN1501qo. 16. Apter, ‘Politics,’ 231. 17. Duterte News Report, ‘Wow, Tagumpay [success]!’ 18. Channel 90 seconds. TV Official Channel, ‘31st ASEAN Summit gala celebration dinner,’ YouTube, November 12, 2017, accessed August 6, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0XvRL-sLVg. 19. Duterte News Report, ‘Wow, Tagumpay [success]!’ 20. Brian Russel Roberts and Michelle Ann Stephens, ‘Introduction,’ in American Archipelagic Studies, eds. Brian Russel Roberts and Michelle Ann Stephens (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), 4. 21. PH News Unfiltered, ‘ASEAN 2017 Live Musical! Grabe ang Galing ng Pilipino!,’ YouTube, November 12, 2017, accessed April 15, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22PaREDrn-k&index=20&list=RD MjNxBsU_4Tk.

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22. PH News Unfiltered, ‘ASEAN 2017 Live Musical!’ 23. Yamsuan, ‘ASEAN Summit.’ 24. Indeed, the use of student performers for state functions has a long history, one going back to the Marcos era where the First Lady routinely used school children as virtual props for major diplomatic functions. As Sally Ann Ness observes of that time, ‘Cultural dancing was a focal point of the VIP greeting process’ (2003, 57). 25. Yamsuan, ‘ASEAN Summit.’ 26. Apter, ‘Politics as theatre,’ 230. 27. Yamsuan, ‘ASEAN Summit.’ 28. ‘Philippines’ Duterte sings love song for Trump: “You are the light,”’ The Guardian, November 13, 2017, accessed July 6, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/13/you-are-the-light-philippinesduterte-sings-love-song-for-trump. 29. Evelyn Tabago, ‘Pres. Duterte & Ms. Pilita Corales Duet (Ikaw),’ YouTube, November 13, 2017, accessed August 7, 2018, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=JCgqOUhjWBM. 30. Tabago, ‘Pres. Duterte.’ 31. William Peterson, Places of Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press 2017), 189–210. 32. Pilipinas Updates, ‘MapapaWow ka sa Galing!!! 31st ASEAN Summit World-Class Performances at the Opening,’ YouTube, November 12, 2017, accessed July 7, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= MwfmN1501qo. 33. Association of Southeast Asian Nation, ‘ASEAN Anthem,’ accessed July 7, 2018, http://asean.org/asean/about-asean/asean-anthem/. 34. ‘Watch ASEAN SPIRIT (PH Chairmanship Themesong),’ National Commission for the Culture of and the Arts, accessed April 11, 2018, http://ncca.gov.ph/watch-asean-spirit-ph-asean-chairmanship-themesong/. 35. Pilipinas Updates, ‘MapapaWow ka sa Galing!!!’ 36. Pilipinas Updates, ‘MapapaWow ka sa Galing!!!’ 37. In addition to the Rama Hari (1981), the most influential of these Filipinised versions of the Ramayana is Ang Paglalakbay ni Radiya Mangandiri: Isang Pilipinong Ramayana (1993), written by Rody Vera and directed by Lutgardo Labad, and presented by PETA (Philippines Educational Theatre Association) and Rama at Sita (1999), a musical theatre written by National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and Roy Iglesias, directed by Leo Rialp, produced by SK Records, with music by Ryan Cayabyab, lyrics by Dodjie Simon and Daniel Tan. 38. Pilipinas Updates, ‘MapapaWow ka sa Galing!!!’

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39. The increased popularity of ‘Strongman’ leaders—those that exercise their power in ways that push existing legal frameworks to the limit or even circumvent them altogether—is widely regarded as being on the rise globally. Though Trump and Putin are the most obvious examples on the international stage, within Southeast Asia, Duterte’s often questionable overreach of legal authority is mirrored by Hun Sen in Cambodia and Thailand’s Prayuth Chan-ocha. 40. Portia Ladrido, ‘Behind the scenes at the closing ceremony of the 31st ASEAN summit,’ CNN Philippines, November 17, 2017, accessed July 7, 2018, http://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/2017/11/15/aseanclosing-ceremony.html. The songs featured in the medley, Magsimula Ka (Start Again), Lipad ng Pangarap (Flight of Ambition) and Nais Ko (My Dreams), were all selected based on the producer’s idea of flight, ambition, and hopes. 41. Pilipinas Updates, ‘ASEAN Closing Ceremony, Remarks and Filipino World Class Performance,’ YouTube, November 14, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjNxBsU_4Tk. 42. Pilipinas Daily Update, ‘ASEAN Summit Closing Ceremony.’ 43. Apter, ‘Politics as theatre,’ 250. 44. mmacaliwanagan, ‘Idem-dem Malida,’ YouTube, August 25, 2006, accessed July 8, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRF6Vw9Sqg. This traditional chant from the highlands of Luzon island was rearranged by Elmo Makil as a contemporary chorale piece usually sung by Filipino choral groups in the Philippines and in the diaspora. 45. CTGN, ‘Live: Closing ceremony of 2017 ASEAN Summit,’ YouTube, November 14, 2017, accessed August 7, 2018, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=IlBnqyoDWe0. 46. ‘ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers,’ asean.org, accessed April 11, 2018. http://asean.org/ storage/2017/11/ASEAN-Consensus-on-the-Protection-andPromotion-of-the-Rights-of-Migrant-Workers1.pdf. 47. CTGN, ‘Live: Closing ceremony of 2017 ASEAN Summit.’ 48. ‘ASEAN Summits,’ Association of Southeast Asian Nation, accessed August 8, 2018, http://asean.org/asean/asean-structure/asean-summit/. 49. DeLoughrey. ‘Litany,’ 23.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities. London and New York: Verso. Apter, David E. 2006. Politics as Theatre: An Alternative View of the Rationalities of Power. In Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and

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Ritual, ed. Jeffrey Alexander, Bernhard Giesen, and Jason L. Mast, 328–356. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Asean.org. ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Accessed April 11, 2018. http://asean.org/storage/2017/11/ASEAN-Consensus-on-the-Protection-and-Promotion-of-theRights-of-Migrant-Workers1.pdf. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 31st ASEAN Summit Manila. Accessed August 6, 2018. http://asean.org/?static_post=31th-asean-summit-manilaphilippines-13-14-november 2017. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN Economic Community. Accessed August 6, 2018. http://asean.org/asean-economic-community/. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN Summit. Accessed August 6, 2018. http://asean.org/asean/asean-structure/asean-summit/. Ballet Philippines. 1981. Rama Hari. Manila. Benitez-Rojo, Antonio, and James Maraniss. 1985. The Repeating Island. New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly 7 (4): 430–452. Channel 90 seconds. TV Official Channel. 2017. 31st ASEAN Summit Gala Celebration Dinner. YouTube, November 12. Accessed August 6, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0XvRL-sLVg. CTGN. 2017. Live: Closing Ceremony of 2017 ASEAN Summit. YouTube, November 14. Accessed August 7, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=IlBnqyoDWe0. De Vera, Rodolfo. 1993. Ang Paglalakbay ni Radiya Mangandiri: Isang Pilipinong Ramayana. Manila. DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. 2001. “Litany of Island, The Rosary of the Archipelagoes”: Caribbean and Pacific Archipelagraphy. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 32 (1): 21–51. Duterte News Report. 2017. Wow, Tagumpay [success]! President Duterte and President Trump @ 31st ASEAN Summit Manila Philippines!. YouTube, November 12, Accessed July 6, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MwfmN1501qo. Glissant, Edouard, and Pierre Joris. 1999. Introduction to the Poetics of the Diverse. Boundary 2 26 (1): 119–121. Lumbera, Bienvenido, and Roy Iglesias. 1999. Rama at Sita. Quezon City. mmacaliwanagan. 2006. Idem-dem Malida. YouTube, August 25. Accessed July 8, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRF6-Vw9Sqg. Ness, Sally. 2003. Where Asia Smiles: An Ethnography of Philippine Tourism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Peterson, William. 2017. Places of Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. PH News Unfiltered. 2017. ASEAN 2017 Live Musical! Grabe ang Galing ng Pilipino!. YouTube, November 12. Accessed April 15, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22PaREDrn-k&index=20&list=RDMjNxBsU_4Tk.

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Philippines’ Duterte Sings Love Song for Trump: “You are the light.” 2017. The Guardian, November 13. Accessed July 6, 2018. https://www.theguardian. com/world/2017/nov/13/you-are-the-light-philippines-duterte-singslove-song-for-trump. Pilipinas Updates. 2017. MapapaWow ka sa Galing!!! 31st ASEAN Summit World-­ Class Performances at the Opening. YouTube, November 12. Accessed July 7, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjNxBsU_4Tk. Roberts, Brian Russel, and Michelle Ann Stephens. 2017. Introduction. In American Archipelagic Studies, ed. Brian Russel Roberts and Michelle Ann Stephens, 1–54. Durham: Duke University Press. San Juan, Thelma Sioson. 2015. “FuntaSea” for Apec: PH Takes a Long-Awaited Bow. Philippines Inquirer, May 24. Accessed August 8, 2018. http://lifestyle. inquirer.net/194219/funtasea-for-apec-ph-takes-a-long-awaited-bow/. Stratford, Elaine, Godfrey Baldacchino, Elizabeth McMahon, Carol Farbotko, and Andrew Harwood. 2011. Envisioning an Archipelago. Island Studies 6 (2): 113–130. Tabago, Evelyn. 2017. Pres. Duterte & Ms. Pilita Corales Duet (Ikaw). YouTube, November 13. Accessed August 7, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=JCgqOUhjWBM. Yamsuan, Cathy Cañares. 2017. “All about the future”: 600 Pinoy Artists Lead Grand Charm Offensive for Asean Meet. Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 12. Accessed August 2, 2018. http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/278557/ future-600-pinoy-artists-lead-grand-charm-offensive-asean-meet/.

CHAPTER 3

‘Pornography Disguised as Art’: Bare/d Bodies, Biopolitics and Multicultural Tolerance in Singapore Marcus Cheng Chye Tan

Pornography Disguised as Art Based on the theme of ‘Art and Skin,’ the 2017 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, an annual performing arts festival that showcases local and international socially engaged avant-garde work, examined the ‘skin’ as a site of intimacy, sensuality, vulnerability, appearance and imprisonment. Of the ten performances, two were subsequently prohibited performance licences by the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA), a government statutory board that regulates restrictions, manages censorship and awards ‘Licence for the Provision of Arts Entertainment.’ The IMDA claimed some performances had exceeded the ‘R18’ rating under the Arts Entertainment Classification Code for they featured ‘excessive nudity which included scenes of audience-participants stripping naked, and graphic depictions of exposed genitalia.’1 Two performances in par-

M. C. C. Tan (*) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_3

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ticular were identified—Berlin-based Singaporean Ming Poon’s Undressing Room and Canadian Thea Fitz-James’s Naked Ladies. Despite powerful socio-political messages underlying the use of nudity, both shows were given a ‘non-rating’ classification that made them ineligible for performance licences; both shows needed to have been reworked and resubmitted for classification before they could be featured. Undressing Room and Naked Ladies were consequently cancelled by festival organisers in accordance with the artists’ decisions to withdraw from the festival. While there have been performances in Singapore, both film and theatre, that have contained degrees of nudity, and notwithstanding the gradual liberalising of permissible content in Singapore’s arts and public entertainment scenes, such authoritarian acts of censorship are not surprising given the country’s history of surveillance and suppression of radical film and theatre. Still, the cancellation of Undressing Room and Naked Ladies alarmed many in the local arts community particularly since the circumstances that led to IMDA’s decision were uncannily coincidental with an online petition to prohibit these performances. On 22 November 2016, an anonymously composed Facebook group, ‘Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family’ (SDMF hereafter) posted an entry ‘M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised as Art?’ With right-wing righteousness, the post attacked the M1 Fringe Festival for ‘prostituting the performing arts sector’2 and ‘promot[ing] homosexual behaviour and transgenderism.’3 The authors, priding themselves as pro-family Singaporeans who were saving Singapore from an ‘immoral mess’ while combatting left-wing Western liberalisms, urged the government to exercise ‘due diligence in vetting such shows.’4 The anonymously composed virtual exhortation roused the attention of Singapore’s arts community and eventually led to a divisive debate on the role of nudity in performance and the function of art in society. The impassioned discussion spilled beyond Facebook’s digital walls as it permeated blogs and mainstream media. Just three days after the post’s mandate to the government to stop this promotion of ‘sex and LGBT activism’5 and attack on traditional Asian values of morality and family, the IMDA released an official statement to deny classification ratings for Undressing Room and Naked Ladies. Ironically, while SDMF reflected fears that pornography (disguised) as art will result in a ‘significant rift’6 in conservative Singapore, the divisive event exemplifies a widening fissure in the multicultural fabric of Singapore society and underscores a rising sectarianism amongst the populace: those who have imbibed the politicised values of heteronormativity, Asian con-

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servatism and nuclearised kinship strongly advocated by the state versus the minority Other(s) on the fringes. And while the refusal of permissions and cancellation of these two shows cannot be the affirmative consequence of SDMF’s virtual lobbying, the sequence of events, as Goh Wei Hao observes, is ‘at least a little uncanny.’7 It reveals how contemporary events in the West, such as the rise of Donald Trump and the alt-right, continue to reify Singapore’s regard of the West as the dissolute Other, even as it uninhibitedly welcomes Western corporations, concepts and monies. Interestingly, however, such an ideological rhetoric of ‘Asian values’8 is today less employed by the state but by a section of its population determined to assume the responsibility for continued regulation of bodies and the body politic. Given this curious evolution of biopolitics in Singapore in which biopower is now exercised by the people on the people, this chapter will examine the (bare/d) body as a site of political inscription and the exercise of biopower. Biopolitics, as Foucault posits, is ‘the control over relations between the human race, or human beings insofar as they are a species, insofar as they are living beings, and their environment, the milieu in which they live.’9 It is consequently characterised by an erasure of the individual body and the state’s ‘acquisition of power over man insofar as man is a living being, that the biological came under State control, that there was at least a certain tendency that leads to what might be termed State control of the biological.’10 Biopower is, consequently, the ‘numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations’11; it is ‘a power that has taken control of both the body and life or that is […] taken control of life in general.’12 The chapter then considers the politicisation of the body in performance, in the biopolitical context of contemporary Singapore where the naked body is (still) regarded as (homo)sexual and/or morally decadent. As events of the M1 Fringe Festival controversy reveal, bodies that challenge normative (Asian) values—of sexuality, gender, matrimony—must be punished or purged, and biopower is exercised to contain deviance and safeguard normativity. In relation to the changing socio-political dynamics in contemporary Singapore, this chapter is also concerned about the ways in which the biopoliticised body is produced as a consequence of the state’s narrow conception of multiculturalism, effected as ideological apparatus. While much has been critiqued about Singapore’s celebrated brand of multicultural practice predicated on the strict regulation of ethnic bodies, the question of cultural Otherness,

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understood not as racial, ethnic or religious but as marginal cultures—of sexuality, gender and art—has been less examined.

Biopower, Bare/d Body, Bureaucratic Body Body art has always placed the body as a ‘site of social inscription.’13 Nudity, in its performative exposition, aims to peel off ‘the sedimented layers of signification with which the body […] was historically and culturally coded.’14 The bare/d body is thus used as a site of a phenomenological encounter that interrogates discursive inscriptions of power, privilege, divergence and difference. Akin to, though certainly not identical with, Giorgio Agamben’s depiction of the homo sacer, the bare/d body stands in contrast to sovereign power in its political nakedness and its necessary inclusive exclusion from political representation and action (1998). Unlike the homo sacer of archaic Roman law in the state of exception, however, this exclusion is an agency exercised by the subject. Yet, similar to the homo sacer, the bare/d body remains subject to sovereign power exercised through censorship and punishment. It is the body that reveals the space between the political and the natural. The bare/d body as the organic medium used to confront this space between remains the focus of Ming’s Undressing Room and Fitz-James’s Naked Ladies. In her solo performance, Fitz-James investigates the construction of female identities as ‘inter-courses’ of the social and personal. Employing critical humour and reflexivity, she explores the politics of female nudity, body art and masturbation, using her own body as narrative and mode of narrativisation. The audience is invited to then exercise the gendered (and erotic) gaze and in so doing deconstruct dictates of the feminine body and its biopolitical (en)gendering through an autoreflexive self-questioning.15 Similarly, Undressing Room explores the bare/d body as a ‘disruptive mode of textuality’16 that compels the spectator-participant to read the body alternatively and reconsider the sexualisation of the naked body. Roles and boundaries are obscured for, in this unique one-to-one performance, actor and spectator undress each other in a meditative encounter with ‘the thing itself’17—‘unaccommodated man.’18 In a silent ritual, participants and performer remove each other’s clothing and observe each other’s nudity. The phenomenological body becomes the site of interrogation and connection—‘it is about what being naked does to us and how it makes us feel and behave.’19 The act of disrobing becomes an act of symbolic resistance to the dictates of biopower and can be read

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as the stripping of conformist identities inscribed by state apparatuses. The personal, intimate and singular body stands opposed to the biopolitical body that, in the case of Singapore, is a ‘bureaucratic body.’ Ming describes this body in the following way: The psyche of the bureaucratic body centres around efficiency and effectiveness. It is result-oriented. It does not matter how it gets things done, its goal is simply to get them done and pass them along down or up the line. The bureaucratic body is hierarchical. It is vital that a bureaucratic body knows its place on that hierarchy. [The] [b]ureaucratic body cannot exist as an individual entity; it is always a part of a longer chain of other bureaucratic bodies. It cannot and does not make any autonomous decisions; rather it requires instructions from higher authority. The actions and movements of the bureaucratic body is therefore reactive, rather than pro-active […] Because of that, most bureaucratic bodies end up looking identical and amicable, without any distinguishable characteristic […] The bureaucratic body thrives on orderliness […] [It] attempts to erase all traces of flesh, blood, bone, fluid, nerves and tendons from itself. Instead, it constructs its body out of rules, regulations, instructions, procedures and statistics. It does not interest itself with the quest for knowledge or truth (as they can be messy); rather it prefers to collect facts and numbers. The skin of this body, its outermost confine, is used to keep all these facts and numbers in their places. It acts as the gatekeeper, separating messiness from orderliness and sorting out knowledge from facts. Physical touch is treated with great suspicion as it can upset the clear delineation and cause contamination to seep in. This can threaten its order of things.20

IMDA’s decision of non-classification and the furore stirred by SDMF underscore the reverence for the bureaucratic body and exemplify the biopolitics of the state: conformity is necessary, for difference and deviance engender multiplicity and diversity that a bureaucratic body cannot comprehend. The bureaucratic body is a faceless collective as are the IMDA and SDMF; it is reactive in how it swiftly issued its prohibitive decision on the performances; it must be clothed for nakedness is expositional, transgressive and perverse. In Society Must Be Defended, Michel Foucault affirms how ‘sexuality exists at the point where body and population meet. And so it is a matter for discipline, and also a matter for regularisation.’21 In Singapore, this regularisation of the body and sexuality is most evident in the continued

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criminalisation of sex between mutually consenting adult men, enshrined in Section 377A of the Penal Code. Despite the many attempts at repealing this colonial statute, the state has retained it on the justification that Singapore remains, as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong states, a largely conservative society that ‘values the conventional family unit’22—‘one man, one woman, marrying, having children and bringing up children within that framework of a stable unit.’23 This distinct exercise of biopower is further evidenced in the persistence of laws against oral and anal sex between heterosexual couples (only legalised in 2007), the prohibition of any retention, distribution or sale of pornographic materials, and nudity in a public space or private space exposed to public view. While 377A is not actively enforced and the purposeful policing of individuals for these transgressions is not advanced, biopower in Singapore is exercised through entrenched ideological state apparatus predicated on Asian conservatism or ‘Asian values’ as a discursive truth that must be embraced by all of society. In its post, SDMF cites unreservedly Singapore’s late President Wee Kim Wee’s 1989 parliamentary speech that advocated the need for preserving ‘Asianness’ as the predominating characteristic of Singapore society: Traditional Asian ideas of morality, duty, and society which have sustained and guided us in the past are giving way to a more Westernised, individualistic and self-centred outlook on life [, and] we should preserve the cultural heritage of each of our communities, and uphold certain common values which capture the essence of being a Singaporean. These core values include placing society above self, upholding the family as the basic building block of society.24

In this extract, simplistically appropriated by SDMF, issues of sexuality, culture, heritage and morality are conflated: traditional Asian values equate with duty, community and the family. Conversely implied, the contemporary is liberal, immoral, individualistic and West(ern). This concept of ‘Asian values’ can largely be attributed to Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, who in the 1990s demarcated the West from Asia as a means of justifying the disbelief in the hegemonic precepts of universal human rights. Underlying a cultural relativist and anti-liberal (and Western) conception of society and politics, Lee regards Singapore as an archetype of Asia that is fundamentally different, for hierarchy, interdependence and the social position of citizens underpin the success of a

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s­ociety, a ‘web-like relational or communitarian view of society where everyone knows his or her place in a social hierarchy.’25 The heteronormative family is thus given significant consideration in Lee’s definition for the state is regarded as an ‘extended family’ headed by a strong patriarch. The family provides the ‘prime conceptual basis of a relational view of society, [and] because it is a natural and self-sustaining mechanism for providing nurture, socialisation and social services to the population.’26 As Lee once argued, ‘Eastern societies believe that the individual exists in the context of his family. He is not pristine and separate. The family is part of the extended family, and then friends and wider society.’27 The family as the foundation for thinking of society as an organic unity then provides the strongest rationale for a state-conceived communitarianism. This mise-en-abyme, this infinite reification, of the private and public family is reflected, ironically, in how such avowals continue to be advocated by Lee’s son, who is the current Prime Minister. Most recently in 2016, Lee, exploiting the Chinese New Year celebrations, reminded all Singaporeans of the importance of the family and how it is ‘an important building block of society […] the model of how we should relate to one another as fellow citizens, seeing one another as members of an extended Singapore family.’28 Lee here was also referring to a new video posted on the government’s official Facebook page, Gov.sg, which features a nostalgic idealisation of an aged heterosexual couple and their understanding of love and the family. While such reiterations about the family and Singapore society have become trite, the younger Lee’s emphasis that the video ‘encapsulated what family really means’29 distinctly demarcates the heterosexual family as normative, and effectively discriminates social structures that do not conform. Even as Lee claims that the government is merely accommodating to a large conservative segment of Singapore society in retaining 377A of the Penal Code and the phrase ‘Asian values’ is no longer used in public rhetoric, such assertions of the heteronormative family reveal how ‘Asian values’ continue to be exploited as biopower in the state’s (bio)political stratagem. Deviations from the imagined ‘Singapore’ family must be normalised or be marginalised, even penalised. In Singapore, ‘Asian’ conservatism and communitarianism characterise the biopolitical; these forms of biopower subjugate and regulate the interior Other through discipline and punishment, with the objective of shaping the Other to be the Same. Undressing Room is deprecated as ‘an obscene act’30 only because it explores the naked body. And because the bare/d body is an individual Other in its phenomenological encounter, it must be communi-

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tarianised and normalised. The bare/d body is a deviant Other as it is pornographic, abnormal, (homo)sexual and anti-social and so must be disciplined. Through such an ascription of the singular Other (body) as a threat, can the state legitimise its subjugation and collectivisation of Otherness? In Society Must Be Defended, Michel Foucault postulates that ‘the norm is something that can be applied to both a body one wishes to discipline and a population one wishes to regularise […] The normalising society is a society in which the norm of discipline and the norm of regulation intersect along an orthogonal articulation.’31 Such an intersection is found in the body of the heterosexual couple and the nuclear family. SDMF, with its 1057 followers, appropriates as its profile picture an image of Singapore’s former Supreme Court, overlaid with a portrait of the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew along with his late wife Kwa Geok Choo. At top left, there is another superimposed image of the ideal Singapore nuclear family, one advocated by Lee as the ‘Stop at Two’ policy—a population control measure introduced between 1972 and 1986.32 Accompanying this conflated symbol of the constitutional and the domestic is a quote that reads ‘Honour and emulate our beloved founding father’s life, love and devotion to his wife, family and nation.’33 As a composition, empowered by state symbols and apparatuses, the image interweaves the historical, juridical and political as a means to legitimise the normativities of heterosexuality and the nuclear family. SDMF’s self-sanctioned advocacy is achieved through the active appropriation of the private and the political, exemplified by the image of Lee and his wife along with the precession of Lee’s reputation as statesman and founding father of Singapore; this (self) righteousness is augmented by the indexical signifier of judicial authority, through its symbolic power, that further cements the self-proclaimed moral legitimacy of the page’s diatribes. Furthermore, by amalgamating the private and the ideological, and ascribing the spousal relationship between Lee and Kwa as symbols of state-sanctioned socio-sexual normativity, SDMF subjects state power to the will of an imagined-ideal(ised) construct of the family, even as these become subject to a right-wing politicisation of the private sphere—a biopolitics not of the state but of a virtual community masquerading as the state. The refusal of performance permissions by the IMDA exemplifies the government’s authority subjected to sectarian activism that, ironically, exploits the essence of biopolitics—fear. In Violence (2008), Žižek reveals how biopolitics is ‘ultimately a politics of fear; it focuses on defence from potential victimisation or harassment.’34 Such a politics ‘resorts to fear as its

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ultimate mobilising principle [and it] always relies on the manipulation of a paranoid ochlos or multitude: it is the frightening rallying of frightened people.’35 Fear, here, is not merely that of the (homo)sexual and naked body that threatens the moral consciousness of an Asian, specifically, Singaporean bureaucratic body. Fear is instead appropriated by frightened people to, inversely, create fear in the government—fear of the loss of the people’s mandate. Apart from urging the government to prohibit all shows in the festival and questioning ‘why the government [is] letting their fences down and allow[ing] such obscene and dubious “art” performances to be staged,’36 the author of the Facebook post exploited fear by claiming that ‘If the government continue[s] to allow such decadent sex and LGBT-themed shows to be propagated, then it should be prepared for any ensuing backlash.’37 The consequent discussion in the post of the 2016 US presidential election and the Democrats’ defeat is used as a veiled threat to local authorities about how the ruling party will lose its power privilege should Singapore turn left and liberal. Given the significant impact of new media on the ruling party’s poorest election results in 2011 since it came to power in 1965,38 it is no surprise that the IMDA publicly issued the refusal of permissions just days after the post was made. The act of censorship in the 11th hour reifies what Terence Chong, in The Theatre and the State in Singapore, observes about the Singapore government’s retention of Section 377A: it is an act ostensibly to ‘placate the interests of the religious and moral conservatives, many of whom occupy positions of affluence and power.’39 The incident reveals a social consciousness that has successfully imbibed the narratives of Asian values purported by the state. The success of such a biopolitics, advanced by culture as ideological apparatus, is evident in the ways (part of) the populace now having become assimilated by such an ideology in turn regulates other bodies and the powers that engendered these ideologies. Complicit bodies thus become the state’s new repressive apparatus that in turn seeks to keep the state’s continued subjugation of deviant bodies in check.

Contemporary Multiculturalism and the Limits of Tolerance The M1 Fringe Festival controversy exposes an already widening rift that exemplifies the failings of state-prescribed multiculturalism in the contemporary, even as these sentiments are, ironically, predicated on the need to preserve such imagined delineations of culture and cultural-isms. The inci-

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dent is but one of a growing number of social performances of intolerance in Singapore’s recent history. In 2014, an Islamic religious teacher Noor Deros started the ‘Wearwhite’ campaign as a politicised statement against the growing success of the Pink Dot movement—an annual gathering of people in support of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in Singapore.40 Started in 2009, Pink Dot SG has seen growing attendance, with almost 28,000 people in 2016,41 and has influenced similar movements in Hong Kong (2011), Penang (2011), Montreal (2012) and Okinawa (2013). Recognising the burgeoning threat to religious conservative values, Noor’s ‘Wearwhite’ movement has since been championed by the Christian community, specifically Senior Pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church, Lawrence Khong. Entitled ‘We.Wear.White,’ Khong’s advocacy is based on ‘the church’s stance on heterosexual marriage and the “natural family” [and this is] in keeping with the social norms of “Singapore’s conservative majority.”’42 More recently, complaints made from anonymous public members led to the removal of a kissing scene between two male characters in the musical Les Miserables (2016).43 Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast (2016) stirred equal controversy due to its homosexual content, with LeFou, Disney’s first openly gay character, demonstrating sexual attraction for Gaston. The ‘gay moment’ in the film led Anglican Bishop Rennis Ponniah and the National Council of Churches in Singapore to issue a public call of ‘discretion,’ particular to Christian families with children.44 Such incidents reveal a disturbing intermixing of religion, cultural practice and polity. The naked partisanship undermines Singapore’s professed commitment to secular multiculturalism and demonstrates a failure of multiculturalism in part due to the myopic delineation of ‘culture’ as purported by the state. Conceived and prescribed by the state, multiculturalism as political ideology is naked biopolitical practice. This specific exercise of sovereign power over bodies in living spaces has been frequently regarded as one of the cornerstones of Singapore’s peace and harmony and a distinctive feature of the nation’s marketed identity. Yet, the ruling People’s Action Party, often synonymously regarded as the government and the state given the history of its dominant single party rule since independence in 1965, has propagated the concept of multiculturalism as one of ‘limited inclusivity [that is] premised on neat categories of race and religion,’45 an inherited colonial racialisation of bodies with little regard for the diversity and complexity of cultural heritage and ethnic plurality in a region where intermixing and hybridity have always been commonplace. This post-­

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colonial multiculturalism, as Lian Kwen Fee citing Daniel Goh, defines, stands in contrast to Western liberal multiculturalism for only ‘ethnic identities and interests of significant communities identified by the state were officially accepted. Over time such identities were scripted by the State, with the consequence that post-colonial multiculturalism came to be bureaucratic, authoritarian and essentialised.’46 Predicated on the simplistic construct of ethno-racial categorisations, the ‘Chinese-Malay-Indian-­ Others’ (CMIO) model has come to dictate the politics of governance; multiculturalism, advanced by various state apparatuses, is a lived experience for Singaporeans since policies from education, housing, health, census, religious worship and community celebrations to citizenship are advanced on this race-based biopolitics. It is ‘the clearest expression and cognition of a functioning Singaporean culture.’47 Such a narrowly conceived understanding precludes other notions of culture. Minority cultures (the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, single mothers) consequently remain invisible and are subject to conformist scrutiny of majority-based mentalities. The emerging visibility of other cultures, and lived presence of new foreign Other/s, has challenged conventional positions on the concept of a ‘Singapore community.’ While most encounters are of a safe distance, there have been increasing confrontations met with ideological and cultural violence. Being one of the most open economies in the world and heavily dependent on foreign migratory labour for high-skilled industries and low-skilled work, the social dynamics has shifted significantly given the high composition of non-Singaporeans (39 per cent as of 2017 and this includes both permanent residents and those on foreign work passes)48 living in the city-state of 719.1  square kilometres. The state-prescribed sensibilities of ‘multiculturalism’ have been challenged and the lived (cultural) experiences of Singaporeans have become interrogated daily. These rapidly evolving political-economic circumstances have resulted in an obligatory interaction between self, community and Others. Such tensions were also revealed in this controversy for, in the penultimate paragraph of the Facebook post, the author of ‘Pornography Disguised as Art’ underscored the festival director’s foreignness as means of punishment. The post accused Sean Tobin, a prominent Australian educator and theatre-maker who lives and teaches in Singapore, of encouraging social division and dictating the Singapore arts scene through portrayals of ‘sex, homosexuality and transgenderism.’49 Making the assumption that he ‘has no vested interest in Singapore’s well-being,’50 and having little erudition of the

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contributions Tobin has made to the Singapore theatre scene in the last 20 years, the post reveals the mounting displeasure with economically driven migration and foreignness of Singapore’s ethno-racialised cultural composition. Other/ed bodies must conform or be disciplined, and these include foreign bodies. Violence, real or symbolic, is a seeming inevitability of the proximity to one’s Neighbour for as Žižek, citing Freud, observes, the Neighbour is inevitably a ‘traumatic intruder, someone whose different way of life (or rather, way of jouissance materialised in its social practices and rituals) disturbs us, throws the balance of our way of life off the rails, when it comes too close, this can also give rise to an aggressive reaction aimed at getting rid of this disturbing intruder.’51 This aggression is most evident in the reactionary blog post on ‘Singapore Affairs’ earlier considered. Writing in support of the ‘truth’ to the controversy, the anonymous blogger derails the festival organisers and Arts Engage, an arts practitioners collective that engages in issues of art practice and public statements in defence of the two censored performances as innovative works, and questions how much of such boundary-­ pushing ‘is enough for such art groups and do they expect the wider society to just mind their own business?’.52 While the artistic community and other members of the public have commented on how those in support of SDMF’s bigoted views could have simply minded their own business and not seen these performances, in other words tolerate differences in life worlds, the confrontation reveals how coming too close to a Neighbour threatens the moral legitimacy of the bureaucratic body. They exemplify Žižek’s thesis on contemporary multiculturalism: Today’s liberal tolerance towards others, the respect of otherness and openness towards it, is counterpointed by an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the Other is just fine, but only insofar as his presence is not intrusive, insofar as this Other is not really other […] My duty to be tolerant towards the Other effectively means that I should not get too close to him, intrude on his space.53

In Singapore, lived multiculturalism, ‘multiculturalism as it is lived out as an everyday reality’54 is, more accurately, practised tolerance through a fierce possession of a right to not be harassed by, and to keep a safe distance from, the Other. Given the conditions of rapid globalisation, high population density and the palpable presence of foreigners consequent of economically liberal policies, this distance is increasingly narrowing with

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Lee urging greater tolerance not just for religious or racial Others but foreign Others as well.55 Additionally, digital media has awarded ‘intolerant’ and xenophobic individuals and groups with greater audacity, voice and influence; the ‘right’ to not be harassed, to ‘tolerate,’ is increasingly dissipating. The ‘Protection from Harassment Act,’ a parliamentary statute passed only in 2014 that abolishes the common tort law of harassment and expansion of it to cover acts of cyberbullying and online harassment as a criminal offence, exemplifies Žižek’s view that ‘[w]hat increasingly emerges as the central human right in late-capitalist society is the right not to be harassed, which is a right to remain at a safe distance from others.’56 As ideology and practice, tolerance has limitations, exemplified by the fringe festival controversy. Žižek posits how tolerance has become an ideological mechanism, a form of false consciousness and mystification, in contemporary political multiculturalisms. Examples of violence, racism and discrimination are rendered simply as events of intolerance and not addressed for their embedded realities of the need for systemic and structural change; this both subverts and denies the real social problems that are festering. Tolerance becomes a façade that therefore masks the issues of ‘inequality, exploitation, injustice.’57 Political differences have, through tolerance as ideology, become translated into differences in cultural beliefs and practices that must be managed and simply accepted. In multicultural practice, as seen in Singapore’s brand of multiculturalism, tolerance sees its limits for it cannot facilitate genuine social harmony since ‘culture itself is the source of barbarism in the sense that it is one’s direct identification with a particular culture which renders one intolerant to other cultures.’58 The process is exacerbated because culture is regarded as personal and private, and the means to manage irruptive events is to practise tolerance. The debate surrounding censorship, nudity, the arts and its role in society, as seen in comments following the Facebook post as well as blog posts such as those of Arts Engage, border on the issue of the ‘private’ versus ‘public.’ The argument posited by SDMF and those who support its cause is one that equates the bare/d body in a public performance as necessarily pornographic, and should therefore be prohibited—the naked self must be contained within a private space. The private is a site of the individual as opposed to the public which remains the space of the community. The mentalities underlying such ‘conservative’ propositions and distinctions exemplify Agamben’s analysis of contemporary biopolitics. Referencing the Greeks who distinguished the ‘natural reproductive life,’59 the biological fact of life (zoē), and bios, ‘a qualified form of life,’60 and the form or

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manner in which that life is lived (the political life), Agamben asserts that in contemporary (authoritarian) politics, zoē, contained within the polis, has become the object of control in the form of the state’s organisational power. There is a loss of distinction between these two forms of life and ‘life’ is now conceived primarily as zoē, with no guarantee of a quality of life or political agency, of bios. This, Agamben notes, is the beginnings of biopolitics. The biopoliticised ‘private,’ as SDMF purports, is manufactured from the dissipated distinctions between zoē and bios for the construct of the private and public body is merely the consequence of politicised ‘Asian’ values. This dissolution of the two forms of life becomes evident in the ways in which the naked body needs to be censored and purged from the public since ‘zoē has become bios […] private sphere and public function are now absolutely identical.’61 The bare/d body is denied political agency, of quality and manner in which it is to live, how it lives and how it performs. Ironically, in the state’s performance of the denial of (public) performance permissions, Undressing Room and Naked Ladies inadvertently exposed the shifting mechanics of contemporary biopower and the reduction of life to bare-life in Singapore. Through and as performance, both works interrogate the manufactured distinctions between public and private spheres of how the body is a site of multiple meanings: nudity is not necessarily private or public, sexual or pornographic. The performances also exemplify this false dichotomy posited by Kant and cited by Žižek: ‘Private’ is not one’s individual as opposed to communal ties, but the very communal-institutional order of one’s particular identification; while ‘public’ is the transnational universality of the exercise of one’s Reason […] one participates in the universal dimension of the ‘public’ sphere precisely as a singular individual extracted from or even opposed to one’s substantial communal identification—one is truly universal only when radically singular, in the interstices of communal identities.62

The ‘interstices of communal identities’ and the universal-singular, the participation of the singular in the universal, is what Undressing Room seeks to attain. In the performance, it is the natural body and the singular Other that participants encounter; it is the encounter with bare-life but also the recovery and recuperation of the body’s agentive potential. The personal and personalised performance allows participants to recognise the Other body as singular and so truly universal. The performance is

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done in complete silence and there is no exchange of words; this perhaps is a performative metaphor for the refusal to have language re-present and re-scribe the bodily experience. It can also be read as an encounter with a real body and the body as the real, that which is erased from symbolic inscription, where ‘all words cease.’63 Even though Undressing Room was not publicly performed, it continued as a private, by-invitation-only, performance. Participants were invited into a formal ritual performed in a white space set with a table and two stools, two teacups, a teapot, a clock and a pair of tea-lights. All items, including the furniture, were white— these are distinctly a metaphor for purity, wholeness, innocence and new beginnings found in a new exchange between unadorned bodies. Ming began the performance with a tea ceremony after which actor and spectator undressed each other, with each participant having full autonomy on how this proceeded. Throughout the event, silence was observed and the presence of the Other acknowledged only with the body. The body reveals truth and also singularity for as Ming recounts, ‘we see each other’s scars and wrinkles, breathe in each other’s odours, feel the sweat on our skin and the warmth of our body.’64 Feelings of shame, vulnerability and connection are common emotions that were reported in the post-performance conversations. This phenomenological encounter with the Other is a performance of the universality of the wholly Other: the experience, like the body, remains singular and distinct for every participant yet the performance indubitably exposes social and physical repressions engendered by bodies subject to biopower. The singular bare/d body becomes the site of the universal for in that nakedness, intimacy and connection evolve; there is an ‘honesty’ in the nudity as bodies are seen for and in their openness. While the work does not necessarily involve nakedness as participants can be in the state of semi-undress or even completely dressed, it is in the act of undressing another that the performance seeks to engender a universality—one of similarity in differences of sensuousness, sensations and sentiments. The performance site becomes a safe space to confront vulnerabilities and to trust an-Other body. ‘But in order to trust and connect, we must first remove our protective shields and open ourselves to the others […] So Undressing Room is actually an invitation to the participants to practice that.’65 In the act of undressing, of bare-ness, one recognises that the subject can transcend (and remove) culture and biopolitical identities, and has political agency and sovereignty—bios. In so doing, one comes to appreciate how, despite differences in form, shape, colour and smell, the body is universal. Undressing Room becomes the safe space for a performance

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Fig. 3.1  Production image from Undressing Room (2017), choreographed and devised by Ming Poon. (Photo: Olivia Kwok)

encounter of ‘two persons embracing each other’s vulnerable state without any expectations and judgements’ (Fig. 3.1).66

The Universal and the Multicultural While one can dismiss the M1 Fringe Festival controversy as a minor ‘disruption’ in the otherwise ‘harmonious’ social landscape in Singapore, and simply relegate this to a lack of tolerance between different life worlds, the deeper malaise of the disjuncture between economic liberalism and moral conservatism, of what constitutes ‘culture’ and (multi)culturalism, is ignored. Multiculturalism as a practice of tolerance has failed and if it is to thrive, a consensus of everyday customs and civility, rules of how to treat each other decently, must be established. This results in an intentional creation of a ‘universal’ custom that encompasses community identification and not merely multiculturalism as a legal space for different ways of life to compete.67 Žižek postulates that this ‘universal’ must be a consensus of practices not based on culture or cultural difference. Culture, as he explains, is both collective and particular, ‘exclusive of other cultures,’68 and because the individual who is the site of universality is also particular-

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ised via a life world, culture becomes both ‘public,’ that is, a collective expression, and ‘private,’ that is, personal idiosyncrasies. According to Žižek, the only way to overcome intolerance (and violence) is to ‘extricate the core of the subject’s being, its universal essence, from culture […] the subject has to be kulturlos or “culture-less.”’ In Undressing Room, it is this bare/d, particular body, the intimate removal of biopoliticised identities that the subject attains to the condition of being kulturlos. The bare/d body reveals the space between the political and the natural, and reminds those who participate that their bodies have been subject to the exercise of biopower disguised as cultural values. The performance exemplifies how the subject can be kulturlos, encountered as another singular person and in that singularity, of experience and of bodies, a universalism is experienced. The events surrounding the show’s censoring also evidence the limitations of multiculturalism in contemporary Singapore. While the state actively enforces engagement and interaction between races, cultures and ethnicities, and ‘equal’ representation, through state policies such as ethnic quotas in public housing arrangements, the celebration of cultural events and festivals and, most recently, a controversial Parliamentary Bill ensuring that minority races, such as the Malays, reserve the right to run for the elected presidency in specified terms of office, lived multiculturalism performs a different reality as the M1 Fringe Festival controversy epitomises. The limits of tolerance for difference, evinced by the increasingly evident breakdown of Singapore’s ethno-racial multiculturalism, reveal the need for a renewed discernment of what constitutes the ‘multicultural’ in a globalist context: there needs to be ‘civic engagement which unpicks the negative treatment of “difference” […] and the reform to institutions of public culture so minority identities are not ignored or confined to a private sphere.’69 In recounting his experiences performing Undressing Room, Ming poignantly recalls a proverb by twelfth-century Sufi poet Rumi, ‘Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden, I will meet you there.’70 In this interstice between the body as public and private, particular and universal, right and wrong, multiculturalism in Singapore can be reconceived beyond ethno-racial understandings; it begins in the encounter with the Other as a (bare/d) body. In locating its efficacy and place in contemporary (bio) politics, performance and theatre can, and must, be critical sites of potential and possibility for new multiculturalisms and new social life worlds in Singapore. A new politics can be found, to return to Agamben, in the

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reclamation of life from the biopolitical body, a renewed distinction between zoē and bios where (bare) life is parted from political life.

Notes 1. Akshita Nanda, ‘IMDA denies rating to two shows in 2017 M1 Fringe Festival for “excessive nudity,”’ The Straits Times, November 25, 2016, accessed February 2, 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/ imda-denies-rating-to-two-shows-in-2017-m1-fringe-festival-for-excessive-nudity. 2. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’, Facebook, November 22, 2016, accessed February 3, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/Singaporeans DefendingMarriageFamily/. Refer also to the mirror site: Singapore Affairs, ‘M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised as Art?,’ November 22, 2016, accessed February 3, 2017, https://singaporeaffairs.wordpress. com/2016/11/22/m1-fringe-festival-pornography-disguised-as-art/. 3. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 4. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 5. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 6. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 7. Goh Wei Hao, ‘Lobbying against “Naked Ladies” and “Undressing Room” is the reason S’pore arts won’t truly thrive,’ Mothership.sg, December 7, 2016, accessed February 3, 2017, http://mothership.sg/2016/12/ lobbying-against-naked-ladies-and-undressing-room-is-the-reason-sporearts-wont-truly-thrive/. 8. This term will be further explicated in the subsequent paragraphs. 9. Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 245. 10. Foucault, Society Must be Defended, 240. 11. Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An Introduction (New York: Vintage, 1978), 140. 12. Foucault, Society Must be Defended, 253. 13. Günter Berghaus, Avant-Garde Performance: Live Events and Electronic Technologies (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 134. 14. Bojana Pejić, ‘Bodyscenes: an Affair of the Flesh,’ in Marina Abramović: Artist Body: Performances 1969–1998, eds. Marina Abramović and Velimir Abramović (Milan: Charta, 1998), 28.

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15. For more information on Naked Ladies, visit http://www.theafitzjames. com/nakedladies/. 16. Karl Toepfer, ‘Nudity and Textuality in Postmodern Performance,’ Performing Arts Journal 54 (1996): 78. 17. William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.4.104–105. Line references from the Arden Edition, edited by R.A. Foakes, 1997. 18. Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.4.104–105. 19. Ming Poon, Email Interview with Marcus Tan, February 23, 2017. 20. Ming Poon, ‘Undressing Room: Interview with Ming Poon,’ M1 Singapore Fringe 2017: Art & Skin, Facebook, November 25, 2016, accessed January 15, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/undressingroom.mingpoon/? fref=ts. My own italics. 21. Foucault, Society Must be Defended, 252. 22. Imelda Saad, ‘PM Lee: Why Singapore must ‘leave Section 377A alone,’ The Straits Times, October 23, 2007, accessed March 18, 2017, http:// news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Stor y/ A1Story20071023-31769.html. 23. Associated Press, ‘Singapore reforms sex laws—but not for homosexuals,’ The Guardian, October 24, 2007, accessed March 18, 2017, https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/24/gayrights.uk. 24. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 25. Michael D. Barr, ‘Lee Kuan Yew and the “Asian Values” Debate,’ Asian Studies Association of Australia 24.3 (2000): 311. 26. Ibid. 27. Fareed Zakaria, ‘Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew,’ Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (1994): 113. 28. Lee Hsien Loong, ‘“Family an important building block of society”: PM Lee in CNY Message,’ Channel News Asia, February 7, 2016, accessed March 28, 2017, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ family-an-important/2493710.html. 29. Lee, ‘Family an important building block of society.’ 30. Singapore Affairs, ‘M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised as Art?’ https://singaporeaffairs.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/m1-fringe-festival-pornography-disguised-as-art/. Accessed March 2, 2017. 31. Foucault, Society Must be Defended, 253. 32. Lim Tin Seng, ‘Two Child Policy,’ Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board Singapore, November 22, 2016, accessed April 1, 2017, http:// eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2016-11-09_103740.html. 33. As of March 2018, this banner image has since been replaced by another which features the former Supreme Court and an artistic representation of a heteronormative family.

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34. Slavoj Žižek, Violence (New York: Picador, 2008), 40. 35. Žižek, Violence, 41. 36. Singapore Affairs, ‘M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised As Art?’ 37. Singapore Affairs, ‘M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised As Art?’ 38. See Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, The National University of Singapore, ‘Impact of New Media on General Election 2011,’ accessed April 1, 2017, http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/ event/impact-of-new-media-on-general-election-2011. See also Zhang Weiyu, ‘Social media and elections in Singapore: comparing 2011 and 2015,’ Chinese Journal of Communication 9, no. 4 (2016): 367–384. 39. Terence Chong, The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2011), 138. 40. For more information on Pink Dot, visit https://pinkdot.sg/. 41. Regina Marie Lee, ‘“Traditional values” wear white campaign returning to Pink Dot weekend,’ Today, May 23, 2016, accessed April 1, 2017, http:// www.todayonline.com/singapore/network-churches-revives-campaignwear-white-pink-dot-weekend. 42. Lee, ‘“Traditional values” wear white campaign returning to Pink Dot weekend.’ 43. See Chew Hui Min, ‘Same-sex kiss cut from Singapore staging of Les Miserables,’ The Straits Times, June 11, 2016, accessed April 1, 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/same-sex-kiss-cut-fromsingapore-staging-of-les-miserables. 44. See Foo Jie Ying, ‘Disney’s Beauty and The Beast prompts advisory from Anglican Bishop,’ The Straits Times, March 13, 2017, accessed April 1, 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/disneys-beauty-and-thebeast-prompts-advisory-from-anglican-bishop. See also Kelly Ng, ‘“Gay Moment” in Beauty and the Beast totally unnecessary: National Council of Churches,’ Today, March 14, 2017, accessed April 1, 2017, http://m. todayonline.com/singapore/gay-moment-beauty-and-beast-totallyunnecessary-national-council-churches. 45. Nazry Bahrawi, ‘Is Singapore truly multicultural?,’ Today, February 14, 2014, accessed April 1, 2017, http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ singapore-truly-multicultural. 46. Lian Kwen Fee, ‘Multiculturalism in Singapore: Concept and Practice,’ in Multiculturalism, Migration and the Politics of Identity in Singapore, ed. Lian Kwen Fee (Singapore: Springer, 2015), 19. 47. Geoffrey Benjamin, ‘The Cultural Logic of Singapore’s “Multiracialism,”’ in Singapore: Society in Transition, ed. Riaz Hassan (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976), 116. 48. See Department of Statistics Singapore, ‘Population Trends 2016,’ accessed April 25, 2017, http://www.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-

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source/default-documentlibrary/publications/publications_and_papers/ population_and_population_structure/population2017.pdf. 49. ‘Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family,’ ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 50. ‘Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family,’ ‘M1 Fringe Festival— Pornography Disguised as Art?’ 51. Žižek, Violence, 59. 52. Singapore Affairs, ‘M1 Fringe Festival Statement—Speaking of the “Truth,”’ accessed April 1, 2017, https://singaporeaffairs.wordpress. com/2016/12/06/m1-fringe-festival-statement-speaking-of-the-truth/. 53. Žižek, Violence, 41. 54. Bahrawi, ‘Is Singapore Truly Multicultural?’ 55. See Chun Han Wong, ‘Singapore Leader Urges Tolerance of Foreigners,’ The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2012, accessed April 30, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444506004577613 311934830648. 56. Žižek, Violence, 41. 57. Žižek, Violence, 141. 58. Žižek, Violence, 142. 59. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 1. 60. Agamben, Homo Sacer, 1. 61. Agamben, Homo Sacer, 183. 62. Žižek, Violence, 143. 63. Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 2: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954–155, trans. Sylvana Tomaselli (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978, 1988), 164. 64. Ming Poon, Email Interview with Marcus Tan, February 23, 2017. 65. Ming Poon, Email interview, February 23, 2017. 66. Ming Poon, Email interview, February 23, 2017. 67. Slavoj Žižek, ‘Zizek—Multiculturalism and Tolerance,’ YouTube, November 18, 2014, accessed March 3, 2017, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=DkkpOBvZLr8. 68. Žižek, Violence, 141. 69. Tariq Modood, ‘Multiculturalism after 77,’ The RUSI Journal 153, no. 2 (2008): 17. 70. Ming Poon, Email interview, February 23, 2017.

Bibliography Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Associated Press. 2007. Singapore Reforms Sex Laws—But Not For Homosexuals. The Guardian, October 24. Accessed March 18, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/24/gayrights.uk. Bahrawi, Nazry. 2014. Is Singapore Truly Multicultural? Today, February 14. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ singapore-truly-multicultural. Barr, Michael D. 2000. Lee Kuan Yew and the “Asian Values” Debate. Asian Studies Association of Australia 24 (3): 309–334. Benjamin, Geoffrey. 1976. The Cultural Logic of Singapore’s “Multiracialism”. In Singapore: Society in Transition, ed. Riaz Hassan, 115–133. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Berghaus, Günter. 2005. Avant-Garde Performance: Live Events and Electronic Technologies. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Chew, Hui Min. 2016. Same-sex Kiss Cut from Singapore Staging of Les Miserables. The Straits Times, June 11. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://www.straitstimes. com/singapore/same-sex-kiss-cut-from-singapore-staging-of-les-miserables. Chong, Terence. 2011. The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and Resistance. London: Routledge. Chun, Han Wong. 2012. Singapore Leader Urges Tolerance of Foreigners. The Wall Street Journal, August 26. Accessed April 30, 2017. https://www.wsj. com/articles/SB10000872396390444506004577613311934830648. Department of Statistics Singapore. Population Trends 2016. Accessed April 25, 2017. http://www.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-documentlibrary/publications/publications_and_papers/population_and_population_ structure/population2017.pdf. Foo, Jie Ying. 2017. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Prompts Advisory from Anglican Bishop. The Straits Times, March 13. Accessed April 1, 2017. http:// www.straitstimes.com/singapore/disneys-beauty-and-the-beast-promptsadvisory-from-anglican-bishop. Foucault, Michel. 1978. History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An Introduction. New York: Vintage. ———. 1997. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Goh, Wei Hao. 2016. Lobbying Against “Naked Ladies” and “Undressing Room” is the Reason S’pore Arts Won’t Truly Thrive. Mothership.sg, December 7. Accessed February 3, 2017. http://mothership.sg/2016/12/lobbyingagainst-naked-ladies-and-undressing-room-is-the-reason-spore-arts-wonttruly-thrive/. Helmi Yusof. 2016. Our Skin Protects us But Also Imprisons Us (Amended). The Business Times, November 4. Accessed March 1, 2017. http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/arts/our-skin-protects-us-but-also-imprisonsus-amended.

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Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Impact of New Media on General Election 2011. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/event/impact-of-newmedia-on-general-election-2011 Lacan, Jacques. 1978 [1988]. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 2: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954–155. Translated by Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: W.W. Norton. Lee, Hsien Loong. 2016a. “Family an Important Building Block of Society”: PM Lee in CNY Message. Channel News Asia, February 7. Accessed March 28, 2017. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/family-an-important/2493710.html. Lee, Regina Marie. 2016b. “Traditional Values” Wear White Campaign Returning to Pink Dot Weekend. Today, May 23. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://www. todayonline.com/singapore/network-churches-revives-campaign-wear-whitepink-dot-weekend. Lian, Kwen Fee. 2015. Multiculturalism in Singapore: Concept and Practice. In Multiculturalism, Migration and the Politics of Identity in Singapore, ed. Lian Kwen Fee, 11–29. Singapore: Springer. Lim, Tin Seng. 2016. Two Child Policy. Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board Singapore, November 22. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://eresources. nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2016-11-09_103740.html. Ming, Poon. 2016. ‘Undressing Room: Interview with Ming Poon.’ M1 Singapore Fringe 2017: Art & Skin. Facebook, November 25. Accessed January 15, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/undressingroom.mingpoon/?fref=ts. ———. 2017. Email Interview with Marcus Tan, February 23. Modood, Tariq. 2008. Multiculturalism after 77. The RUSI Journal 153 (2): 14–17. Naked Ladies (the play) Review. 2016. YouTube, August 31. Accessed March 1, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zMbCpJvjKI. Nanda, Akshita. 2016. IMDA Denies Rating to Two Shows in 2017 M1 Fringe Festival for “excessive nudity”. The Straits Times, November 25. Accessed February 2, 2017. http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/imda-deniesrating-to-two-shows-in-2017-m1-fringe-festival-for-excessive-nudity/. Ng, Kelly. 2017. “Gay Moment” in Beauty and the Beast Totally Unnecessary: National Council of Churches. Today, March 14. Accessed April 1, 2017. http://m.todayonline.com/singapore/gay-moment-beauty-and-beasttotally-unnecessary-national-council-churches. Pejić, Bojana. 1998. Bodyscenes: An Affair of the Flesh. In Marina Abramović: Artist Body: Performances 1969–1998, ed. Marina Abramović and Velimir Abramović, 26–40. Milan: Charta. Saad, Imelda. 2007. PM Lee: Why Singapore Must ‘Leave Section 377A Alone. The Straits Times, October 23. Accessed March 18, 2017. http://news. asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story2007102331769.html.

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Shakespeare, William. 1997. King Lear. The Arden Shakespeare. Edited by R.A. Foakes. Surrey: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. Singapore Affairs. 2016. M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised as Art? November 22. Accessed February 3, 2017. https://singaporeaffairs.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/m1-fringe-festival-pornography-disguised-as-art/. Singapore Affairs. M1 Fringe Festival Statement—Speaking of the “Truth”. Accessed April 1, 2017. https://singaporeaffairs.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/m1-fringefestival-statement-speaking-of-the-truth/. Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family, Facebook. 2016. M1 Fringe Festival—Pornography Disguised as Art? November 22. Accessed February 3, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/SingaporeansDefendingMarriageFamily/. Thea Fitz-James. Naked Ladies. Accessed March 1, 2017. http://www.theafitzjames.com/nakedladies/. Toepfer, Karl. 1996. Nudity and Textuality in Postmodern Performance. Performing Arts Journal 54: 76–91. Undressing Room, Fringe Synopsis. Accessed February 1, 2017. http://www.singaporefringe.com/fringe2017/files/undressingroom.pdf. Weiyu, Zhang. 2016. Social Media and Elections in Singapore: Comparing 2011 and 2015. Chinese Journal of Communication 9 (4): 367–384. Zakaria, Fareed. 1994. Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew. Foreign Affairs 73 (2): 109–126. Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence. New York: Picador. ———. 2014. Zizek—Multiculturalism and Tolerance. YouTube, November 18. Accessed March 3, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= DkkpOBvZLr8.

CHAPTER 4

Baling in a Time of BERSIH: Embodying Historical Transcripts as Enactments of Resistance Charlene Rajendran

At the end of Baling, a documentary performance that examines a significant political moment in Malaysian history, the audience watch a short film clip of an elderly man speaking haltingly, suppressing deep emotion when he expresses a final wish to return to his home country, Malaysia. This is Chin Peng, a former communist leader, who remained an outcast in Malaysia long after the war with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) was over, and was never allowed to return. Even his ashes were barred from entry. We are told this in the performance, which has thus far veered towards seemingly straightforward statements of fact and narrations of events related to Chin Peng. The ensemble of originally four, now three,1 performers speak in a precise, forthright and explanatory manner, such that it would appear that audiences are meant to hear the words and attend to the information objectively, rather than engage with affect. Often they read from photocopied A4 sheets of paper printed with excerpts from the

C. Rajendran (*) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_4

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transcripts of the Baling Talks, a historical event in 1955 in a country on the cusp of independence from British colonial rule which occurred in 1957. Held in a small town called Baling, in the northern state of Kedah, the talks were set up to discuss the terms of amnesty offered to the communists, which would end a period of Emergency which began in 1948 and lasted till 1960. The performed text is a collage of excerpts from the declassified transcripts of the Baling Talks, juxtaposed with facts about that historical period of internal strife and personal stories from the lives of the performers. These are presented as highly reasoned articulations of history and fact, with few traces of emotion. Occasionally we might see a smirk or raised eyebrow, perhaps detect a slight tension in the voice, underscored by a sigh or clenched fist. But there is no outcry, even if there is displeasure and anger that creeps into their presence on stage. Hence the poignant ending, which shows an ageing Chin Peng, expressing a desire to be allowed back into Malaysia after a long period of exile in neighbouring Thailand, shifts the work. From the relatively crisp, dry tones of a fact-­ driven encounter the performance moves to moistened hues that evoke empathy, if not compassion, for a former communist leader widely associated with violence and terrorist activity. What made him such a figure to be feared? Why does Baling choose to leave us with an image of him as a man denied his last wish to return home? Conceived and directed by Malaysian theatre practitioner Mark Teh, the work focuses on the ‘ghost’ or ‘spectre’ of Chin Peng that ‘kept reappearing in the Malaysian landscape around the time of his death, in and around 2013.’2 First created in 2015 for the Festival of the Asian Arts Theatre in Gwangju, South Korea, and performed in a range of countries since,3 Baling provokes questions about why Chin Peng remains a controversial character long after his political career ended, even as it points to ways in which more recent political events repeat a call for resistance to hegemonic structures of power. An interest in the ‘authorship and ownership of history’4 has led to Teh initiating projects in which under-researched narratives have been interrogated with varied collaborators and presented in programmes that include multiple media and venues. The Baling Project has seen a few iterations, each developing particular strategies to unpack and understand how this event impacted political and civil life in Malaysia, and the Malaysian spectator. Synergised by larger movements in Malaysia that advocate for change, primarily BERSIH (Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections), a people’s movement which has called for political and

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electoral reform in Malaysia since 2005, the same year that Teh first began to create performance using the Baling Talks transcripts, the performance generates more options for freedom of thought and the active participation of ordinary people in the processes of change. This chapter examines how Baling provides a space to rethink and re-­ examine historical events in order to resist hegemonic narratives through critical enactments of alternative interpretation.5 This enlarges the space for dissensus, a critical concept proposed by philosopher Jacques Rancière to refer not merely to a lack of consensus, but the ‘demonstration (manifestation) of a gap in the sensible,’6 which then prods audiences to think for themselves and question what is deemed complete. This entails reimagining political action as involvement in the work of rethinking dominant national accounts and engagement with critical ideas of citizenship, leading to what Rancière terms ‘emancipation’ for the ‘spectator’ which ‘begins when we challenge the opposition between viewing and acting’ and ‘understand that viewing is also an action that confirms or transforms this distribution of positions.’7 The viewer is thereby compelled to question settled assumptions about history by reconnecting with often hidden aspects or gaps in the story, and in so doing begin to take ownership of what is real and true. By pointing to the shifting boundaries between ‘heroes’ and ‘villains,’8 in what has become a politically fluid context, Baling raises questions about truth, testimony and the authenticity of history in simple modes of storytelling and fact sharing that intertwine the past with the present. Just as the stories told by performers are partial, incomplete and strategically positioned to underline or contest an idea, so too is history rendered unfinished, biased and open for review—potentially ‘reconfiguring the distribution of the sensible,’ a process which Rancière advocates as needful and political because it introduces ‘new subjects and objects’ in order to ‘render visible what had not been, and to make heard as speakers those who had been perceived as mere noisy animals,’9 revising critical notions of good and bad, ‘hero’ and ‘villain.’ This enhances the possibility of patriotic feeling for the country, and thereby becoming more involved and engaged in the politics of the nation.

Recasting the Bogey of ‘Public Enemy Number One’ In Baling, a ‘bogey’ is recast when the story of a man widely known as the communist terrorist labelled ‘public enemy number one’ by British colonial powers is reframed as a diehard nationalist, still loyal to the country of

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his birth. The man is Ong Boon Hua (1924–2013), whose nom de guerre was Chin Peng. Regarded as the renegade who would not turn from his ‘evil’ (read communist) ways, Chin Peng, the Secretary-General of the CPM, remains an iconic figure in Malaysian politics. His name still evokes strong negative reactions from state leaders decades after his exile, and even after his death. An attempt in October 2018 to lift the ban on Lelaki Komunis Terakhir (The Last Communist), a 2006 film written and directed by Amir Muhammad, which presents a travelogue through the towns where Chin Peng once lived, was again met with rejection from the Film Censorship Board.10 Hence Baling, which grapples with the history and memory of Chin Peng, and raises questions about how he is framed to persistently arouse such ire, addresses aspects of a contemporary predicament regarding how to respond to his legacy and a fear of communism that prevails even today.11 In particular, it examines how Chin Peng has been cast as a ‘bogey,’ and, in the words of director Mark Teh, ‘how our present continues to be infected by the hysterical symptoms of our history—the notions of pollution, borders, exile; as well as the permeability of ashes, ghosts, virus. Or how something absent can be made present.’12 So what is the residual dust from the Baling Talks that continues to permeate contemporary politics in Malaysia? Attended by leaders from both sides of the divide, namely Tunku Abdul Rahman (Chief Minister of Malaya13), David Marshall (Chief Minister of Singapore) and Sir Cheng Lock Tan (President of the Malayan Chinese Association) as newly elected representatives of the Malayan people, as well as Chin Peng and two of his comrades, Rashid Maidin and Chin Tien, the talks were much anticipated. The event not only signalled the potential to reach an agreement that would put an end to the dreaded conflict, it was also an opportunity to establish the leadership of the Tunku,14 soon to leave for London to finalise details of Malaya’s independence from British colonial rule. This was an attempt to broker peace with communist insurgents, the significance and complexity of which is largely overlooked in nationalist renderings of how Malaya gained independence. While the Baling Talks are represented in official history as evidence of the CPM’s refusal to work towards peace, Baling shows how the talks can be read and understood differently. Not only does it elucidate how the state gained credence by discrediting a political other, it also engenders critical awareness about what it means for those assigned the role of ‘villain,’ accused of being wrong without platforms for rebuttal. While questioning the validity of normative ideas about a character from history, the

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performance also presents these historical facts as constitutive of the reality in which truth about the character, Chin Peng, circulates and permeates. It also includes less known truths to create a space for Chin Peng to appear as a legitimate political subject, despite the reputation of treachery and betrayal that precedes him. Just as any Malaysian framed as a ‘threat’ deserves to be heard, he too warrants a space to appear differently. Yet because Chin Peng is not ‘free’ to do so, the performance takes on the option of voicing what has been hidden, if not silenced, to suggest he could be perceived and read otherwise. This highlighting of what is often absent from common consciousness, or ‘reconfiguring the distribution of the sensible’ is political in its capacity to get audiences watching, listening to and sensing, through alternative frames and lenses, what it means to be rendered deviant or villainous without the option for recourse. In order for the spectator to seek or gain emancipation, it is necessary to have encounters that stir discomfort or unsettledness to prod a reviewing of what has been accepted and believed thus far. Viewing as powerful ‘action’ that can lead to changes of opinion as well as conviction is no longer a simple reception of what is perceived, but a conscious and creative reconfiguring that effectively reiterates or resists the ‘distribution of positions.’15 Not only is this a space for new questions, but it is also a space for new emotions, about what is seen and understood. As Andy Lavender observes, unlike a Brechtian emphasis on a rationalist approach of ‘new awareness and right-thinking,’ ‘the redistribution of the sensible is politically efficacious’ because it ‘may produce affect, sensation and experience—new feeling.’16 The three excerpts from the transcripts that are performed highlight how Chin Peng’s repeated attempts to speak against the ‘restriction of freedom’ as a matter of principle, and assert the need for the ‘dignity of man’ through the right to choose one’s political ideology, were met with derision by the Alliance leaders.17 Although his demands seem reasonable, given the talks are meant to negotiate a mutual agreement, the unflinching demand made by the government authorities was that the communists surrender unequivocally and prove their ‘loyalty’ to the country by being ‘absorbed’ into society, fully relinquishing their political ambitions. Their ideology is deemed unacceptable and they must accept this hierarchy of political legitimacy. This bias is evident and Chin Peng’s struggle resonates with contemporary attempts to secure political equality. Created and performed at a time when the awareness of abuses of political power and disparities of entitlement had grown considerably, Baling

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repeats a call for justice even as there is disagreement about what this constitutes. Malaysians who participate in attempts to address injustice and calls for reform have often been the target of state-led attempts to intimidate and invoke fear of penalty. However the escalation of courage to look beyond these threats and believe in the strength of a people’s solidarity has been significant, leading to the landmark events at the general elections on May 9, 2018, when the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front, BN) coalition and its administration was toppled from power. Prior to this, unlike Indonesians who were part of the Reformasi movement in 1998, and Filipinos who had participated in the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, Malaysians had never experienced a people’s movement that could effectively galvanise a ‘regime change.’18 Even more significantly, many of those who led the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope, PH) coalition, which defeated the BN in 2018, were former BN leaders such as current Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who was Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003, and Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister until he was sacked from office by Mahathir in the dramatic events of 1998. Anwar’s sudden fall from power, which many felt was unjust and fuelled by a personal vendetta, led to a Malaysian Reformasi movement in which Mahathir was cast as the ‘villain’ and Anwar the ‘hero.’ Thus the question of who is friend or foe, villain or hero, has become more complex given how the lines of insider and outsider have been redrawn several times. In this context, to be cast as a ‘bogey’ is no mark of permanent identity but one that is expedient for those who allocate the role, and could easily change with who fits this ‘fearsome’ image. In the section titled ‘The Birth of the Bogey,’ immediately after the first excerpt of the transcripts, performers Anne James and Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri trace how ‘Ong Boon Hua becomes Chin Peng,’ a line they repeat to underline the transmutation from layperson to adversary. They explain how his appearance at Baling in 1955 was the first time he emerged into the public gaze, stepping out of the jungle to broker a peace deal. Prior to this he was known as a ‘mask without a body’19 on propaganda leaflets and ‘Wanted’ posters, the image having been created from confiscated negatives of a passport photo taken when he was twenty-three and suffering from malaria. This was then ‘transformed by the British—cropped, tilted, blown up—to become the most reproduced and distributed image in Malaya.’20 Several enlarged prints of this image hang from the ceiling of the performance space, and the performers pull at them to hold up to the audience, even as the image

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is projected onto a wall, along with other images of ‘Wanted’ posters and newspaper headlines announcing rewards amounting to $250,000 for the capture of Chin Peng. His reputation as the man responsible for a period of violence is established, and his role as ‘public enemy number one’ made clear. But what else is known of Chin Peng? Having drawn on familiar images and associations of Chin Peng, the performers then point to a ‘much less circulated photo of Chin Peng’ in which he is being decorated by the British in 1946 as a war hero for resisting the Japanese during World War II.  The image projected on a wall shows Chin Peng smiling, shaking hands and looking straight into the eyes of Admiral Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia in the British Military Administration, from whom he received two medals—the Burma Star and the 1939–1945 Star. This is a less known fact, now presented to counter the single story and create a fissure in the hegemonic narrative, prodding spectators to ask what else has been erased and forgotten to entrench his identity as the bogey. Moving back and forth in time, the performance confronts viewers with histories of erasure that conveniently position Chin Peng as nothing but the terrorist. Spectators must then rework their perceptions of the ‘villain’ to reconfigure what they agree with and accept of the official version. Chin Peng, no longer just ‘enemy’ of the state, but ‘hero’ who defended the state, now appears differently. Here Baling ‘places one world in another,’ in order to make ‘what was unseen visible’ and thus demonstrate a ‘gap in the sensible.’21 It reconfigures the political subject as a multifarious entity that combines what is seen and unseen, heard and muted. Chin Peng is not one or the other but several simultaneously—villain, hero, nationalist, traitor—even if he remains for some a fearsome Other. By looking critically at how fear of the Other is invoked by the state, Baling seeks to dismantle the ‘terror’ that surrounds the ‘terrorist,’ and thereby release the political opponent from state rhetoric that frames otherness as fearsome. As Rustom Bharucha points out in his enquiry into how one can ‘free terror from the hegemonic discourse of terrorism,’22 there is a need to move away from unitary perspectives, to develop context-­ specific readings of terror, that enable more complex understandings of how a ‘new phenomenology of reception’ renders the viewer ‘more participatory and complicit than ever before in the actual reproduction, interpretation, and circulation of images of terror.’23 Bharucha acknowledges how ‘state terrorism’ is often ‘camouflaged or euphemised’ in the name of ‘maintaining “law and order” against insurgents and anti-social ­elements.’24

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Thus he proposes that the work of performance as a mode of social action, rather than bounded event, enables it to ‘legitimately address the terror of our times.’25 While Baling focuses on an event that occurred more than fifty years ago, it also addresses how recent reactions to political resistance share similar traits. During BERSIH rallies, the state was persistent in demonising these events as disruptive and unpatriotic to dissuade participation. Police permits to hold the rallies were often refused, and warnings sent out that those responsible would be detained, arrested and charged. Yet public support continued to grow, as a sense of confidence and agency increased for those who participated, feeling a deepened sense of solidarity as Malaysians, regardless of race or religion. As Khoo Gaik Cheng observes, ‘Bersih has played a catalytic role in realizing in very manifest ways, what abstract concepts like “citizenship” and “democracy” means for the average urban Malaysian.’26 Citing Hannah Arendt, she posits that this has generated a ‘space of appearance’ in which a public sphere for political action has been enlarged and ‘[t]his collective presence in a space of appearance to speak to one another and speak back to the government is deeply political’ because ‘the display of civic power founded on moral grounds worries the authoritarian BN government that cannot tolerate any dissent.’27 Khoo points to examples that demonstrate how Malaysians gained hope, strength and courage at BERSIH, and explains why within a ‘carnival-like atmosphere’ there were ‘new ways of relating to one another’ and the ‘discourse of “rakyat” (the people or citizenry) and “demokrasi” in the banners, speeches, poems, songs and chants reinforce the power of the people.’28 Furthermore she suggests that this ‘return to the discourse of “kerakyatan”29 resembles the cosmopolitanizing efforts of the anti-­ colonial leftists movements in the 1940.’30 BERSIH thus enabled people to rethink dominant narratives of political protest as being aggressive, terrorising and disruptive, to recognise the value of people power. Not since the days of pre-independence has the rakyat shown such commitment to seeking change and risking violent response. Despite tear gas and water cannons, the rakyat came out in large numbers to make their voices heard. As most participants at the rallies were not particularly in favour of the ruling coalition or the opposition, the non-partisan identity of BERSIH was a suitable platform on which to assert their dissatisfaction. Thus the ‘heroes’ were not politicians but the leaders of BERSIH, such as Ambiga Sreenivasan and Maria Chin Abdullah,

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whose ability to anchor the work of BERSIH in ethical demands for justice was unprecedented. While the appearances of then opposition leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir Mohamed were also celebrated, their complicity in the problem at hand was not to be denied. Once champions of the ruling party, they were now on the other side of the boundary. Once bitter enemies who opposed each other, the two men eventually united to oust a bigger enemy, then Prime Minister Najib Razak—charged with several allegations of corruption including the misuse of funds from 1MDB, an investment venture that is being investigated in several countries around the world.31 BERSIH made it possible for these characters to move from being political elites in relatively recent history to step into a new frame and become part of the rakyat, where once they had stood firmly on the other side of the barricades. Not only could the rakyat witness a sea change in the lines of power, they could bring about the tsunami rakyat 32 and feel the difference. Having been silent for so long, the rakyat became a significant voice in the story of political change.

Embodying Historical Transcripts to Contest Reductive Narratives Teh’s interest in the Baling Talks began with a curiosity about unheard voices in Malaysian history. Using documentary performance as a ‘strategy to deal with historical or recent events and their consequences’ and thus prod a ‘rethinking of the “nation,”’33 he was keen to look at ‘former leftist communists, who played a catalytic role in the Malaysian independence, [and who] started to be heard in society publically for the first time’34 after the resignation of Prime Minister Mahathir in 2003. Interested in these alternative histories and what they revealed about an-other Malaysia, he began examining publically available documents to ‘investigate how public heroes and enemies are created, circulated and remembered in contemporary Malaysia—to try and understand and deal with this phenomenon in a more human way.’35 Recognising how certain episodes in history are more readily forgotten, and that performance offers a way to reconnect with these moments, Teh works with theatre as ‘a site where you critically reflect upon all utterance, and where you collectively gather various opinions’ such that it can become ‘a place where [the] invisible is rendered visible.’36

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In Baling, history and personal story are intertwined to suggest how political manoeuvres occur across everyday lives, and efforts to recognise and rethink these imbrications are crucial to the work of reimagining politics and relations of power. Grappling with ‘the question of citizenship—at the political, emotional and individual level’ at a time of crises, Teh uses the transcripts as a ‘spine for finding new questions, frictions and readings in Malaysian history’ and creates frames for ‘devising different formats and tactics with which to perform them.’37 Bearing in mind that since 2015, when Baling was first performed, many Malaysians have been deeply anxious about the state of the nation, this offers another platform to think about how to respond and take action. Although he is known as a contemporary performance maker, apart from being an educator, curator and researcher, Teh sees himself as more of a historian for whom theatre is a ‘container,’ rather than an art form, where ideas can be presented and ‘a new past and alternative future of Malaysia can be brought into relief.’38 Collaboratively written by Teh and the performers Anne James, Fahmi Fadzil, Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri and Imri Nasution, the Baling text was assembled after a time of research and discussion, to excavate neglected truths and forge connections with the present. Unlike actors playing fictional characters who step out of role to resume unrelated lives when the performance is over, these performers are what Teh calls ‘social actors’ who are ‘not only actors but people who are close to the subject matter— through work or research.’39 As reviewer Carmen Nge notes, they ‘play themselves’ and their ‘relationship to the history’ they perform in a ‘surreal form of meta-commentary’ that prods a viewer to connect the historical fragments with little and large real events in the contemporary.40 Their stories sit alongside the historical transcripts, to suggest how everyday lives are imbricated in historical narratives. In this manner Baling audiences are led to engage with the transcripts as a palimpsest, in which historical texts are layered with contemporary narratives that render the originals visible via what lies over it. Each time the transcripts are read aloud, the performers switch roles, to allow for each historical figure to be embodied and heard differently.41 The performer who plays Chin Peng always wears a watch, and the one who plays the Tunku always wears a songkok (Malay traditional headgear for men). But they in no way physically resemble or sound like the original characters, retaining a strong sense of ‘themselves’ even as they ‘play’ these iconic characters. Dressed in everyman attire of light-coloured long-sleeved shirts and dark-coloured jeans, they stand, walk around or sit at a table,

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holding the papers from which they read, giving no illusion they are mimicking what happened in the Baling Talks—images of which are projected during the performance, and seen at the start when The Baling Talks is screened. This is a four-minute documentary made by the Malayan Film Unit and shown in cinemas across Malaya soon after the event.42 This film was blatant propaganda to feed anti-communist sentiment, and presents Chin Peng as the unremitting rogue. In Baling, it sets the stage for reviewing the event, to consider if other perspectives can be derived, and if an overt political message that was once repeated across the country can be retrieved for contemporary political criticality. The performers, together with the audience, watch as it plays. It is as if one documentary projected from the past is overlaid with a contemporary documentary that rethinks the present—a different form of placing ‘one world in another’43 to rethink both. For just as the meaning of the film is not set in stone, neither are the transcripts, nor the personal stories the performers tell. In earlier versions, when Fahmi Fadzil introduces himself at the beginning as simply ‘one of the performers,’ but later reveals that he is also an aspiring politician who had to deal with being othered, the audience navigate the relationships between a political figure in history deemed an ‘enemy’ and an aspiring opposition politician who is also ‘villainised.’ As ‘the Communications Director and Deputy-Chief of Youth for the People’s Justice Party or Parti Keadilan Rakyat,’44 a leading opposition party until May 2018 when it became a major ruling party, Fahmi had to grapple with being made a ‘bogey’ of sorts, for raising questions, if not dissenting voices, in his work as artist and activist.45 In 2011 he was labelled a ‘communist’ for directing a performance in 2008 called Operasi Oktober (Operation October), about ‘young Malaysians struggling with the memory—or lack thereof—of the role of the communists in the tumultuous period of our road to nationhood.’46 This label is harmful as communism is outlawed in Malaysia, and in 2011, thirty opposition members were detained for allegedly wanting to ‘revive communist ideologies’ and being ‘advocates of communist beliefs’ just prior to a BERSIH rally.47 Fahmi then discloses how he attended Chin Peng’s wake in Thailand in 2013, and was conscious of the risks he took by simply being present. He expresses the possibility of being under scrutiny by the Special Branch, a division of the police force set up during the Emergency to monitor the communists, and still in operation to guard against perceived ‘threats’ to the nation. Thus, his placing a thirty-six-page funeral booklet in his dirty laundry bag to avoid detection and taking a single selfie with Chin Peng’s

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coffin in the background to prove he was present were highly risky actions that could have cost him significantly. The images, projected directly from his mobile phone, draw attention to the very device used. Just as the very same funeral booklet, later revealed when Chin Peng’s final letter is projected and an excerpt read, becomes a historically imbued object that transforms the stage into a temporary vitrine that contains significant items for viewing. The stories told by the performers are real stories but they also speak to an imagined eventuality, in which there is hope for more courageous and just action, even as it is riddled with anxiety about the present. These stories become part of what Teh calls a ‘rakyat-centric perspective of history’48 in which the lives of ordinary people are investigated in relation to moments in history. Here Teh is working with the dynamics of actuality in order to ‘complicate notions of authenticity with a more nuanced and challenging evocation of the “real.”’49 When audiences hear Fahmi’s story, they are engaged in a ‘real’ encounter with the performer, just as when they hear Chin Peng’s voice at the end, they too are meant to have a ‘real,’ albeit mediated, encounter with the ‘real’ Chin Peng. Teh involves audiences in navigating performance as imbued with ‘truth’ and the ‘real,’ but raises questions about how to ‘get real’ and have ‘access to the “real thing”’ in order to ‘reinterpret history’ and ‘represent’ it according to the ‘fascination, proclivities, imagination, and individual convictions’ of the artist.50 Baling presents what the performers read and interpret as much as it represents what they think and believe. As Janelle Reinelt explains, this way of working ‘credits what is objectively there as well as what is creatively produced and ultimately received,’ as it is ‘predicated on a realist epistemology’ but is ‘dependent on a phenomenological engagement.’51 This demands a commitment to witnessing and participating, a willingness to be engaged beyond mere passive recipients of a story, and a negotiation of positions of agency. Audiences are cast as spectators, if not witnesses, who must make meaning, forge links and find resonances between fragments of events and memories of experiences, while taking responsibility for rethinking and interrogating normative notions of heroes and villains. Engagement, rather than mere viewing, is key to the experience, and as Lavender’s analysis of performance in the twenty-first century suggests, this is theatre that is socially committed, not necessarily in order to espouse a particular perspective (although it might), but to perform an age-old function:

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provide a seeing place (theatron) where matters of significance are shared communally, and a gathering ground where events are inhabited in common.52

As in Baling, the performance gathers spectators to revisit what happened in Baling and see new perspectives that are largely hidden from view, to then arrive at alternative conclusions about the twists and turns of history. Even as Chin Peng is no more, his mediated presence and the ‘real’ encounters with his legacy permeate the space. All the more because the performance, which has been adapted to suit different kinds of venues, always occurs in a relatively bare space where the performers and audiences are in close proximity. The set, designed by Wong Tay Sy to work more like an installation, consists of a wall of photocopied transcripts, hanging images of Chin Peng and several upright books arranged on the floor to resemble the shape of the Malay Peninsula. There are approximately a hundred books comprising textbooks, guidebooks, memoirs, coffee-table books, academic texts and historiographical writings that all relate to Malaysian history and refer to Chin Peng, the Baling Talks and/ or the Malayan Emergency. These texts, in English, Malay and Chinese, are mostly thick tomes that generate weightedness (Fig. 4.1). They occupy space and exude a heavy presence, particularly when the performers pick them up, look through them and rearrange them to suggest the kinds of remapping of identities being discussed in the segment.53 This occurs when they perform the second extract of the transcripts, which highlights the resettling of communist insurgents proposed by the Alliance. The reassembling of these volumes also marks a growing production of historical narratives of the time, and the diversity of perspectives now available. Several copies of Chin Peng’s autobiography, Alias Chin Peng—My Side of History, published in 2003, are among them—the cover showing a bald, smiling, older Chin Peng, most unlike the ‘Wanted’ image that hangs above. Chin Peng is visible and present in the objects that frame the space, and the words projected and printed allude to how he, like the events of the time, has been interpreted and reinterpreted. Historical text is reassembled and reconfigured to provoke critical revisionings of what it means to attend to the past through fragmented time and space. Teh alludes to how ‘our understanding of history is fragmented’ and thus ‘rather than having the audience sit on one side and watch the stage’ audiences are periodically ushered by the performers to move from their original location or face different directions, as one way to ‘embrace the fragmented history.’54 They must shift position in order to see the

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Fig. 4.1  Baling performance at Salihara Gallery in Jakarta, September 2018, with performers Anne James and Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri. (Photo: Tan Kui Lan)

performance, just as they must alter their views if they are to engage deeply with what is being performed. In a 2018 version I watched in Jakarta, as well as a video recording of a 2016 performance in Yokohama, the audience sit on the floor in the middle of the space. In a corner of the room there is a table with coffee, tea, water and stapled photocopies of the transcripts. Audiences are invited to help themselves to a copy or serve themselves a drink anytime during the performance. After all they are there to decide what they will read and how much they will shift positions. However, in some versions, when the venue allowed for it, there was more compulsory movement and relocation of audiences. According to Nge, who watched a different version of the performance in 2016 at a two-­ storey shoplot that houses the Five Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur, moving from one room to another during the performance was an effective way for audiences to feel the ‘poly-perspectival experience of mobility,’ even if they had to deal with ‘a good deal of discomfort’ in some segments, due to the heat or ‘uneven circulation of air.’55 For her, the performers ‘kept forming and reforming new bounded spaces’ and the audiences ‘were forced to re-align themselves’ accordingly.56 Furthermore, she likens the ‘corporeal movements of the audiences’ with the ‘geo-political ­movements of our young nation,’ suggesting that the ‘intermittent movement’ was

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reminiscent of CPM members ‘always on the run, chasing an ideal that would always be beyond their reach.’57 Changing places is never a straightforward decision of getting a better view, or improving one’s position, but it does alter how one feels and what one sees—making the option to turn around and look elsewhere, or choose a spot on the sidelines and watch what happens at an angle, more likely than when one remains in a fixed seat.

Excavating Hidden Histories as Political Revisioning Teh’s work has been consistently attentive to history as a lens to review and refract politics in the contemporary. Reflecting on growing up in Malaysia, born in 1981, he observes that he was ‘one of those kids’ who had a monolithic view of history, and ‘bought into’ economic and technological advancement as the primary markers of progress.58 The lack of multiple perspectives produced a passivity in which ‘the internal clock for reflection and criticality was actually very static’ and there was no motivation to ‘rethink what was at the core of [our] confidence.’59 Critical of this narrowness and singularity, he creates work that does not merely present history, but demonstrates pluralistic interpretations that revise the dominant discourse. The Baling Project began in 2005 as part of a Directors’ Workshop led by pioneering theatre director Krishen Jit and produced by Five Arts Centre.60 At the time Teh was ‘spurred by the recent publication of Alias Chin Peng—My Side of History,’ an autobiography that together with ‘other reappraisals of this period’ led him to ponder how his generation could respond to these materials.61 Prodded by Jit, who was also a historian, to take on ‘more distanced and detached modes to the stage’ as a younger generation who had not ‘lived through those periods’ Teh began a process of examining some ignored fractures and gaps that could explain ‘hysterical symptoms’ in the Malaysian psyche.62 Teh then devised a performance Baling (Membaling) with three collaborator-­ performers, Chang Yoong Chia, Fahmi Reza and Imri Nasution, based on the transcripts of the Baling Talks and research they conducted in the Peace Villages in Southern Thailand, where former communists had been living. They intertwined text from the transcripts with stories told by the performers about the lived experiences of their families during the time of Emergency. They also used a myth associated with the town of Baling, which is the Malay word for ‘throw,’ in which a corrupt vampire king throws away his fangs when he turns from his wicked ways.

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As Nge recalls, this was a ‘riotous and raw amalgamation of text, bodies and sound’ compared to the ‘polished’ and ‘disciplined’ energy of Baling.63 Nonetheless, writing about the performance in 2005, Nge identifies this as indicative of young people in Malaysia confronting difficult moments in history in relation to ongoing struggles.64 This was the same year that BERSIH began as a Joint Action Committee for Electoral Reform, which was later officially launched in November 2006.65 In 2008, when Teh and a larger group of collaborators organised Emergency: A Multi-Arts Festival to mark forty years since the beginning of a tumultuous time, with a series of performances, talks, films and an exhibition, he presented the 1955 Baling Talks.66 Here the entire transcripts were read over a period of seven to eight hours, by a plurality of voices interested in and willing to embody this historic event. They included activists, artists, sociologists, journalists, politicians, students, lawyers and audience members who were willing to participate. With multiple readers for each historical figure, Teh underlined how these characters can be read and heard diversely, inflected according to the particular position and reputation of the reader. There is no stipulated and designated meaning, and Teh curates a performance as a ‘container’ that allows each voice to execute its own interpretive slant. In 2011 a different version of this participatory and durational event was presented at the Singapore Arts Festival, and another version was created as a performance-­ intervention in three London libraries with significant Malaysian collections. By this time, BERSIH had organised its first mass rally, BERSIH 1, on November 10, 2007, at which a memorandum for electoral reform was submitted to His Majesty Yang Dipertuan Agong (the term used to refer to the Malaysian king), despite attempts by the state to prevent this. The 2008 general elections was another turning point for the nation, in which the opposition coalition, the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance), denied the BN a two-third majority in Parliament. Teh connects this with artists getting more directly involved in activism and mass protests, developing more bottom-up initiatives, independent art spaces and community arts programmes to decentralise the political movement.67 On July 9, 2011, BERSIH 2 was held in Kuala Lumpur, while solidarity gatherings in thirty-­ two cities around the world were organised by Global BERSIH, the international network and advocacy arm.68 BERSIH 3, on April 28, 2012, saw even more cities around the world adding their support and a deepening sense of resolve on the ground. In 2015, BERSIH 4, a two-day rally which

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ended at midnight on August 31, Malaysia’s Independence Day, culminated in the national anthem sung by the many thousands present. BERSIH 4 was marked by a new level of resolve among citizens, each one part of a ‘sea of yellow.’69 By this stage the authorities refrained from taking a hard line and the police were ‘praised’ for their ‘restraint’ and ‘minimal involvement, allowing the rakyat, and the rally, their space.’70 Khoo argues that ‘national identity was constituted anew’ because the ‘space of appearance’ included ‘rational debate and discussion of opposing views,’ and ‘rekindled intergenerational solidarity’ and ‘caring carved out for civility (mutual cooperation) and ethics.’71 Baling emerged out of a desire to create a ‘space of appearance’72 for a Malayan subject, silenced by exile. Teh was particularly curious about the persistent spectral presence of Chin Peng and had begun collecting books, saving website links and keeping a folder of images related to Chin Peng, as he felt these were ‘tied to the anxieties about his return (in a physical sense) to Malaysia.’73 Such that when the creative team began to work on the project, they trawled through this and other material with a consciousness about how the representation and framing of Chin Peng revealed something crucial about the Malaysian political psyche. The sense of an emotional connection with the material, and not just awareness of a political disconnect, was needed to motivate a deeper solidarity and care about citizenship. This was perhaps less about bold resistance and more about critical resilience in the face of difficulty. Looking again at the Baling Talks and materials collected since 2005, Teh was keen to incorporate more ‘personal and poetic voices that hold the possibility of expressing the figure of Chin Peng and how this image has been constructed.’74 The final segment in the performance, ‘An Interview with Chin Peng,’ is the result of this revisiting and excavating of material. Imri, having just played Chin Peng in the prior section, conveys how exciting it was in 2010, to receive a ‘surprise invitation to interview Chin Peng,’75 as Chin Peng had earlier turned down several Malaysian filmmakers who wanted to film him. Working as cameraman for director Fahmi Reza on Revolusi 48 (Revolution 48), a documentary on the communist armed struggle for independence, Imri had high expectations of ‘the man who had shaped so much of the history of my country.’76 Yet when he finally encountered Chin Peng it was ‘a disappointment,’ as ‘he had trouble completing his sentences, searching for words, often times keeping quiet while we waited.’77 There was little they could use, and the ‘roughly seven hours of material,’ like the project, was shelved. However, when Imri returned to review the footage

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in 2015, as part of his research for Baling, he discovered what he had failed to see earlier. The passage of time, and the frame for Baling, had provided a more personal lens through which to view what was real and true—a man no longer able to live up to his notorious image from the past, but clear in his expression of a dying wish. Imri now felt the footage needed to be seen, as he felt differently about what he saw—no longer was Chin Peng just a ‘hero’ and/or ‘traitor,’ he was now a Malayan, potentially a Malaysian, denied his space of appearance. By this stage in the performance, the audience has already encountered an extract from Chin Peng’s letter printed in his funeral booklet, which says, When you read this letter, I am no more in this world. Ever since I joined the Communist Party of Malaya and eventually became its Secretary General, I have given both my spiritual and physical self in the service of the cause that my Party represented, that is, to fight for a fairer and better society based on Socialist ideals. Now, with my passing away, it is time that my body be returned to my family. It is most unfortunate that I couldn’t, after all, pay my last respects to my parents buried in my hometown of Sitiawan, nor could I set foot on the beloved motherland that my comrades and I fought so hard for against the aggressors and colonialists. Chin Peng. Ong Boon Hua.78

So when the audience watch Chin Peng speak for himself, in Malay, smiling broadly as he expresses uncertainty about whether the Malaysian government will grant his desire to return to Malaysia, declaring gently he would be willing to walk all the way and be interrogated at the border if need be, they see a weakened human being, making a final plea. He does not look capable of a long walk, nor is he likely to manage immigration scrutiny. His memory appears patchy and his mind seems to wander as he speaks. Beneath the smiling exterior that he struggles to sustain, there is a strong sense of despondency and fatigue, most evident during intermittent periods of silence, when the viewer watches him breathe, collecting his thoughts and trying to put words together. Occasionally, when he glances at the camera and quickly looks away, they see a man at the end of a long road. It is a tender moment in the performance, as the audience already knows his wish to return was never granted, and even his remains were not allowed back into the country he pledged allegiance to all his life. This is a moment of reflection, without resolution.

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Chin Peng, ‘public enemy number one,’ who was adamant about his stance in Baling, a war hero and a militant nationalist who refused to surrender in order to be allocated a place in society, is now stateless and vulnerable. Audiences must grapple with how time has changed him, even if history seems to often freeze him in time. Even though the nation has new ‘ghosts’ to fight, he remains a spectral presence, which reflects on the Malaysian psyche and politics of fearmongering. Despite filing a court application to ‘compel the Malaysian government to allow him to come home,’79 Chin Peng was repeatedly refused re-entry, a decision criticised as a breach of the Hat Yai Peace Accord signed in 1989, which allowed for CPM members who had laid down their arms to return. However, the state was unwavering and insistent that Chin Peng remained a significant threat, not even allowing his ashes to be brought into the country. As Baling declares, ‘when Chin Peng the man died, Chin Peng the bogey once again re-emerges out of the jungle, crosses borders and steps directly into the public gaze,’ and to sustain the official narrative, he must ‘remain the last Communist, barred from entering, visiting, homecoming.’80 His role as the ‘bogey’ is kept in play even though the stage has changed its frame from the tensions of the 1950s to the anxieties of the twenty-first century. Not unlike the ‘container’ of BERSIH, in which participants discover how unexamined notions about power can be revised, within the ‘container’ of Baling, spectators can navigate how ‘public heroes and enemies are created, circulated and remembered’81 and become involved in constructing alternative histories. When they encounter a Chin Peng who is no longer able to live up to his fearsome reputation, they too, like Imri, can discover how when ‘[W]e went looking for Chin Peng, we found Ong Boon Hua instead.’82 While this is a short-lived moment that remains unresolved, as the performance ends without a conclusion or final comment from the performers, but simply a silence and blackout after Chin Peng speaks, it has nonetheless a lingering effect. It evokes questions about the ‘space for appearance’ denied to Chin Peng in real terms, and whether this was justified. Audiences may ponder the lost opportunity to allow an exile the right to return home, just as they might ask about the unheard voices in Chin Peng’s story, including victims of the communist insurgency. They could contemplate whether the bias in Baling has tipped the scales too far, or just enough to open up space for a new enquiry. They might deliberate whether it has created a new ‘hero’ posthumously whose commitment to a singular cause marks him as rare in a ‘liquid modernity,’ which Zygmunt

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Bauman identifies as partial to a ‘fluidity’ of structures and ideas, in contrast to a ‘solid modernity’ associated with aspirations of perfection that are linked with a ‘fixity’ that is highly ‘resistant or immunized to change.’83 In a context so given to shifts of loyalty and ideology, is Chin Peng more an anomaly or anachronism in his seeming singularity? Viewers can disagree with the frame of performance and dispute its rationale, configuring their own viewpoints for engaging with history as ‘emancipated spectators’ or otherwise, depending on their personal and political inclinations. Yet perhaps after listening to debates, hard facts and reasoned narratives, what is most potent is that they are now left to feel for the stories and let emotions mingle, more fluidly, with questions about what is ‘real’ and ‘true’ as they return to their everyday activity. For the participants of BERSIH who gathered on August 30, 2015, in Dataran Merdeka, the historic city centre of Kuala Lumpur where independence had been declared by the Tunku fifty-eight years before, the atmosphere changed from a cheerful ‘carnival’ to a more vigorous assembly when the crowd began chanting the countdown, seconds before midnight. When the clock struck twelve they burst into cheers of Merdeka (Freedom) and rounds of applause. Then an announcement was made for all to join in the national anthem, which precipitated a hush and then the charged voices of Malaysians singing Negara Ku (My Country). For many this was an emotional moment as it was heightened by the sense of solidarity that came through struggle, and the opportunity to create a rupture in what it means to be a Malaysian. In the words of an online columnist: We were all Malaysians, gathered together and singing the National Anthem with pride and honour. It was a very uplifting and emotional moment … To me, national spirit was in full force over the last two days and especially tonight. In my mind, there can be nothing shallow about caring so much for your country that you want to make a difference.84

Perhaps like those gathered that night, who had worked through the multiple arguments and conflicting reasons for supporting the call for change, the audiences at Baling would also welcome a moment of emotion that revitalised a sense of connection to the human condition, and why it matters to be heard and to listen. Even as history is a reminder of how some voices are invariably made louder and others silenced, in the process of rethinking the politics of nation and reframing the space for the hero and the traitor, Baling provides a container for experiencing the echoes that

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linger. For one reviewer it prodded a ‘need to feel something for this period in our nation’s history.’85 For me it was a desire to revisit the histories of my Malaysia.

Notes 1. The first iteration of Baling in 2015 had an ensemble of four performers, who also devised the text with the director. But in 2018 one performer was unable to continue, and, thus, the performance now consists of three performers and the text has been adjusted accordingly. This is discussed later in the chapter. 2. Mark Teh, email message to author, March 21, 2018. 3. The Baling Tour has included performances in festivals and arts events in Gwangju (South Korea, 2015), Kerala (India, 2016), Kyoto, Yokohama (Japan, 2016), Sharjah (United Arab Emirates, 2016), Braunschweig (Germany, 2016), Athens (Greece, 2018), Jakarta (Indonesia 2018) and Adelaide (Australia 2018). 4. Nick Choo, ‘Rewriting the Emergency,’ The Nut Graph, October 16, 2008, accessed October 12, 2018, http://www.thenutgraph.com/ rewriting-the-emergency/. 5. This chapter is written based on a video recording of the performance of Baling in Yokohama (2016) with an ensemble of four performers; the performance in Jakarta (2018) with three performers, at which I was present, as well as unpublished scripts used in both versions. 6. Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, ed. and trans. Steven Corcoran (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 46. 7. Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, trans. Gregory Elliot (London and New York: Verso, 2009), 13. 8. The terms ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ have been used to discuss Chin Peng, alluding to the contradictions he embodies. See The Editor, ‘Forum addresses if Chin Peng was hero or villain,’ The EDGE, October 9, 2013, accessed November 14, 2018, http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/forumaddresses-if-chin-peng-was-hero-or-villain. 9. Jacques Rancière, Aesthetics and Its Discontents, trans. Steven Corcoran (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2009), 25. 10. ‘Censorship Board: Ban on Amir Muhammad’s Lelaki Komunis Terakhir still on,’ The Star Online, October 6, 2018, accessed November 3, 2018. h t t p s : / / w w w. t h e s t a r. c o m . m y / n e w s / n a t i o n / 2 0 1 8 / 1 0 / 0 6 / censorship-board-ban-on-amir-muhammads-lelaki-komunis-terakhirstill-on/. 11. Communism is a political ideology that is still unwelcome, if not outlawed, in parts of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

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Despite its role in activating nationalist struggles during the colonial period particularly post-World War II, it was perceived as a major national threat in the early days of independence, which intensified during the Cold War when the United States of America made concerted efforts to contain communism, in the 1960s and 1970s. In Malaysia and Singapore, several people were detained without trial for alleged communist activities. 12. Mark Teh, ‘Dispersing the Documents & Reading the Ashes: notes on Baling,’ Programme Booklet for Baling performance in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2016. Produced by Five Arts Centre, Malaysia. 13. From 1957 till 1963, what is now known as Malaysia was called Malaya. Prior to independence from colonial rule in 1957, this was known as British Malaya, and then the Federation of Malaya. Malaya consisted of the peninsula at the southeastern tip of the Asian continent, and later united with the island of Singapore, and two states in North Borneo, Sabah and Sarawak, to form Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore became an independent nation. 14. Tunku is a royal title and not a given name. Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaya, was a member of the royal family of Kedah, and most often referred to as ‘the Tunku.’ 15. Rancière, Emancipated Spectator, 13. 16. Andy Lavender, ‘Viewing and Acting (and Points in Between): The Trouble with Spectating after Rancière,’ Contemporary Theatre Review 22, no. 3 (2012): 311. 17. Unpublished Baling Script (2016), 12–14. 18. See Francis Loh and Anil Netto, eds., Regime Change in Malaysia: GE14 and the End of UMNO-BN’s 60-Year Rule (Puchong: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD) and Aliran Kesedaran Negara (Aliran), 2018). 19. Baling, 7. 20. Baling, 6. 21. Rancière, Dissensus, 46. 22. Rustom Bharucha, Terror and Performance (London and New  York: Routledge, 2014), 10. 23. Bharucha, 17. 24. Bharucha, 10. 25. Bharucha, 22. 26. Khoo Gaik Cheng, ‘Bersih dan Ubah: citizenship rights, intergenerational togetherness, and multicultural unity in Malaysia,’ in Worlding Multiculturalisms: The politics of inter-Asian dwelling, ed. Daniel P.S. Goh (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2015), 111. 27. Khoo, 113. 28. Khoo, 119–120.

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29. This term translates as both citizen-hood and democracy. 30. Khoo, 120. 31. See Randeep Ramesh, ‘1MDB: The inside story of the world’s biggest financial scandal,’ The Guardian, July 28, 2016, accessed November 10, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/1mdb-insidestory-worlds-biggest-financial-scandal-malaysia. 32. This term ‘tsunami rakyat’ (citizen tsunami) was used in the campaign trail of the PH to motivate strong voter turnout and symbolise the potential of citizens uniting to create change. It also references an earlier term tsunami Cina (Chinese tsunami) that Najib used in 2008 to blame ethnic Chinese voters for BN losses in the general elections, repeating a racialised politics that was resisted by the PH in 2018. See Serina Rahman, ‘Commentary: Malaysia reborn? Does GE14 spell an end to racial politics?,’ Channel NewsAsia, May 10, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018, https://www. channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/malaysia-general-electionrace-card-costs-of-living-concerns-10220262. 33. Teh, cited in Dinesh Kumar Maganathan, ‘More than a meeting: The 1955 Baling Talks gets the documentary treatment on stage,’ The Star, March 30, 2016, accessed November 3, 2018, https://www.pressreader.com/ malaysia/the-star-malaysia-star2/20160330/281724088685946. 34. Teh, cited in Kyoko Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre: Emergence of a new generation of artists,’ Performing Arts Network Japan: The Japan Foundation, December 21, 2016, accessed November 5, 2018, http://www.performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1612/1.html. 35. Mark Teh, ‘Dispersing the Documents & Reading the Ashes: notes on Baling,’ in Baling programme booklet (Kuala Lumpur: Five Arts Centre, 2016). 36. Teh, in Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 8. 37. Teh, ‘Dispersing.’ 38. Teh, in Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 9. 39. Teh, in Maganathan, ‘More than a meeting.’ 40. Carmen Nge, ‘The Final Return of the Last Communist,’ Critics Republic, May 18, 2016, accessed November 2, 2018, https://www.criticsrepublic. com/2016/05/18/the-final-return-of-the-last-communist/. 41. Although there are four historical figures who feature in the transcripts, Sir Cheng Lock Tan made very few statements. Thus, his voice does not feature in Baling and the performers take turns to play the Tunku, David Marshall and Chin Peng. 42. The Baling Talks is available online: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WP9VV2_Gxgo&t=2s, accessed October 13, 2018. 43. Rancière, Dissensus, 46. 44. Baling, 17.

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45. Fahmi Fadzil is now a Member of Parliament and active politician, and no longer performs in Baling. In the performance adapted for three performers, Faiq relates the story of his own journey to a cemetery in Sitiawan, where Chin Peng’s parents are buried, and where Chin Peng hoped to be buried. Faiq also speaks of a friend who attended the funeral and gave him the funeral booklet. 46. Ibid. 47. ‘Malaysian activists arrested before banned political rally,’ The Guardian, June 27, 2011, accessed November 2, 2018, https://www.theguardian. com/world/2011/jun/27/malaysia-activists-arrested-political-rally. 48. Choo, ‘Rewriting.’ 49. Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson, ‘Introduction,’ in Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present, ed. Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2. 50. Carol Martin, Theatre of the Real (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 2–12. 51. Janelle Reinelt, ‘The Promise of Documentary,’ in Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present, ed. Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 7–11. 52. Andy Lavender, Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 26. 53. Mark Teh, Email correspondence with Charlene Rajendran, March 21, 2018. 54. ‘Turning History into a Performance,’ The Malaysian Reserve, April 3, 2017, accessed October 2, 2018, https://themalaysianreserve. com/2017/04/03/turning-history-into-a-performance/. 55. Nge, ‘The Final Return.’ 56. Nge, ‘The Final Return.’ 57. Nge, ‘The Final Return.’ 58. Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 2. 59. Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 2. 60. Five Arts Centre is a collective of Malaysian artists and producers founded in 1984, of which Teh is a member. See http://www.fiveartscentre.org/, accessed December 8, 2018. 61. Mark Teh, ‘Zooming in and Zooming Out with Krishen Jit,’ in Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre, eds. Charlene Rajendran, Ken Takiguchi, Carmen Nge (Kuala Lumpur: Five Arts Centre and Epigram Books, 2018), 143. 62. Teh, ‘Zooming in and Zooming out with Krishen Jit,’ 143. 63. Nge, ‘The Final Return.’ 64. Carmen Nge, ‘Baling Membaling 1955: Chin Peng meets Tunku,’ Small Acts, February 7, 2006, accessed December 3, 2018, http://smallacts. blogspot.com/2006/02/baling-membaling-1955-chin-peng-meets.html.

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65. For details on BERSIH origins and activities, see BERSIH website: http:// www.bersih.org/, accessed December 5, 2018. 66. Choo, ‘Rewriting.’ 67. Sadayuki Higuchi, ‘An Artist Collective that Acutely Intervenes in the Contemporary Sociopolitical Reality of Malaysia—Mark Teh and June Tan Interview,’ Features: Asia Center Japan Foundation, 2014, accessed December 5, 2018, https://jfac.jp/en/culture/features/asiahundred05/. 68. See Global BERSIH website: https://www.globalbersih.org/about/, accessed December 4, 2018. 69. See Shannon Teoh, ‘A sea of yellow in Kuala Lumpur as protestors demand Najib’s resignation,’ The Straits Times, August 29, 2015, accessed December 5, 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/a-seaof-yellow-in-kuala-lumpur-as-protesters-demand-najibs-resignation. 70. Nicholas Cheng, ‘Bersih organisers thank police for their restraint during rally,’ The Star Online, August 31, 2015, accessed December 4, 2018, h t t p s : / / w w w. t h e s t a r. c o m . m y / n e w s / n a t i o n / 2 0 1 5 / 0 8 / 3 1 / bersih-4-thanks-police/. 71. Khoo, ‘Bersih dan Ubah,’ 118–119. 72. Hannah Arendt cited in Khoo, ‘Bersih dan Ubah,’ 111. 73. Teh in Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 7–8 74. Teh in Iwaki, ‘Five Arts Centre,’ 7–8. 75. Baling, 28. 76. Baling, 28. 77. Baling, 28. 78. Baling, 18. 79. Baling, 18. 80. Baling, 18. 81. Teh, ‘Dispersing.’ 82. Baling, 28. 83. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2012), vii–xix. 84. Dharm Navaratnam, ‘Day Two of Bersih 4—Oh what a feeling,’ malaysiakini, August 31, 2015, accessed December 7, 2018, https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/310552. 85. Nge, ‘The Final Return.’

Bibliography Arrested on Return from Communist Party Leader’s Funeral. 2013. The New Paper, September 27. Accessed November 2, 2018. http://www.asiaone. com/malaysia/arrested-return-communist-party-leaders-funeral. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2012. Liquid Modernity. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.

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Bharucha, Rustom. 2014. Terror and Performance. London and New  York: Routledge. Censorship Board: Ban on Amir Muhammad’s Lelaki Komunis Terakhir still on. 2018. The Star Online, October 6. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://www. thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/06/censorship-board-ban-on-amirmuhammads-lelaki-komunis-terakhir-still-on/. Cheng, Nicholas. 2015. Bersih Organisers Thank Police for Their Restraint During Rally. The Star Online, August 31. Accessed December 4, 2018. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2015/08/31/bersih-4thanks-police/. Choo, Nick. 2008. Rewriting the Emergency. The Nut Graph, October 16. Accessed October 12, 2018. http://www.thenutgraph.com/rewriting-theemergency/. Forsyth, Alison, and Chris Megson. 2009. Introduction. In Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present, ed. Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson, 6–23. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Higuchi, Sadayuki. 2014. An Artist Collective that Acutely Intervenes in the Contemporary Sociopolitical Reality of Malaysia—Mark Teh and June Tan Interview. Features: Asia Center Japan Foundation. Accessed December 5, 2018. https://jfac.jp/en/culture/features/asiahundred05/. Iwaki, Kyoko. 2016. Five Arts Centre: Emergence of a New Generation of Artists. Performing Arts Network Japan: The Japan Foundation, December 21. Accessed November 5, 2018. http://www.performingarts.jp/E/pre_interview/1612/1.html. Khoo, Gaik Cheng. 2015. Bersih dan Ubah: Citizenship Rights, Intergenerational Togetherness, and Multicultural Unity in Malaysia. In Worlding Multiculturalisms: The Politics of Inter-Asian Dwelling, ed. Daniel P.S.  Goh, 109–126. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Lavender, Andy. 2012. Viewing and Acting (and Points in Between): The Trouble with Spectating after Rancière. Contemporary Theatre Review 22 (3): 307–326. ———. 2016. Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London and New York: Routledge. Loh, Francis. 2018. Regime Change and All That. In Regime Change in Malaysia: GE14 and the End of UMNO-BN’s 60-Year Rule, ed. Francis Loh and Anil Netto, xix–xxiv. Puchong: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD) and Aliran Kesedaran Negara (Aliran). Maganathan, Dinesh Kumar. 2016. More than a Meeting: The 1955 Baling Talks Gets the Documentary Treatment on Stage. The Star, March 30. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://www.pressreader.com/malaysia/the-starmalaysiastar2/20160330/281724088685946. Malaysia Protests Against PM Najib Razak Draw Thousands. 2015. BBC News, August 30. Accessed December 4, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/ world-asia-34093338.

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Malaysian Activists Arrested Before Banned Political Rally. 2011. The Guardian, June 27. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/27/malaysiaactivists-arrested-political-rally. Martin, Carol. 2013. Theatre of the Real. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Navaratnam, Dharm. 2015. Day Two of Bersih 4—Oh What a Feeling. Malaysiakini, August 31. Accessed December 7, 2018. https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/310552. Nge, Carmen. 2006. Baling Membaling 1955: Chin Peng Meets Tunku. Small Acts, February 7. Accessed December 3, 2018. http://smallacts.blogspot. com/2006/02/baling-membaling-1955-chin-peng-meets.html. ———. 2016. The Final Return of the Last Communist. Critics Republic, May 18. Accessed November 2, 2018. https://www.criticsrepublic.com/2016/05/18/ the-final-return-of-the-last-communist/. Rahman, Serina. 2018. Commentary: Malaysia Reborn? Does GE14 Spell an End to Racial Politics?. Channel NewsAsia, May 10. Accessed December 5, 2018. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/malaysia-generalelection-race-card-costs-of-living-concerns-10220262. Ramesh, Randeep. 2016. 1MDB: The Inside Story of the World’s Biggest Financial Scandal. The Guardian, July 28. Accessed November 10, 2018. https://www. theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/1mdb-inside-stor y-worldsbiggest-financial-scandal-malaysia. Rancière, Jacques. 2009a. Aesthetics and Its Discontents. Translated by Steven Corcoran. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press. ———. 2009b. The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by Gregory Elliot. London and New York: Verso. ———. 2015. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Edited and translated by Steven Corcoran. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Reinelt, Janelle. 2009. The Promise of Documentary. In Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present, ed. Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson, 24–37. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Teh, Mark. 2016. Dispersing the Documents & Reading the Ashes: Notes on Baling. In Programme Booklet for Baling Performance in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Five Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur. ———. 2018. Zooming in and Zooming Out with Krishen Jit. In Excavations, Interrogations, Rishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre, ed. Charlene Rajendran, Ken Takiguchi, and Carmen Nge, 134–143. Kuala Lumpur: Five Arts Centre and Epigram Books. The Editor. 2013. Forum Addresses if Chin Peng was Hero or Villain. The EDGE, October 9. Accessed November 14, 2018. http://www.theedgemarkets.com/ article/forum-addresses-if-chin-peng-was-hero-or-villain. Turning History into a Performance. 2017. The Malaysian Reserve, April 3. Accessed October 2, 2018. https://themalaysianreserve.com/2017/04/03/ turning-history-into-a-performance/.

CHAPTER 5

Staging the Banality of Social Evil: Faust and/in Philippine Contemporary Social Politics Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco

In European Medieval folk literature, Faust was a scholar who had come to the unhappy realisation that his knowledge about the world and hedonistic pleasures were limited. To overcome this, he struck a deal with the devil and obtained the vast powers he desired albeit at a very high cost: to relinquish his eternal soul. This folk narrative is believed to have originated from a real person: Doctor Johann Georg Faust, a German scholar who lived around the turn of the fifteenth century. However, the story has proven to be deeply resonant in many cultures and has lived on over the centuries through numerous adaptations such as theatre pieces, novels, operas, artworks, puppet shows and other cultural forms. Joining the list of individuals and groups interested to rework the Faust story is Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas (DUP) as it staged Rodolfo “Rody” Vera’s adaptation of Wolfgang von Goethe’s Romantic masterpiece, the tragedy of

S. A. P. Tiatco (*) Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_5

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Faust, on the occasion of the 2017 National Arts Month in the Philippines. Josefina “José” Estrella directed this contemporary Philippine adaptation. Popular theatre and television actor Neil Ryan Sese and Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) resident actor Jack Yabut alternated in the title role of Faust. Additionally, stage actor Paolo O’Hara alternated with an actress Mailes Kanapi as Mephisto.1 Students from the University of the Philippines Diliman theatre arts programme, Karen Gaerlan and Ina Azarcon-Bolivar, performed the innocent and pious Gretchen, who as the play developed, was transformed into a tragic heroine. In my reading of this adaptation, Estrella combined folklore and social realism in an attempt to explore representations of contemporary Philippine socio-politics. In particular, the staging used devices and images that resonated with the everyday or folk-Catholicism (such as belief in the mangkukulam or the Philippine version of witchcraft) as ways of defamiliarising notions of justice, rationality and morality. More so, the production mirrored Philippine contemporary socio-politics through the staging of the unspeakable horror of evil and the undeniable absurdity of the people who perpetrate it. Witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a notorious figure during the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt wrote a report and commented that the trial was ‘as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.’2 While social commentators argue that Arendt has not been able to define concretely her conceptualisation of the banality of evil as witnessed during Eichmann’s trial,3 Arendt explains that evil acts must be distinguished from the evil doer (Eichmann) because ‘the deeds were monstrous, but the doer—at least the very effective one now on trial [Eichmann]—was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous.’4 Arendt posits she was anticipating a demon on trial. However, she was taken aback that Eichmann was a very ordinary human being, neither ‘perverted nor sadistic,’ but ‘terribly and terrifyingly normal.’5 This normality, for Arendt, is the most terrifying of all: the mundane, the trivial, the ordinary removed morality from evil. According to Arendt, Eichmann’s motive in engaging evil acts was based on a nationalist order and that he committed ‘his crimes under circumstances that [made] it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he [was] doing wrong.’6 Eichmann made decisions about the

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fate of millions of Jews because of his strong affiliation with his concept of nationalism, a strong German nationalist framework based on Nazi racial supremacy. In this chapter, I look at the banality of evil as presented on the contemporary stage of Manila through DUP’s staging of Faust. I have argued elsewhere that the contemporary stage in the Philippines, particularly in Metro Manila, follows the lineage of the problem play, in the sense that theatre artists represent specific social concerns, providing insightful commentary on the state of things.7 Given this, the concept of the contemporary in Philippine theatre has and will continue to affirm the social and cultural landscapes of a particular time period and continue to be reflective of these social issues, turning them into political positionalities and embodiments. While Faust and especially the devil Mephistopheles/ Mephisto are characters portrayed as perpetrators of evil in the original text, the current administration of the Philippines was also presented as a character in the play (despite not being part of the cast), embodying such acts of terror. Actual voice recordings of incumbent Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s important speeches and media interviews about the alleged extra-judicial killings (EJKs), echoing across the auditorium, were part of the dramatic narrative of the play. In addition, I argue that the journey of Faust, in search of the most ideal and perfect knowledge, parallels contemporary political affairs in the Philippines. To develop this point, I firstly assert that the adaptation through its authorship, direction, the performance space, the producing company, the occasion and the social milieu transformed the staging into an event that protests the current state of affairs of the national government. Second, I examine how some devices in the staging provide reflections about human wickedness, which may be conceived as a performance of hell. In doing so, Faust is transformed by the adaptation into a creative conversation somewhat akin to protest theatre. Third, I develop an allegory of contemporary Philippine political life by presenting the characters of Faust, Mephisto, Gretchen and the mangkukulam (witch) as relatable figures to the Filipino audience. Finally, the staging of these characters are problematised as promulgators of the banality of social evil, thereby prompting the audience members to realise that, in an era of what many have been identified as post-truth, someone always emerges to tell the real story.

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From Adaptation to an Event This 2017 Philippine adaptation of Faust was an event in the sense that the production challenged a hierarchical order in the name of fundamental equality (i.e. basic human rights). Jacques Rancière notes this kind of event takes place when the assumed dominant power (i.e. the State) is interrupted by the intrusion of ‘a part of those who have no part,’8 thereby creating a clash among participants in the social sphere. In this sense, the making of an event happens ‘very little or rarely’9 and causes transformative interruptions to the status quo. The authorship, directorship, the presenting company and the occasion contributed to the significance of staging Faust as an important theatrical work, which transformed the adaptation into an event at least in contemporary Manila, if not the entire Philippines. The author, Rody Vera, is considered one of the most important Philippine playwrights of his generation. His plays have been brutally honest about national issues, especially since he experienced the horrors of Martial Law (1972–1981) during the regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos. In 2015, the Ateneo de Manila University awarded him the Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi (Light of the Nation Award), a recognition given to an individual who has dedicated his life’s work to the pursuit of Filipinism and the Filipino identity through any of the channels of culture. In addition, the individual (or organisation) is recognised for steering the national consciousness towards a clarification, development and enhancement of the essential Filipino image.10 The director, José Estrella, is a celebrated theatre artist whose works are often cited as experimental and visually exciting.11 Estrella is no neophyte when it comes to staging radical productions that perform the precarity of the human condition. For instance, in her staging of Bilanggo ng Pag-ibig (the text was also written by Vera in 2014), an adaptation of Jean Genet’s memoir Prisoner of Love, she wove together writings from the memoir with episodes from Genet’s life and his other works, and hinted at the inhuman conditions suffered by the Palestinian people. Genet was an activist who supported the political resistance movements in the Mediterranean region, particularly the Palestinians against Israel. When he travelled to Palestine, he witnessed the aftermath of a horrifying massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp by the Lebanese Phalangist Militia, with the approval of the Israeli government. This poetic theatre piece left me wondering how a larger community may be responsible for the persecution

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and oppression of those who are idealised as strangers.12 To date, her theatre works have enabled her audience to encounter hell-on-earth and show humanity’s inhuman character.13 The producing company, DUP, is the official theatre company of the University of the Philippines Diliman (Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Diliman— UPD). The University is the sole national university of the archipelago by virtue of the Republic Act 9500 or the University of the Philippines Charter. As a national university, UPD has a mandate to lead as a public service university by providing various forms of community and public and volunteer service, as well as scholarly and technical assistance to the government, the private sector and civil society while maintaining its standards of excellence. Further, it is the responsibility of the University to harness the expertise of the members of its community and other individuals to regularly study the state of the nation.14 Founded by Professor Emeritus Antonio Mabesa in 1976 as the production arm of the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts, DUP is devoted to producing at least four major productions a year, that reach audiences in Metro Manila and tour to the provinces, with the intention of social criticism vis-à-vis its active role in making sure the mandate of the University is carried on. UPD actively participates in events institutionalised by the government such as the National Arts Month, National Science Month and National Heritage Month, to name a few. In 2017, UPD celebrated the National Arts Month with a festival billed Salaysayan: K’wentong Bayan, Kaalamang Bayan (Storytelling: Folk Narratives, Folk Knowledge). The centrepiece of the festival was folklore, a collection of folk narratives, passed down from one generation to the next during community ceremonies and rituals, and in everyday conversations and storytelling. Through these narratives, the members of the larger community are united together in articulating senses of values and even morals. The University through the Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts (OICA) commissioned DUP’s Estrella to participate in the festival. Collaborating with Vera, both wanted to do an inquiry on the relationship of folk narratives and religion, and decided to do an adaptation of Faust as their embodied enquiry.15 This social landscape provides additional texture to the significance of the performance. While the piece is an adaptation or a repeated narrative—the playwright and the director definitely found signposts where the Faustian contexts are remodified into what I call the Dutertean context. At present, the Philippines is being eminently confronted by deplorable

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or, in some instances, alarming psychosocial and socio-political issues. For instance, since the election of Duterte as President, there seems to have been an implicit revision of history. Through the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the late President Marcos, often deemed a Dictator, is now buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery). On 18 November 2016, victims of Martial Law and human rights violations during Marcos’s administration, activists and students once again marched on the streets and called out the current administration as supportive of historical revisionism and cultural amnesia.16 There also seems to be a reverberation of the Marcos era since the election of Duterte as President in 2016. The current administration is committing human rights violations through the apparent extra-judicial killings. The Human Rights Watch reports that Duterte even publicly praised the Philippine National Police for the extra-judicial killing of suspected drug dealers and addicts.17 Manuel Mogato and Clare Baldwin report almost 9000 people, many small-time drug users and dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office on 30 June 2016. Human rights monitors believe many of the remaining two-thirds of the victims have been killed by paid assassins operating with police backing or by police disguised as vigilantes—a charge the police deny.18 Yet, many are still clamouring that all these drastic measures are necessary to truly experience change for the better. Duterte’s running mate who was eventually appointed Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Allan Peter Cayetano even calls the reports of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines to the United Nations fallacious and based on alternative facts.19 This is the political backdrop to the adaptation of Faust as a conscious effort to construct an event that rethinks the legitimacy of present political leadership and ideology. More so, as an audience member, I see this as a significant statement and reflection of a contemporary nationalist purview, transforming the stage into a statement of protest where participants (theatre artists, performers and audience members) are called to speak out on a common cause: Never Again!

Never Again: The Stage Speaks The Duterte presidency has motivated many social scientists, academics and artists to evaluate the nation’s current condition and address the most urgent concerns, especially issues of human rights. Nicole Curato c­ onvened

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a group of sociologists and intellectuals in the writing of a critical reader on Duterte’s early days as president. ‘We need to talk about the President,’ writes Curato, because he is a ‘self-confessed mass murderer who vowed to kill in the thousands, an unapologetic womaniser who saw no wrong in making a rape joke about an Australian missionary, the bastard-­child-ofPhilippine democracy whose popularity is built on his dark charisma, the dictator-in-waiting threatening to shut down the Congress.’20 One example that showcased and evaluated the current conditions of the nation is the festival Never Again: Voices of Martial Law organised by the nongovernmental organisation ‘Ladies Who Launch’ and staged at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Auditorium (Heroes Monument Auditorium) in October 2016. The festival’s primary aim was to counter historical revisionism. Another example is UPD OICA co-presenting a commemorative gathering Tinig ng Pakikibaka (The Voices of Protests) with the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and the Department of History in October 2017. The gathering was composed of a conference workshop on teaching about the Martial Law period in High School, a symposium on the transformation of Philippine society for the better through various protest forms such as theatre, songs, comics and street demonstrations. Then there is also Pista Rizalina curated by the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Vice President Chris Millado and Guelan Luarca, a young playwright-director from the Ateneo de Manila University in September and October 2017. Pista Rizalina was dubbed a festival of arts and ideas composed of theatre performances, films and lectures with the Philippine Bill of Rights as its centrepiece. Faust joined the list of artistic activities in Metro Manila that also spoke to the same slogan and theme of anti-dictatorship and anti-authoritarian governance. More so, the staging adopted Curato’s lead when she posited: ‘we need to talk about him (Duterte) differently.’21 Following Curato, there is a need to look at the broader context that gave rise to Duterte’s popularity, even as he is a controversial contemporary figure. In this regard, the philosophical domains of Goethe’s Faust, its attempt at a phenomenology of evil and a discourse on modernity were transformed into political tropes in the contemporary, problematising governance and human relationships in today’s Philippines.22 In this sense, the adaptation was transformed into a conversation on power abuses during the heyday of Martial Law. Activist-artist and Martial Law survivor Bonifacio Ilagan defines activism as ‘often used synonymously with protest or dissent. That could very

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well be the reason why activists are perceived to be belligerents. […] But an activist, if we may need a generic definition, is one who consciously does things to bring about change.’23 While not exactly an example of activist theatre, Faust used rhetoric and devices similar to protest theatre such as the unapologetic identification of the administration’s illnesses and a cry for change from the common people. Philippine protest theatre often presents the national leaders as antagonists and the oppressed common people as protagonists. In these performances, the common people are invited to reflect on oppression and the suppression of their basic rights, in order to alter their views of leaders in the hope that they will thereby shift their allegiances. In Faust, the call for dissent and change started emerging when Faust agreed to sell his soul to Mephisto in exchange for the greatest knowledge in the world. Mephisto then invited Faust on a journey to the Far East kung nasaan naro’n ang mga hamak (where the good-for-nothing people live).24 In the next scene, the auditorium started to fill with smoke and an authoritative voice echoed. Audience members easily identified the voice as President Duterte’s due to the familiarity of the rhetoric uttered. Supplementing the montage of voice recordings was a series of videos resembling frequency waves and lifelines of a life-support monitor. In the recording, the voice was continuously cursing human rights advocates, the European Union, and the United States for interfering in what was being proclaimed as state affairs. As the lights slowly faded in, a group of goons and an almost naked man begging for his life appeared on stage. Then, one of the goons began shouting in what seemed to be an adlib: iligpit na at baka mag-ingay pa (kill him or he is going to speak). In an instant, Mephisto magically appeared side by side with the goons as they started to shoot the victim. The lifelines projected on the stage turned flat, and the voice recordings were transformed into shrieking sounds resembling the sounds of grief and pain when death occurs in a hospital. Then, everything else turned silent until Faust appeared as if oblivious to the dead body despite it being so near him. Such an image is a horrifying picture akin to the political and the apolitical in contemporary Philippines. Duterte’s voice sets the political tone and Faust’s indifference to the dead body is the apolitical response of those who have given him the mandate to rule. The scene is a stark reminder that the war on drugs has already killed an estimated 12,000 individuals.25 The dead body onstage represents all the victims of the EJKs. As of December 2017, the casualties were primarily teenagers: this

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includes a Grade 11 student, a sophomore from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and a 15-year-old boy. Then, there was the episode in which the House of Congress passed a resolution to give the Commission on Human Rights an annual budget of ₱1000 (around US$20) versus the usual hundreds of millions of pesos allocated to different offices under the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines. Many congressmen (mostly allies of the president) passed the resolution because they believed the commission was not supportive of the president. These congressmen and congresswomen even cited the commission as siding with the enemies of the state (i.e. criminals).26 Social media was exploding for some time afterwards with many congratulatory remarks of the administration’s war-on-drugs programme despite many of its casualties not undergoing due process. As the play progressed, audience members were led to unfamiliar terrain. However, familiar figures closely resembling infamous icons in Philippine’s socio-cultural and socio-political life were seen onstage. The first figure was dressed like a military officer, and on hearing the words uttered by the figure, the anonymity was removed, and it became an obvious personification of the current president. The second was a church leader accused of child molestation. In the play, he even justified his innocence by remarking ‘please check the background of the family first before judging me.’27 This prompted the audience members to recall a Catholic bishop in the Visayas who instead of showing sympathy to a sexually abused victim dismissed the allegations by degrading the social status of the child’s family. The third was a politician’s wife whom audience members would have easily identified as the former first lady Imelda Marcos, infamously saying: [L]ater on when I become a first lady—I would be meeting with kings and queens—it would take an hour to dress up. But when I go to the provinces—it would take me an hour and a half or two—double the time— because they need a standard. They need a role model. They need a star, especially in the dark of the night.28

This invariably reminded audiences of the criticisms these remarks drew from many students in the metropolis who participated in an inter-­ university rally against the lavishness of the former First Lady in 2003. Finally, a figure who resembled social media influencer Margaux ‘Mocha’ Uson, whose loyalty to Duterte is indubitable, stood in front of the

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a­ udience. Uson has continuously defended the president even if his deeds have resulted in the deaths of many. Her loyalty has led to her appointment as Assistant Secretary (for social media) of the Presidential Communications Operations Office. These figures, exemplars of social illnesses in contemporary Philippines as stated in the souvenir programme, were lumped together in the play in one of the most fantastical scenes of Faust: the Walpurgis. In European folklore (German folk literature, in particular), the Walpurgis is believed to be the annual gathering of witches to consolidate their powers. Commonly, the gathering takes place during midsummer. The witches and other demonic spirits are believed to meet at the top of the Brocken in the Harz Mountain Ranges, located in Central Germany. During the meeting, participants engage in orgy-like festivity. In Goethe’s version of the Walpurgis, Mephisto guides Faust through this fiendish assembly and introduces him to all the infernal spirits found in European Medieval folk narratives. In this regard, the Walpurgis ‘evokes the atmosphere of the witch-craze, or as Faust and Mephistopheles call it, “the sphere of dreams and magic,” in arcane detail.’29 All throughout this dream-like fantasy scene, Mephisto encourages Faust to participate in the orgy-like rites. In the play, the grouping of these icons is suggestive of how the nation is being run by individuals who have become superfluous and have gained a grounded existence with what Hannah Arendt calls ‘creators of hell-on-­ earth.’ Arendt expounds: suddenly it becomes evident that things which for thousands of years the human imagination had banished to a realm beyond human competence can be manufactured right here on earth, that Hell and Purgatory, and even a shadow of their perpetual duration, can be established by the most modern methods of destruction.30

The adaptation provided a moment when Estrella seemingly pushed her audience to realise that an establishment of hell-on-earth, not ultimately because of power or self-interest but because of the loss of self-­interest and communal bonds, can, if not already, occur. Thus, Faust enabled the audience to picture humanity’s superfluous character. Arendt puts this beautifully in a different context: [u]nable as yet to live without fear and hope, these masses are attracted by every effort which seems to promise a man-made fabrication of the Paradise

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they had longed for and of the Hell they had feared. The one thing that cannot be reproduced is what made the traditional conceptions of Hell tolerable to man: the Last Judgment, the idea of an absolute standard of justice combined with the infinite possibility of grace.31

Journalist Rome Jorge implies this hell-on-earth manifests on stage, by stating in an online review that this Filipino retelling of Faust makes a point of drawing parallels with, and shining a light on, the draconian bargain the country has made with the government’s so-called war against drugs and crime. In addition, he posts that the play interrogates the judgmental nature of chauvinist, patriarchal Filipino society, particularly in the story of the unwed mother Margarita who, rocked with Catholic guilt, kills her own child in shame and refuses redemption in the afterlife.32

Allegory of Contemporary Philippine Political Life In the Philippines, witchcraft is translated as kulam and the person engaged in the act is a mangkukulam or mambabarang. A folkloric figure who continues to incite fear and awe in contemporary life, many Philippine societies believe that among them still lurks a practising mangkukulam. Despite its association with the devil, many would still be willing to approach a mangkukulam every so often for help when circumstances that appear to be beyond the bounds of reason, and secular forms of retribution or healing get from bad to worse. A mangkukulam may even kill another person at a distance as long as she knows who the target person is. Normally, a photograph of the person is useful for this purpose. But in other instances, the mangkukulam is also believed to be a saviour by countering the sorcery inflicted on a person by some other mangkukulam. Michael Lim Tan explains how kulam has its roots in pre-colonial beliefs. There are recorded annotations during pre-colonial Philippines, involving ethnic groups inflicting illnesses on common enemies through their rituals and ceremonies. Nonetheless, today, kulam is an individual affair, ‘usually spurred by revenge motives for cases ranging from being jilted in courtship to being deceived by a business party.’33 Like practices involved in witchcraft and sorcery, the kulam involves incantations and prayers, ritualistic invocations, and paraphernalia such as voodoo dolls, needles and potions. Many beliefs surrounding kulam involve ‘object intrusion—the sorcerer supposedly sends objects into the victim’s body, ranging from fruits, to insects and physical objects. Thus, persistent

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abdominal pain may be attributed to sorcery, with a ritual needed to remove the intrusive object.’34 Towards the end of the first part of the performance, Mephisto takes Faust to the mangkukulam who provides what she calls the greatest potion one desires: the potion of youthfulness. While Faust drinks the potion, the mangkukulam begins to chant what appears to be a mockery of Western or modern sciences for not being able to provide all the possible solutions to different questions regarding life and existence, such as the desire for supreme knowledge and the thirst for lifelong youthfulness. After taking the potion, Faust is transformed into a younger self. Faust then sees the beautiful Gretchen via a moving collage projected on the walls of the stage. At first, Faust’s admiration is seemingly innocent. But eventually his admiration is transformed into lust. Observing how Faust becomes obsessed with Gretchen, Mephisto remarks: ‘mapapasaiyo din yan’ (believe in the flesh you will see). Estrella then ends this segment by having Mephisto look at the audience and exclaim: ‘sa ininom mo, iisipin mong lahat ng babaeng makita mo’y diwata ng kagandahan’ (with that elixir coursing through him, soon any woman will be Helen to him).35 The aforementioned scene is a strong reflection of the Dutertean context. From that scene until the end of the play, it was evident to me that Estrella wanted the audience members to treat the journey of Faust as though it was their journey as the Filipino people. In the final scene of the first part, Estrella was invoking what seemed to have happened during the recent presidential elections: that the Philippines voted for what they thought was anti-traditional politics, and yet this was in effect a vote that led to a regression that was replete with the very dangers and horrors they believed they had voted against. According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, a traditional politician promises anything and everything during elections. Often, these promises are seductive enough to make the common people vote for him or her. However, when elected, his or her agendas become more directed to serving himself or herself than serving the constituents. The traditional politician seeks public office to preserve the existing order of society, its inherited hierarchies and inviolable norms, as signified by the unexamined fixation with the rule of law. This type of leadership fosters dependence and patronage through the exploitation of what Filipinos call utang na loob (debt of gratitude). A ruler whose framework is traditional politics professes an elitist paternalistic rule, combining benevolence and intimidation. He or she is obsessed with consensus and has a disdain for

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debates that challenge his or her views and policies. Often, this politician is not transparent in terms of disposing public money, and he or she dislikes constituents questioning his or her exercise of public power.36 In this sense, Duterte represents a paradoxical condition. He won the vote because Filipinos wanted a new political system devoid of traditional politics, and yet he perpetuates the very system that they believe they rejected. In Faust, Estrella used the mangkukulam as the medium of change. Upon drinking the elixir, Faust (as the Filipino people) literally experiences change: from an experienced and intelligent old man to an energetic and horny younger self. In my reading, the mangkukulam alludes to the president, and Mephisto to those who helped him rise to power: social media groups, opportunists, traditional politicians, those who wrote and proclaimed alternative facts to reframe Duterte as a game changer in Philippine politics. Gretchen symbolises the gullible and disillusioned individuals who at first fell prey to the promises of Duterte via his Mephistos, and later became the casualties of the administration, especially in human rights abuses and violations. The mangkukulam, as an agent of change, reflects the desires of many Filipinos for a better life. During the campaign period in 2016, Duterte was a game changer—different from the other presidential candidates. The archipelago saw how quick his answers were about plans for eradicating corruption and crime. His opponents were reluctant to proclaim a time period for the promise of a corrupt-free and crime-free Philippines. But Duterte was undeterred about making proclamations that claimed to abolish corruption and eliminate drug problems, going so far as to promise that he would see to the eradication of all drug related problems within six months. As a politician, Duterte may have been the most unusual among all other candidates, especially since he was the only candidate running for the highest position in the country, having served as City Mayor of Davao, on the island of Mindanao. This was the first time an individual from Mindanao, a relatively distant terrain from the capital Manila on the island of Luzon, was willing to make a bid for the position of president. Also, his term as Davao City Mayor made the city popular because it was named one of the safest cities in the Philippines, if not in the entire Asian region. Davao City was considered to be the most disciplined city in the nation.37 Nonetheless, it was an open secret that his methods for achieving security and stability in Davao City were allegedly managed by what his critics called the Davao Death Squad (DDS)—any suspected criminal may be

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shot and killed by the authorities without the opportunity of a trial. Duterte himself never denied the accusations and even proudly used it during the campaign period, apparently, to his advantage. Many Filipinos started invoking ‘Change is Coming’ and ‘Transform the Philippines into a Davao City.’38 Only a few weeks after winning the elections, Duterte announced that everyone had the authority to shoot and kill a person suspected of drug dealing if they were willing to support and help his administration. Just like in the adaptation of Faust, the admiration for displays of power and bold assertions of bravado have become transformed into an obsession with control, regardless of morality or ethics. When Faust first saw Gretchen, he was enamoured—but he knew Gretchen was a child. Then, the elixir started taking effect, and Faust had no qualms about dismissing Gretchen’s innocence and youthfulness. He started talking about her lustfully. Significantly, Mephisto also had a role in this transformation of admiration to lust. He performed the persona of a kunsintidor (enabler in kulam practices), telling Faust that with his youthfulness, he might not only get a chance to sleep with Gretchen but with every woman he wanted. Later in the play, Mephisto obeys all of Faust’s orders even if it entailed stealing a huge amount of jewellery and bewitching other people in an attempt to win the heart of Gretchen, since there were no longer any limits to achieving the goal of absolute power. In this vein, the mangkukulam may be perceived simultaneously as an enabler of the ordinary Filipino people, and/or the ostracised and the celebrated in the Philippine cosmological and folkloric realm. In the context of Philippine folklore, she is often an enabler whose promise of salvation and the fulfilment of a desire for revenge attract a following, almost a cult, from the commoners. In local popular culture, she is believed to be a master manipulator by convincing a potential client that nothing is wrong with performing revenge even if it means more harm to other people. This is because in popular imagination, the mangkukulam has a charisma that influences the potential client to believe that the inflicted kulam is equivalent to justice being served. In this sense, she is an enabler and enables by convincing potential clients to undergo the kulam because of the slow-­ moving legal justice system in the country. She is, on the other hand, ostracised because she is an embodiment of evil. As implied earlier, she can even kill, given the right price. She can make other people suffer under the correct conditions. At the same time, she is a celebrated figure because she is the most important last resort when the going gets tough.39 However,

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no one can accuse someone of the crimes of a mangkukulam. But it is common to many Filipino people to use the expression ipapakulam ko yan (I will get my revenge through the help of a mangkukulam) every time they feel violated and exploited. Like the mangkukulam, President Duterte is also a double figure. During his presidential campaign, he performed the persona of the enabler with positive attributes that both protected and made vulnerable his people. He was likened to a shepherd whose primary task was to take care of the flocks by promising sacrifices such as being the front man if and when China wages a war against the nation over territorial disputes.40 He was also the upholder of a promise to eradicate drug- and crime-related problems within six months of his term should he win the elections.41 But he also enabled the ordinary Filipino people to get worked up by anger and seek revenge, by feeding them with false information about the current state of the nation and at the same time empowering them to take the law into their own hands.42 In this way, he played a new political persona while apparently also performing the role of a traditional politician. Like traditional politicians, he makes promises but is not committed to fulfilling them. He is manipulated by different people around him—particularly the Marcos family and other supporters of the late dictator—but remains a strong individual who appears to be a lone character. In many of his speeches, he does not deny he owes the Marcos family some debt of gratitude. Proclaiming on national television and in media conferences that the nation must move on and forget about the Martial Law period, Duterte also rekindles affection and nostalgia for a bygone era. In 2016, he announced on national television that should he die, his only wish is for Ferdinand ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos, Jr., the son of former President Marcos, to be the next president of the Philippines. Duterte is paradoxically an ostracised yet celebrated contemporary figure. The world has started to isolate him for his methods of leadership, and yet he remains a focus of attention. Walden Bello invokes his demeanour as the making of a fascist, while remaining a figure who inspires admiration.43 Ironically, his controversial way of administration has made him an instant celebrity. He is also celebrated for his marginal status and honoured as the first president who comes from Mindanao, often invoked as a taken-for-granted locale in the archipelago because of it being the farthest chain of islands in the country. At the same time, his road to victory—moving from being a mayor to the president—is reminiscent of the rags-to-riches theme of television melodrama, popular in the country.44

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The transformation of Faust into a young and energetic body was a self-­ fulfilling prophecy for President Duterte. One can just imagine him whispering these words to the Filipino people: just believe in me, I can grant whatever you wish. In this stance, the mangkukulam is Duterte. Just like the mangkukulam who chanted a mantra that asserted how she was the solution to all Faust’s queries regarding the world, leading to Faust becoming seduced by her promises and thus willing to consume instantly every bit of the elixir. Faust, in this sense, represents the people who voted for Duterte who eventually believed that their idol could deliver their every wish. And the Mephistos—Duterte’s avid followers who call themselves Digong Duterte Supporters (their version of the DDS countering the negative Davao Death Squad)—made sure that the common Fausts across the nation received this message clearly and convincingly. At the start of the second part, Faust finally meets Gretchen who becomes his ultimate obsession. Faust makes sure she notices him somehow, despite an unsuccessful first meeting. Gretchen, through the manipulation of Mephisto, slowly falls for the Faustian promise of salvation. She is seduced by the Faustian pambobola (tongue and cheek rhetoric). She gives in and undresses herself for Faust. She gives her innocence in exchange for the promise of happiness. Later, in the play, she becomes pregnant. But Faust—through Mephisto—is busy with his adventures in search of the most ideal and perfect world. Gretchen becomes the talk of the town. Her brother Valentine disowns her. Even the Church, an influential institution, cannot do anything to save her from her tragedy of self-destruction. In a way, this is exactly how change is experienced in the nation. A lot of Filipino people were seduced by the messianic pronouncements that were echoed by all the Fausts who believed in Duterte’s powers—primarily the promise of a better Philippines. Yet only a few months after Duterte’s ascendency to the highest office, many innocent Filipinos, some accused of being drug addicts and pushers, but mostly bystanders, were killed by Duterte’s orders. Several other ‘promises’ were broken as well. Mindanao was placed under Martial Law. The former dictator Ferdinand Marcos was buried in the National Heroes’ Cemetery. The administration allowed China to continue building islands in the national territory despite the international court ruling over Philippine sovereignty of these islands.45 On one occasion, Duterte’s followers even tagged dissidents and those who opposed him as enemies of the state. In the staging of Faust, Gretchen firmly believed that Faust’s promise of salvation was the only and proper

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road towards a better life. Like Gretchen, the ordinary Filipino believed in Duterte’s promise of salvation: to rescue the country from crimes and from its intruders and to heal the nation from the horrors of Martial Law within three to six months after having been elected as president. Like Gretchen, they are left to fend for themselves, if not defenceless, after being seduced by empty promises. The Philippines was once again put under a spotlight in 2017. International media started informing the general public about the human rights abuses committed by the Duterte administration. Some diplomatic relations of the country started to deteriorate such as relations with the European Union. Even Church leaders, who once were collectively perceived as powerful and influential, were now transformed into powerless creatures by this administration and even by Duterte’s followers. Church people were also targeted as ‘enemies’ or ‘adversaries’ by the administration and its followers. To date, at least seven Catholic priests have been murdered because of their strong stance against the EJKs. With all these scenarios, contemporary politics in the Philippines is suggestive of what Arendt calls hell-on-earth: ‘hell is no longer a religious belief or a fantasy, but something as real as houses and stones and trees.’46 This hell-on-earth was first concretised on stage in the scene when Gretchen was praying to the figure of Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother) as a final attempt to restore a destroyed self. In the Catholic tradition, Catholics associate this mother-image as the mediator between God and the devotee living a miserable life. Catholics believe that the Mater Dolorosa ensures that God listens to the anguished prayer of the believer because she sympathises with the sorrows experienced due to her own misery encountered when her son, Jesus, was crucified on the cross. In the play, Gretchen prayed: ‘Sino’ng makadarama ng pagkahabag kong tagos hanggang buto? Tulungan niyo ako. Iligtas ako sa kamatayan at kahihiyan’ (Who else can know / The pain that so / Burns in my bones like fire from hell? / Help! Save me from shame and death).47 In what I assume to be an apparition, the Mater Dolorosa slowly crossed the stage. Gretchen clung to her tassel and begged for sympathy and pity. The Mater Dolorosa stopped and pulled her clothes away from the hands of Gretchen, instead of offering comfort or solace. As an audience, I saw the scornful eyes of the Virgin, exuding no kindness or compassion as expected of her. She exited the stage and left Gretchen even more desperate and miserable (Fig. 5.1).

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Fig. 5.1  ‘Gretchen desperately seeking the help of the Mater Dolorosa to revive her once peaceful life’ from Faust (2017), directed by José Estrella. (Photo: Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas)

The Mater Dolorosa turning her head away from Gretchen is a double irony vis-à-vis contemporary Philippine politics. The seemingly blasphemous image that director Estrella devised is a manifestation that hell is definitely here and now, hell-on-earth. The need to compare and contrast the image of hell that is here and of a biblical hell is necessary—to push for an awareness that social evil has turned into something banal, and everyone has a role in this transformation. While Arendt asserts evil ‘has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous,’48 this encounter of evil can no longer be understood and explained by an understanding of the loss of goodness. It has become banal in the Filipino context because it has become part of the everyday life of the Filipino people: widespread extra-judicial killings and frequent social media posts from ordinary people who show strong support for this

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­ overnment programme, often even condemning the victims. This, as g Arendt explicates, is a typology of evil that is more terrifying than the absence of goodness. The image of Mater Dolorosa onstage is a reminder that some Filipino people, who may once have been a source of hope, love and forgiveness for their fellow Filipinos, are no longer doing so since they signed up to support Duterte and wage the merciless war-on-drugs of the administration. Another way of looking at this image is to consider that our sorrowful Mother has left us—reminding us how we have also turned away from her—and been replaced by a heartless and vengeful parent figure who exudes none of her virtues.

Taking the Lead to Tell the Real Story Like Hannah Arendt, Estrella’s staging of Faust conceives of evil as an inherent trait of all human beings. In a review of Denis de Rougemont’s 1944 opus The Devil Share, Arendt posits radical evil as not an indication of demonic nature (or the absence of God, similar to a person invaded by a foul spirit). Rather, it is a capacity in which humans are capable of performing evil, given the perfect conditions, such as when the perpetrators of Nazism, who when asked why they did what they did, provided a response based on an acquiesced order by the state—an act of patriotism and nationalism.49 Indeed, the current Philippines administration is also invoking a sense of patriotism and nationalism in executing the war-on-­ drugs programme. Every so often, Duterte is heard on national television insisting that he is doing what needs to be done for the country. As he always asserts, the Philippines is his first priority and as president, he is not going to change his methods even if these would mean sacrificing many innocent lives. Hannah Arendt points out, ‘[U]pon them and only upon them, who are filled with a genuine fear of the inescapable guilt of the human race, can there be any reliance when it comes to fighting fearlessly, uncompromisingly, everywhere against the incalculable evil that men are capable of bringing about.’50 The core cause of this perplexity is the fact that while acts of evil often transform into tragedies (i.e. Nazism in Germany, Martial Law and the current state of affairs in the Philippines), the perpetrators of those actions are marked not only with the grandiosity of the demonic but also with mundanity. No doubt, Duterte and his allies are performing the evil that is the absence of goodness and morality. However, these evil deeds are often seen as trivial because, as mentioned earlier, Duterte is

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only executing a role, which for many of his followers may even be invoked as a sense of nationalism, for the sake of the nation—for the sake of what Duterte believes is necessary for the nation. Another important social fact that Estrella revisited in the staging of Faust is the attack on what Arendt calls the ‘holes of oblivion’ in which Arendt asserts that ‘in totalitarian countries all places of detention ruled by the police are made to be veritable holes of oblivion into which people stumble by accident and without leaving behind them such ordinary traces of former existence as a body and grave.’51 During the Third Reich, the Nazis intended to use the concentration camps and the nearby graves to erase all traces of Jewish history—an attempt of the perpetrators to silence the narratives of the Jewish community. However, despite these attempts to discard everything about the Jews into the ‘holes of oblivion,’ Arendt notes that no one has the ‘power to erase the identity of his victim from the memory of the surviving world’52 because someone always emerges to tell the horrific story. If Arendt were alive today, the writings of Duterte’s communication team on social media, especially those written by Mocha Uson, may be identified as these holes of oblivion. These are the twisted facts, historical revisionism and what many in the Philippines call ‘fake news,’ a term popularised by US President Donald Trump in his social media account. Arendt asserts that the Nazis deliberately disconnected their world of torture and violence from their everyday reality. In this regard, many of them could not see the reasons why they were tried when they were only doing what they were asked to do, as citizens of Germany. In a searing testament to the power of speaking out, Arendt considers how the story of the Holocaust—a story irrepressibly told by its survivors—has been a significant revelation about these holes of oblivion momentarily appearing. Nonetheless, there are too many people in the world who live to bear witness to these horrors and thus correct the factual errors (i.e. the survivors of the Holocaust). Even if it is just a single person, what is more important is the narration and presentation of the actual story. For instance, survivors of the Holocaust have already long re-established the truth about what really happened. Every detail—from their captivity to the experience of torture in various camps, from the gas chambers to their burial sites and the attempts at genocide—has long since filled these holes of oblivions. Whether or not it was about Germans following orders, the Nazis were still performing radical evil.

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In Estrella’s adaptation, Gretchen was the innocent victim of Faust’s displays of power. However, she was also the survivor. She wanted her story to be heard. In the Walpurgis scene of the source text, Faust sees a vision of Gretchen, damned and now a madwoman. Despite Mephisto’s attempts to distract him, Faust finally remembers himself to be Gretchen’s cause of misfortune. In the adaptation, Faust sees Gretchen being accompanied by a group of mangkukulam. She is the latest addition to those entering the gates of hell. Faust recognises Gretchen despite different spells Mephisto and the mangkukulam inflict upon him. Mephisto reveals that Gretchen is already damned—the devil owns her soul because Gretchen commits suicide. In the Catholic tradition, anyone who commits suicide is damned to hell unless a priest blesses the body. Faust, in the original version, starts to recall his erring ways and contemplates how he could have contributed to Gretchen’s damnation. He runs towards Gretchen, but the participants of the Walpurgis pull him back and engage him in what may be inferred as a wild orgy. Gretchen enters hell. In Estrella’s version, Faust enables himself to enter Gretchen’s cell in hell. At first, Gretchen does not recognise him. When she finally does, she utters: Dali! Dali! Iligtas mo’ng anak mo. Takbo! Sundan ang daan Papunta sa ilog, Tawirin ang tulay Doon sa gubat. Pakaliwa patungo sa tablang Tumutuloy sa lawa. Hablutin mo, dali! Gusto niyang umahon Kumakampay pa siya Iligtas mo! Iligtas mo!53

Quick! Oh, quick! Save your poor baby. Just follow the path Up the stream, uphill, Over the bridge The wood’s just beyond; In there, on the left, by the fence— He’s in the pond. Oh, catch hold of him! He’s struggling still, He’s trying to swim! Save him! Save him!

Gretchen begins revealing the real story. She is damned not only because she killed herself but also because she killed her child with Faust. Relating this scene to the contemporary political climate of the Philippines, Gretchen’s narrative parallels the stories of the innocent people killed unnecessarily and instantaneously by policemen, or even ordinary citizens, who, in a way, were just following orders from the president. For instance, the order to shoot and kill suspected addicts, in the first

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place, was played live on television and printed in different broadsheets. It is as if Gretchen is lamenting that the order has not eradicated the crimes, which Duterte promised would be eliminated within the first six months of his victory, and additionally, she mourns the death of thousands, many of whom were teenagers or younger even. In her appeal to Faust to save the children—the future of the nation— Gretchen makes a final bid for him to redeem himself, just as ordinary Filipinos who still support Duterte should care for and save those who are targeted and vulnerable. But Faust’s only concern is himself, and his desire to reclaim Gretchen is to serve his wants, and thus he is uninterested in her lament or the ethical situation in the story she points him to. To rebuke him, and emphasise her rejection of him, she declares: Bayaan mo na ako. Hindi mo ako mapipilit. Huwag mo akong hawakan Nang mahigpit. Ginawa ko naman Ang lahat ng ginusto mo.54

Do not touch me! Put me down! No! No! I’ll not be compelled! Do not clutch me so! I was always willing, as well you know

Gretchen finally reveals how sorry she is for even believing in him. She decides to stay a prisoner in hell. In an unexpected twist, Mephisto catches up with Faust and takes him away. Both leave Gretchen alone in her cell, but she eventually floats away from hell—a deus ex machina resolution. In the original, Goethe saves her and elevates her to the heavens after Faust confesses his misdeeds. Similarly, on social media, several Duterte followers have started to reveal their regret for believing in his promise of change. Family members of those killed in the war-on-drugs, for instance, were former avid fans of the president. Today, these people appear in public protests speaking about their sorrow and frustration with regard to the administration’s rhetoric of change. Like Gretchen, they are confined to a hellish reckoning with their choices. Estrella ended the play with Mephisto and Faust appearing centre stage: the former looked agitated, while the latter stared at the audience with a blank face. As smoke filled the stage, Faust once again became the old man the audience met at the beginning of the play. Perhaps, Estrella was suggesting that change has not really come. The Philippines is still in the same era of traditional politics, fuelled by lies and broken promises. What makes Faust a young and powerful man in the story is but a figment of the ­imagination, and it is a manipulation of perception that is deceptively

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seductive and yet fleeting, with real consequences for those who fall for the seduction, because eventually his mortality exposes his weakness and duplicity. What makes Duterte the strongman of politics may also be eventually reduced to little more than a mirage of his promises and powers, and a trail of destruction left in his wake. The University’s participation in the National Arts Month in 2017 was dedicated to folk narratives and folk traditions through the festival Salaysayan. Folk narratives are oral traditions passed on from one generation to another. Often, these are performed in rituals and ceremonies. In everyday life, these are also performed via storytelling. As mentioned earlier, these narratives are somehow the bases for traditions, lores and mores, and even history. As part of the festival, Estrella used folklore in an attempt to analogise the contemporary political climate of the nation. Through the device of combining folklore with social realism, she invited her audience to listen attentively, similar to how community members sit and listen in engagement with any oral tradition. Estrella’s images, particularly those involving the belief in the cosmological world of the mangkukulam, engaged the public by defamiliarising notions of justice, rationality and morality. In essence, the production mirrors Philippine contemporary socio-politics through the staging of what is the unspeakable horror of evil (the EJKs and other forms of human rights abuses) and the undeniable absurdity of the people who perpetrate it (from Duterte’s allies to the president). More importantly, by looking at the play as an allegory of Philippine contemporary political dynamics, the chapter argues that someone always emerges to tell the real story even if many people are constantly widening the holes of oblivion or twisting the actual story into something else. Someone will always be the Gretchen who will reveal the true story and attempt to make the Fausts aware that despite promises of salvation, the Mephistos and the mangkukulam are all agents making social evil banal. Acknowledgement  This chapter is supported by the University of the Philippines Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs through the Enhanced Creative Work and Research Grant (ECWRG 2017-2-06). I express my sincerest gratitude to the said institution.

Notes 1. In many introductory notes cultivated, witty and cynical Mephisto as an embodiment ism and negation. See, for

about Faust, Mephisto is characterised as a servant from hell. Some scholars point out of a complex doctrine of philosophical nihilexample, David Hawkes, The Faust Myth:

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Religion and the Rise of Representation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Rolf-­Peter Janz, ‘Mephisto and the Modernization of Evil,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–31 and Peter Huber, ‘Mephisto is the Devil—or is he?,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 32–39. 2. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 1976), 252. 3. See Paul B. Clarke’s critique on Arendt in ‘Beyond the Banality of Evil,’ in British Journal of Political Science 10, No. 4 (1980): 417–39, and The Autonomy of Politics (Aldershot: Avebury, 1988). 4. Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind 1: Thinking (London: Secker and Warburg, 1978), 4. 5. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 276. 6. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 276. 7. Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, ‘Understanding the Contemporary in Philippine Theatre,’ in Art Archive 01: A Collection of Essays on Contemporary Philippine Visual and Performance Arts, ed. Patricia Tumang (Manila: The Japan Foundation, 2017), 53. 8. Jacques Rancière, Dis-agreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 11. 9. Rancière, Dis-agreement, 19. 10. ‘Tanglaw ng Lahi Award,’ Ateneo de Manila University, accessed March 10, 2018, http://www.ateneo.edu/tanglaw-ng-lahi-award. 11. Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press, 2015), 139. 12. Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco, ‘The Theatre of José Estrella,’ The Theatre Times, August 26, 2016, accessed February 20, 2018. https://thetheatretimes. com/theater-jose-estrella/. 13. In The Origin of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt analogises the concentration camps to hell, hence, the coinage of hell-on-earth. Arendt’s assertion of hell-on-earth is not simply an external analogy, but that the emergence of total domination is closely and strangely related to the religious belief in hell, that it materializes this belief by incarnating it in immanence. In a strict sense, the camp realizes hell on earth (Tiatco, Entablado, 139–158). 14. ‘The UP Charter,’ University of the Philippines, accessed July 2, 2018, https://www.up.edu.ph/index.php/about-up/the-up-charter/. 15. University of the Philippines Diliman Information Office, ‘Salaysayan: K’wentong Bayan, Kaalamang Bayan,’ Printed Souvenir Program, 2017, 25–26.

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16. Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco and Bryan Levina Viray, ‘Performing Human Rights: Pista Rizalina’s Interrogations of Martial Law, Extra-Judicial Killings and Historical Revisionism at the Cultural Center of the Philippines,’ JATI: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 23, No. 1 (July 2018): 217. 17. ‘Philippines: Events of 2016,’ Human Rights Watch, accessed February 20, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/ philippines. 18. Manuel Mogato and Clare Baldwin, ‘Special Report: Police Describe Kill, Rewards, Staged Crime Scenes in Duterte’s Drug War,’ Reuters Online Report, April 18, 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https://www.reuters. com/article/us-philippines-duterte-police-specialrep/special-reportpolice-describe-kill-rewards-staged-crime-scenes-in-dutertes-drug-waridUSKBN17K1F4. 19. Juliet Perry, ‘Philippines to UN: Reports of Extrajudicial Killings are based on “Alternative Facts,”’ CNN Online, 9 May 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/09/asia/philippines-war-ondrugs-alternative-facts/index.html. 20. Nicole Curato, ‘We Need to Talk About Rody,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 1. 21. Curato, ‘We Need to Talk About Rody,’ 1. 22. For an example of phenomenology of evil in Faust, see Huber, ‘Mephisto is the Devil,’ and for a reflection on modernity, see Albrecht Schöne, ‘Faust—Today,’ in Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, eds. Hans Schulte, John Noyes and Pia Kleber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–31. 23. Bonifacio Ilagan, ‘Crossing Borders: Philippines Activist Theater and Martial Law,’ Kritika Kultura 14 (2010): 112. 24. Rodolfo Vera, ‘Faust,’ (Unpublished Typescript, 2017), 22. 25. Jodesz Gavilan, ‘Rights Groups Slam Cayetano’s Defense of Drug War before UN,’ Rappler Online, March 1, 2018, accessed March 10, 2018, https://www.rappler.com/nation/197171-human-rights-groups-slam-alanpeter-cayetano-defense-drug-war-united-nations. 26. In an online report, Marc Jayson Cayabyab (‘House Gives Commission on Human Rights ₱1000 Budget for 2018,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 12 September 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, http://newsinfo.inquirer. net/930106/house-budget-deliberations-chr-p1000-budget-speakeralvarez), explains that the decision of the House of Congress on the ₱1000 budget for the Commission on Human Rights apparently was the result of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez ‘making good his word to give the commission,

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long critical of the administration’s war on drugs, a measly budget, which would render it ineffective in its operations next year.’ 27. These are not in the typescript. These lines were inserted by the dramaturgical team. 28. These lines are Imelda Marcos’s actual remarks from her interview found in a documentary film Imelda, DVD, directed by Ramona Diaz (Philippines: Unitel Pictures, 2003). 29. Hawkes, The Faust Myth, 151. 30. Hannah Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1985 [1951]), 446. 31. Arendt, Totalitarianism, 446–7. 32. Rome Jorge, ‘Faust: Reminagined as Post-Truth Philippines,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 25 February 2017, accessed July 15, 2018, http:// lifestyle.inquirer.net/255268/faust-reimagined-post-truth-philippines/. 33. Michael Lim Tan, Revisiting Usog, Pasma, Kulam (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press, 2008), 67–8. 34. Tan, Revisiting Usog, 69. 35. In the typescript, playwright Vera wrote that the English version he used for the adaptation was David Luke’s translation of Faust published by Oxford University Press in 2007. 36. ‘Challenging Traditional Politics,’ Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism [no author cited], PCIJ Blog, accessed August 1, 2018, http:// pcij.org/blog/2008/01/31/challenging-traditional-politics. 37. Aries Joseph Hegina, ‘Davao City Improves to 5th in Ranking of World’s Safest Cities,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 24 June 2016, accessed March 10, 2018, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/125132/davao-cityimproves-to-5th-in-ranking-of-worlds-safest-cities. 38. Manuel Cayon, ‘First President from Mindanao Seen Bringing Discipline to the Whole PHL,’ Business Mirror Online, 11 May 2016, accessed March 10, 2018, https://businessmirror.com.ph/first-president-from-mindanaoseen-bringing-discipline-to-the-whole-phl/. 39. Tan, Revisiting Usog, 74–5. 40. The People’s Republic of China (China) has been claiming several islands in the Philippine territory. On 12 July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration proclaimed that there was no legal basis for China to claim ­historic rights to resources in the sea areas falling within the constructed ‘Nine-­Dash Line’ of the Chinese government. China had breached its obligation under the convention on the international regulations or preventing collisions at sea and Article 94 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea concerning maritime safety. Finally, the report also states that China violated its obligations to refrain from aggravating or extending the parties disputes during the pendency of the settlement process. For

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further information, see ‘The South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China,’ Permanent Court of Arbitration, accessed August 20, 2018, https://pca-cpa.org/en/ cases/7/. 41. Nestor Corales, ‘Duterte Admits He Was Wrong on 3–6 Months Drug War Deadline,’ Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, 17 April 2017, accessed March 10, 2018, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/923503/duterte-drugwar-deadline-drugs-war-on-drugs-campaign-extension. 42. Corales, ‘Duterte Admits He Was Wrong.’ 43. Walden Bello, ‘Rodrigo Duterte: A Fascist Original,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 77–92. 44. Anna Cristina Pertierra, ‘Celebrity Politics and Televisual Melodrama in the Age of Duterte,’ in A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato (Quezon City: Bughaw/ Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017), 219–230. 45. For a long time, China has been using the Nine-Dash Line argument to show the maximum extent of its territorial claim to the South China Sea. However, the actual demarcation of the line has never existed until 7 May 2009 when China submitted a new map to the United Nations, showing the extent of the territorial claim. The Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China for claiming the whole of the South China Sea illegally. Other Southeast Asian nations affected by the territorial claim such as Vietnam and Malaysia also lodged their protest a day after China submitted its map to the UN.  The Philippine government through then President Benigno Aquino III filed a case against China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On 12 July 2016, the court ruling states that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within “ Nine-Dash Line.” At the same time, the court ruled that China had breached its obligations under the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, and that China violated its obligations to refrain from aggravating or extending the parties’ disputes during the pendency of the settlement process. Despite this, China has continued to build artificial islands in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea in the Philippines), particularly in the territorial claim of the Republic of the Philippines. And as reported in Rappler Online by Paterno Esmequel II, 93% of Filipinos want the Philippines to reclaim China-occupied islands (https://www.rappler.com/nation/235204-filipinos-want-philippinesregain-china-occupied-islands-sws-survey?fbclid=IwAR3j3KkoLSApPLL8 wTUi0bsfvQAXOGoeBUdxPm8baTActQMEgy-eEFCdEA8). President

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Rodrigo Duterte is known for his strong affiliation with the Chinese government. Television and news online have reported that Duterte does not want to offend China since she has been bringing investments to the country. Even the president’s spokesperson Salvador Panelo has been continuously downplaying China’s territorial grabbing in the West Philippine Sea. Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales have been very vocal about the legal rights of the Philippines to the West Philippine Sea and have been calling Filipinos to defend its territory. Carpio has even slammed Duterte’s administration for refusing to use the landmark ruling. 46. Hannah Arendt, The Jewish Writings, ed. Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldmen (New York: Schocken Books, 2007), 265. 47. According to Vera, as noted in the typescript, this is scene 21 (‘By a Shrine Inside a Town Hall’) in Luke’s translation. 48. Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 157. 49. Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding: 1930–1954: Formation, Exile and Totalitarianism, ed. by Jerome Kohn (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 133–135. 50. Arendt, Essays in Understanding, 132. 51. Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 434. 52. Arendt, The Origin of Totalitarianism, 435. 53. Translations in English are provided in the typescript (Vera, ‘Faust,’ 60). 54. Translations also provided in the typescript (Vera, ‘Faust,’ 60–1).

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———. 2012b. Rodolfo C. Vera. Ateneo de Manila University Website. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://www.ateneo.edu/rodolfo-c-vera-gawad-tanglawng-lahi. Bello, Walden. 2017. Rodrigo Duterte: A Fascist Original. In A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato, 77–92. Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press. Cayabyab, Marc Jayson. 2017. House Gives Commission on Human Rights P1,000 Budget for 2018. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, September 12. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/930106/house-budget-deliberations-chr-p1000-budget-speaker-alvarez. Cayon, Manuel. 2016. First President from Mindanao Seen Bringing Discipline to the Whole PHL. Business Mirror Online, May 11. Accessed March 10, 2018. https://businessmirror.com.ph/first-president-from-mindanao-seenbringing-discipline-to-the-whole-phl/. Clarke, Paul B. 1980. Beyond “The Banality of Evil.”. British Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 417–439. ———. 1988. The Autonomy of Politics. Aldershot: Avebury. Corales, Nestor. 2017. Duterte Admits He Was Wrong on 3–6 Months Drug War Deadline. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, April 17. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/923503/duterte-drug-war-deadline-drugswar-on-drugs-campaign-extension. Curato, Nicole. 2017. We Need to Talk About Rody. In A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato, 1–36. Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press. Diaz, Ramona, dir. 2003. Imelda. CineDiaz. Documentary Film. ———. 2017. Faust. Souvenir Program. Estrella, Josefina, dir. 2017. Bilanggo ng Pag-ibig by Rody Vera. Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas. Full-Length Play. Gavilan, Jodesz. 2018. Rights Groups Slam Cayetano’s Defense of Drug War before UN. Rappler Online, March 1. Accessed March 10, 2018. https:// www.rappler.com/nation/197171-human-rights-groups-slam-alan-peter-cayetano-defense-drug-war-united-nations. Hawkes, David. 2007. The Faust Myth: Religion and the Rise of Representation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hegina, Aries Joseph. 2016. Davao City Improves to 5th in Ranking of World’s Safest Cities. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, June 24. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/125132/davao-city-improves-to-5thin-ranking-of-worlds-safest-cities. Huber, Peter. 2011. Mephisto Is the Devil—or Is He? In Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes, and Pia Kleber, 32–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Human Rights Watch. Philippines: Events of 2016. Accessed February 20, 2018. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/philippines. Ilagan, Bonifacio. 2010. Crossing Borders: Philippines Activist Theater and Martial Law. Kritika Kultura 14: 111–119. Janz, Rolf-Peter. 2011. Mephisto and the Modernization of Evil. In Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes, and Pia Kleber, 17–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jorge, Rome. 2017. Faust: Reminagined as Post-Truth Philippines. Philippine Daily Inquirer Online, February 25. Accessed July 15, 2018. http://lifestyle. inquirer.net/255268/faust-reimagined-post-truth-philippines/. Mogato, Manuel and Clare Baldwin. 2017. Special Report: Police Describe Kill, Rewards, Staged Crime Scenes in Duterte’s Drug War. Reuters Online Report, April 18. Accessed March 10, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/usphilippines-duterte-police-specialrep/special-report-police-describe-killrewards-staged-crime-scenes-in-dutertes-drug-war-idUSKBN17K1F4. Paddock, Richard C. 2016. Hero’s Burial for Ferdinand Marcos Draws Protests from Dictator’s Victims. The New York Times Online, November 18. Accessed March 10, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/world/asia/philippines-marcos-burial.html. Perry, Juliet. 2017. Philippines to UN: Reports of Extrajudicial Killings are based on “Alternative Facts”. CNN Online, May 9. Accessed March 10, 2018. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/09/asia/philippines-war-on-drugs-alternative-facts/index.html. Pertierra, Anna Christina. 2017. Celebrity Politics and Televisual Melodrama in the Age of Duterte. In A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency, ed. Nicole Curato, 219–230. Quezon City: Bughaw/Ateneo de Manila University Press. Rancière, Jacques. 1999. Dis-agreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rodriguez, Filemon. 1985. The Marcos Regime: Rape of the Nation. New  York: Vantage Press. Schöne, Albrecht. 2011. Faust—Today. In Goethe’s Faust: Theatre of Modernity, ed. Hans Schulte, John Noyes, and Pia Kleber, 17–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tan, Michael L. 2008. Revisiting Usog, Pasma, Kulam. Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press. Tan, Lara. 2016. Supreme Court Allows Burial of Marcos at Heroes’ Cemetery. CNN Philippines Online, November 18. Accessed March 10, 2018. http:// cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/11/08/Marcos-hero-burial-Libingan-ngmga-Bayani-Supreme-Court.html. Tiatco, Sir Anril P. 2015. Entablado: Theaters and Performances in the Philippines. Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press.

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———. 2016. The Theatre of José Estrella. The Theatre Times, August 26. Accessed February 20, 2018. https://thetheatretimes.com/theater-joseestrella/. ———. 2017. Understanding the Contemporary in Philippine Theater. In Art Archive 01: A Collection of Essays on Contemporary Philippine Visual and Performing Arts, ed. Patricia Tumang, 50–55. Manila: The Japan Foundation. Tiatco, Sir Anril P., and Bryan Levina Viray. June 2018. Performing Human Rights: Pista Rizalina’s Interrogation of Martial Law, Extra-Judicial Killings and Historical Revisionism at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. JATI: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 23 (1): 215–239. University of the Philippines Diliman Information Office. 2017. Salaysayan: K’wentong Bayan, Kaalamang Bayan. Printed Souvenir Program. University of the Philippines Media and Public Relations Office. The UP Charter. University of the Philippines Website. Accessed July 2, 2018. https://www. up.edu.ph/index.php/about-up/the-up-charter/. Vera, Rodolfo. 2017. Faust. Unpublished Typescript.

CHAPTER 6

A Transformative Theatre of Dialogue: The Makhampom Theatre Group’s Negotiation of Thailand’s Likay (Theatre) State Richard Barber and Pongjit Saphakhun

Introduction In 2013, the Makhampom Theatre Group performed the likay-circus production, The Miracle of the Blood Throne (The Blood Throne), at Thammasat University in Bangkok as part of an event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the October 14 uprising in 1973,1 a defining moment in Thailand’s modern democratic struggle. For Makhampom, as a Thai theatre group founded in 1980 by members of the 1970s pro-democracy movement, the two performances were particularly significant as they defined Makhampom’s response to the current era of political conflict in

R. Barber (*) • P. Saphakhun Free Theatre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Chiang Mai, Thailand

© The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_6

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Thailand and subsequently marked a major transition in Makhampom’s theatre practice. Throughout its history, Makhampom has maintained a tradition of performing epic theatre works as critiques of contemporary Thai democracy at intermittent commemorative October Events, referring to anniversaries of the 1973 uprising and the October 6 massacre at Thammasat University in 1976.2 The most recent such work, The Blood Throne, was devised in response to Thailand’s conditions of entrenched colour-coded political conflict since the early 2000s, an era that has exposed the residual nature of ‘Theatre State hegemony.’ Drawing upon Clifford Geertz’s work, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980), and scholars including Mulder, Keyes, and Christie, the notion of the Theatre State emphasises the continuity, or even resurgence, of the Brahmanic cosmological order of pre-modern Siam and Southeast Asia as a hegemonic patrimonial model within the contemporary Thai political context. The Thai Theatre State has been most prominent within the patrimonial networks aligned to the Yellow Shirt political movement, which emerged in 2005  in opposition to the populist government of Thaksin Shinawatra, amidst allegations of corruption and abuse of power. A countermovement of Red Shirts, as a loose alliance of pro-democracy, Thaksinist, and anti-coup groups, formulated in response to the September 2006 military coup, ushered in this period of colour-coded conflict. Sporadic protests continued into the 2010s, within an increasingly polarised society, and shortly after The Blood Throne performances on October 6 and 14, 2013, Yellow Shirt anti-government protests polarised the Red Shirt-aligned Yingluck Shinawatra administration and triggered Makhampom’s implication in the political conflict. The October Events, perceived in opposition to Theatre State hegemony, became a target for threats against organisers and performers, including Makhampom. Ironically, these threats were influenced by the popular success of the Makhampom performances, with live audiences of approximately 3000 and an online audience exceeding 30,000. Praise by the mixed intellectual and working-class audiences, including a large contingent of Red Shirt supporters, was in stark contrast to the ideological opposition to the event by Yellow Shirt-aligned activists, media broadcasters, and parliamentarians, whose vigilance and political disruption instigated a military coup in May 2014. Whilst The Blood Throne narrative explicitly dealt with Thailand’s extant socio-political context in its critique of hegemonic power and Theatre

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State ideology, Makhampom’s embrace of the likay (Thai folk opera) style, as Thailand’s most popular commercial theatre form also had symbolic significance. Makhampom’s interest in bringing the likay genre onto the contemporary theatre stage also represented a challenge to the natural social order espoused by the Theatre State construct that had long stigmatised likay as an inferior art form of the subaltern. The decentralisation and subsequent commercialisation of court theatre in the 1800s led to the emergence of likay as a popular theatre, which acquired a marginal status within Thailand’s stratified cultural lexicon. The Theatre State concept has been invoked in response to the re-­ emergence of the Thai military role in promoting Theatre State ideology. Since being installed, as a result of the 2014 coup which toppled the Yingluck government, the military regime of General Prayuth Chan-ocha espoused a form of ‘Thai-styled democracy,’ founded on the notionally unique characteristic of ‘Thai-ness.’ Jungwiwattanaporn aligns Thai-ness with the Three Pillars of Nation, Religion, and King,3 with military governments constructing Thai nationalism based upon these tenets through modern political history. This Theatre State-styled hegemony has invoked the historical denial and suppression of the October Events, whether in documentation or testimonial recording. It also validates traditional, classical modes of theatre as authentically Thai, in contrast to the perceived foreignness of contemporary theatre and low-class, immorality of the likay genre. The 2014 coup marked a reversion to a level of authoritarianism that has been described by several pro-democracy activists as resembling the post-1976 era.4 Dramatised warnings of the residual dangers of hegemonic power, evident in Thailand’s history of military coups, were portrayed in The Blood Throne, and these became almost portentous of the forthcoming events. The reversion to authoritarian rule and Makhampom’s visibility within the pro-democracy movement combined to mark this period as a transformative chapter in the group’s history. Makhampom became subject to acts of censorship and the suppression of dissent through political arrests, forced exile, and intimidation by security forces within weeks of the October Event in late 2013. As this reversion to an authoritarian context accelerated, the potential for politicised public performance diminished and the large-scale contemporary likay style of The Blood Throne became untenable in the post-coup context due to security crackdowns on public gatherings. A commitment to sustain its performance practice and the thematic focus on the national political conflict led to the development of the new method, called Dialogue Theatre,

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as an experimental applied theatre method appropriate for this politically volatile context. The term, the Likay (Theatre) State, has been coined to describe the tendency for the military regime of General Prayuth Chan-ocha to adopt populist tools towards legitimising authoritarian rule in the name of a Theatre State-styled ideology. Parallels have been drawn with the way likay directors have sought to popularise traditional court drama conventions in secular entertainment from the nineteenth century to today. Similarly, Makhampom adopted the likay form partly to expand its audience reach in the 1990s and 2000s. The likay genre, and its emergence as arguably Thailand’s dominant theatre mode due to its prolific representation within the cultural sphere,5 also offers a useful lens for addressing class and cultural constructs of the contemporary Thai condition and, as a consequence, Thai contemporary theatre. Although likay is typically categorised as folk theatre due to its subaltern identity, its form contains two prominent features of contemporary Thai theatre, namely neo-traditionalism and hybridity of style. However, in contrast to the ‘modern’ identification of contemporary theatre in Thailand, likay has emerged from a history of negotiating the tradition-­ modernity dialectic. From the late 1990s, Makhampom’s contemporary theatre practice embraced likay, recognising its nationwide subaltern popularity in spite of its stigma as peripheral under Theatre State definitions of Thai cultural identity. The discontinuities of Makhampom’s contemporary likay approach provide insights into Thailand’s contested political sphere and represent a point of departure to discuss the development of Makhampom’s practice of Dialogue Theatre and its negotiation of the metaphorical Likay (Theatre) State context.

Complicating the Contemporary: The Praxis of Makhampom Theatre Throughout its history, Makhampom’s theatre praxis has been difficult to categorise. Sompiboon, in her 2012 study of Makhampom’s contemporary likay practice, describes Makhampom as a contemporary theatre group. Jungwiwattanaporn identifies Makhampom’s emergence in 1981 as ‘part of a revival effort for the new era of contemporary theatre,’6 referring to the emergent wave of Western-influenced live theatre in the post-­ 1950s period. Makhampom has also regularly been defined by its

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community praxis, evident in its original iteration as the Grassroot Micro Media Project, a 1980 initiative by pro-democracy activists to produce micro media for grass-roots advocacy,7 later evolving into an explicitly theatre-oriented group. In his 1992 study of contemporary radical theatre in Asia, The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia, Eugene Van Erven places Makhampom alongside the other prominent ‘new era’ group, MAYA (The Art and Culture Institute for Development),8 as part of a small community theatre trend within the Asian context. Yoxall’s 2016 description of Makhampom as a socially engaged theatre group appears to identify the group within an applied theatre frame and Makhampom’s use of the Gramscian term, praxis, emphasises the group’s applied pedagogical intent.9 Makhampom’s praxis at the intersection of contemporary, community, and applied theatre modes was shaped by two definitive developments that have shaped Thailand’s contemporary theatre. Firstly, the establishment of drama courses at Chulalongkorn and Thammasat University in the 1960s, led by academics, Sodsai Pantumkomol and Mattani Rutnin,10 saw modern theatre shift from elite and commercial circles into the context of the modern intellectual universities. Although Thai civil society first gained influence during the constitutional democratic reform era of the 1930s,11 these contemporary theatre developments in the 1960s were accelerated by the convergence of rapid modernisation, leading to Thai university students experimenting with modern Western plays, within both drama curricula and student clubs. The second key development arose out of the penetration of Cold War radicalism into Thai campuses as students expanded their modern theatre explorations into realist, existentialist, and absurdist theatres. The Crescent Moon Theatre became a prominent player in the 1970s pro-democracy movement, inspiring a proliferation of live political theatre performances, from agitprop styles in Bangkok to traveling theatre for rural populations. Concerns that Western performance scripts were contextually foreign to Thai audiences prompted an upsurge of Thai playwriting. This trend extended into theatre form and aesthetics, with a Brechtian theatre workshop12 viewed as seminal in blending Thai aesthetics and thematic contexts with Western acting techniques towards creating a new hybrid dramaturgical approach that was both radical and Thai. The 1976 October 6 Event led to the exile or pacification of the movement’s prominent theatre activists. However, their legacy of engaged practice, social mobilisation,

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­ ybridity, and localised thematics and aesthetics shaped Makhampom’s h praxis and Thailand’s contemporary theatre in the 1980s. Makhampom’s stated objective to ‘apply theatre as a community media form … towards transforming Thai society’13 emphasises socio-political efficacy, and Makhampom’s theatre practice has continuously been defined by the precepts of effective audience engagement. In the 1990s, this led to a period of experimentation in hybrid and neo-traditional theatre, characterised by fusions of traditional Buddhist and folkloric literature with localised styles of mask, folk dance, popular song, classical dance-drama, and shadow theatre motifs, as well as imported Brechtian, social realist, and musical theatre elements. The objective of developing an efficacious Thai theatre practice was also stimulated by the group’s participation in Asian regional collaborations, including Big Wind and Cry of Asia14 and a European tour of the production, Phitsathan Oei, in 1992, in what Kerdarunsuksri considers to be part of a ‘watershed in the development of Thai theatre.’15 This shaped Makhampom’s contemporary theatre identity to be what Jungwiwattanaporn describes as a ‘distinguished style [that] was the exquisite combination of Thai traditional dance and western physical theatre.’16 A dual community and performance practice saw the group define its role as a ‘bird flying between city and village,’17 with socio-political narratives drawn from the group’s prolific community theatre projects in the late 1990s18 and transferred to public performances for urban middle-class audiences. The reformulation of the group into the Makhampom Foundation19 in the 2000s saw this praxis translated into four programme departments—Community, Education, Performance, and International. The group’s contemporary theatre practice was positioned under the performance banner as part of a structure that gave community theatre, educational theatre, and performance teams some autonomy within the pluralist Makhampom practice, encompassing theatre performance, workshop facilitation, and social activism. Makhampom’s pluralism had long complicated prescriptive categorisations of Thai theatre. The clear delineation of modern, folk, and classical modes reflects the stratification of Theatre State discourse, manifested in modernity, tradition, class, and centre-periphery dialectics. For example, community theatre in Thailand has inherited aspects of the stigma applied to the rural subaltern context of folk performance modes. Makhampom implicitly challenges these orthodoxies through its pluralist praxis, where bridging Thailand’s social strata to effect social change disrupts similar

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stratification in the theatre domain. Makhampom’s contemporary likay practice illustrates this bridging role, as Makhampom’s hybrid, neo-­ traditionalist theatre led to the process of bringing this folk, subaltern theatre genre into the predominantly urban domain of contemporary theatre audiences. Middle-class and subaltern audiences are brought together by Makhampom’s contemporary likay, as was the case in The Blood Throne, exemplifying Makhampom’s ancillary role in challenging the stratification of Thai theatre. The inherent hybridity of the likay form has been important in providing Makhampom a level of artistic licence to incorporate contemporary narratives, forms, and aesthetics into the likay conventions, namely stock characterisations, stylised ranikloeng singing, classical movement motifs, audience-oriented improvisations, and exaggerated design aesthetics. This was evident in the adaptation of the German play, Romulus the Great20 in The Blood Throne. Other popular performance devices were adopted, including the casting of two professional likay actors to draw conventional likay audiences, the addition of an aerial circus scene made familiar by the winning Aerial Silk act by Leng in the 2012 television contest, Thailand’s Got Talent and the guest appearances of three high-profile pro-democracy activists as drawcards for politically active audience members. Whilst the likay form provided a performative connection with these audiences, it was the political credibility of the guest actors within the Red Shirt movement that provided Makhampom with a form of permission to challenge attitudes regarding the highly sensitive issue of political violence of the colour-coded conflict between the Red- and Yellow-Shirt factions whilst critiquing the Thai Theatre State construct.

Forces of Change Despite the popular success of The Blood Throne, the reconciliatory theme of the work was subsumed by the meta-narrative of prevailing socio-­ political contexts, thereby precipitating a series of changes in Makhampom’s practice. The Yellow Shirt protests in the weeks following the October Event performances against the Yingluck Shinawatra government, criticised by opposition figures as a proxy administration for her exiled brother, Thaksin, led to the dissolution of parliament on December 9, 2013, and subsequently a military coup on May 22, 2014. Whilst Makhampom and other performers were publicly condemned by Yellow Shirt-aligned advocates during this period, the declaration of martial law following the coup

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had more severe repercussions, with the arrest and exile of The Blood Throne guest performers and renowned activists, Sombat (Nuling) Boonngamanongand and Aum Neko, and the imprisonment of director, Pornthip Munkong, and leading actor, Patiwat Saraiyaem, from the October Event production, The Wolf Bride, who were prosecuted under lèse-majesté laws of the Thai Criminal Code, which criminalises acts deemed defamatory, insulting, or threatening to the monarchy. Yoxall describes Makhampom’s involvement in the October Event commemoration as ‘the intertwining of place, remembering and memorialisation, hav[ing] proved to turn socially engaged theatre-making into a precarious endeavour.’21 Whilst not expecting the scale of reactions, either in terms of acclaim or condemnation or the subsequent course of political events, the group had acknowledged the risks of political performance, notably through the adoption of a foreign text as an allegorical device for addressing Thailand’s contemporary political condition and the review of The Blood Throne script by legal advisors in light of Thailand’s draconian politicised lèse-majesté laws. However, despite Thailand’s political instability, a scene in The Blood Throne that explicitly warned of the dangers of a return to military rule was never genuinely contemplated as being realised by the Makhampom team. In the post-coup period, the imprisonment and exile of The Wolf Bride production team on lèse-majesté charges in August 2014 drew comparisons with the exile of artists in the 1970s,22 indicating another significant juncture for the contemporary Thai theatre movement. The Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams, suggested that military authorities were extending their crackdown on free speech into the theatre arts sector.23 Arbitrary and coordinated visits to Makhampom by soldiers and police, closure of a Dialogue Theatre event in Chiang Mai,24 video surveillance of performances by radical, contemporary theatre company, B-Floor,25 and policy discussions by ministerial bodies regarding the censorship of theatre scripts signalled that Thailand’s contemporary theatre sector would be increasingly subject to state intervention and control. The internal implications on the group of The Blood Throne performances became immediately evident when one Makhampom artist was told not to come home by her Yellow Shirt-supporting parents, whilst others were lauded by Red Shirt-sympathising friends, relatives, and communities. A reconciliatory dialogue to address safety concerns and the diversity of political views within the group extended into a strategic negotiation of the changing context of Makhampom and Thai society. The

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precepts of financial sustainability and an efficacious praxis prompted an approach that sustained community and educational programmes and shifted performance practice from large-scale public performances, deemed unviable under the current authoritarian rule, to the low-profile, experimental Dialogue Theatre method.

Crafting Dialogue on Stage Makhampom began developing the Dialogue Theatre method in 2011 as a response to Thailand’s layers of socio-political polarisation and the need for ‘an activist form of dramaturgy which aims to influence and alter the actual world, not just reflect it.’26 In the 2014 post-coup context, a Dialogue Theatre project emerged as Makhampom’s core theatre programme in response to the conditions of military state suppression, the emergence of international funding opportunities for democracy-related projects, and a belief that Dialogue Theatre represented an effective coalescence of the group’s body of practice in engaged theatre. The choice of the name, Dialogue Theatre, illustrated a commitment to a dialogic approach. A view emerged within Makhampom that transformative or reconciliatory dialogue through public performance, such as The Blood Throne, was problematic, evident in the perception within elements of the Thai public that the production was as much polemic as it was dialogic. Consequently, Makhampom determined to place greater emphasis on expanding the level of direct audience engagement in dialogue, and the discrete, small-audience, Dialogue Theatre form was seen as suited to the post-coup context. Like the majority of Makhampom’s performance practice, Dialogue Theatre embraced the principle of hybridity. However, this process was less concerned with questions of aesthetics and form; rather, it emphasised the process of adapting applied theatre methodology to a stage-based theatre form. A two-part method, made up of a short-scripted character-­ driven play and a live, mediated dialogue between audience members and play characters, effectively represented a combination of performance technique and workshop process. In essence, Makhampom sought to combine its conflict transformation, or Art of Peace,27 workshop approach, as a collection of applied peace-building games and theatre exercises with its contemporary performance approach. This includes Makhampom’s version of Image Theatre techniques, influenced by the history of exchange and adaptation of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed methodology.

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As an interactive, immersive live theatre form, Dialogue Theatre resembles the Forum Theatre method,28 aligning with Boal’s advocacy for a ‘constant search for dialogical forms, forms of theatre through which it is possible to converse.’29 Like the notion of the spect-actor, a term coined by Augusto Boal to refer to the engaged role of the spectators’ role in shaping and transforming the stage drama, Makhampom sought to engage audiences in live dialogue, stimulated by the stage drama. In order to achieve diverse participation, typically constrained by the layers of social hierarchy in Thai audiences, a stage dialogue approach was devised with a flexible ‘toolkit’ of dialogue exercises. The transition into a panel discussion format, on-­ stage audience participation, and the reformulation of the theatre space into small group ‘Chat Circles’ were adaptable tools applied to promote diverse audience representation in participatory dialogue. Since it began exploring conflict transformation methodologies in the early 2000s, Makhampom had identified the need to review its binary approach to socially engaged theatre, consistent with trends in applied theatre sectors. Prentki refers to the ‘reification of a fixed binary’ of ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ becoming increasingly distorted in the contemporary world.30 Since relocating its community praxis to the remote, rural northern Thai district of Chiang Dao in 2004, a sustained, localised community praxis exposed the group to the complexity of social, cultural, and political dynamics surrounding the latent structures and systems of discrimination and oppression. Makhampom drew on this experience to expand the binary construct of conflict into the pluralist approaches of conflict transformation, leading to the core Dialogue Theatre tenet of multiple character voices being represented on stage. The first Dialogue Theatre-inspired production, Shadow of the Moon, was performed by Makhampom in Thailand and Taiwan in 2011 as a solo work, bringing five different characters into a dialogue about Theatre State constructs of, and controls on, national identity. Despite a series of experimental workshops and minor performance events in the years following the Shadow of the Moon production, the development of Dialogue Theatre into a core performance practice was primarily precipitated by the post-coup context and realised through opportunities for democracy-­ oriented funding grants.

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Dramatic Engagement in Three Acts The Interactive Theatre: Expanding Space for Dialogue project, supported by the US-based agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, became the first iteration of Makhampom’s Dialogue Theatre project in 2014. Described in the narrative proposal as a ‘new participatory theatre program that aims to expand the space for democratic dialogue,’ this project represented an important means for Makhampom’s short-term financial sustainability whilst testing the viability of Dialogue Theatre as a new applied theatre method. The project was to subsequently develop into a multi-year initiative, including three Dialogue Theatre productions between 2014 and 2017. It also marked an explicit shift, partly due to the external political factors, in the group’s performance practice following The Blood Throne. The first Dialogue Theatre work, Drama Sunjon, was devised within an authoritarian context manifested in heightened fears of persecution experienced by Makhampom members. Regular visits to the Makhampom Art Space by members of the police and military to question members about the nature of the group’s practice and networks had created a level of intimidation, and having actively campaigned for lèse-majesté prisoners over several years, Makhampom determined that the increasingly draconian conditions justified a low-profile approach in this first iteration of the Dialogue Theatre project. Consequently, the project was initiated in northern Thailand, reducing potential scrutiny by authorities due to their primary focus on oppositional groups in urban centres. The themes of structural discrimination and questions of agency for ethnic minority groups also allowed Makhampom to distance itself from the threats associated with The Blood Throne performances. The narrative proposal described the first iteration of Dialogue Theatre as a character-driven theatre form beginning with the performance of a 20–30-minute conflict scenario (The Play), which transitioned into a 90-minute moderated dialogue process (The Dialogue). This dialogue process was devised as a series of ‘live’ interactions with invited audiences, or spect-actors, contained at numbers of 40–60 people. This became the model for the subsequent iterations of the project, namely the second work, Holding Time, in 2016 and the third production, The Voice, in 2017 (Fig. 6.1).

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Fig. 6.1  Clockwise from top left: The Blood Throne at Thammasat University in Bangkok in 2013; open dialogue in Drama Sunjon at the Makhampom Art Space in Chiang Dao in 2015; The Voice in Ubon Rachatanee in 2017; Holding Time in Songkla in 2016. (Photo: Makhampom Foundation)

Act 1: Drama Sunjon Drama Sunjon, which translates as ‘touring or mobile drama,’ was the title given to an imagined television current affairs programme. The production team adopted a simple, familiar television format consisting of a verbatim theatrical re-enactment, as the Play, and live moderated panel, as the Dialogue. The Play, first performed in early 2015, explored systemic discrimination against ethnic minority groups within the Thai public health system. The narrative was centred on the story of Sopha, a hill-tribe Dara-­ ang31 university student, carrying the emotional burden of her mother’s sacrifices for her education and the stigma of her indigenous identity. The play traverses her romance with an undocumented Karenni migrant worker, Tupo, and culminates in a conflict scenario in a district hospital, following a serious workplace injury to Tupo.

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Miscommunication, discriminatory regulations, and harsh law enforcement led to an altercation between Tupo, Jaidao, a doctor, and Prayut, a local police officer. This scenario, familiar to several of Makhampom’s stateless partner communities in Chiang Dao, drew upon similar documented cases of discrimination and deaths in custody of undocumented migrant workers in northern Thailand. The Play culminated with a dramatic shift from conflict scenario to the ethical dilemma facing Doctor Jaidao, surrounding the arrest of the injured Tupo as she was treating him in her district hospital, and Sopha lamenting ‘why things have to be this way?’ The transition from Play to Dialogue was facilitated by the Mod, as moderator of the Dialogue, who also performed the minor character role of television presenter in the Play. Similar to Boal’s Joker, as active facilitator of the Forum Theatre process, the Mod has the responsibility of enabling critical engagement between actor and audience through ‘a constant, dialectical flow.’32 The Mod facilitated the stage being converted to a panel setting, leading into the fluid, semi-improvised sequence of Open Dialogue, Hot Seat, Chat Circles, and Closing Dialogue33 that ran from 90 minutes to 3 hours. The audiences, predominantly represented by selected groups of health workers, nursing students, hill-tribe villagers, and pro-democracy activists, were engaged by the Mod through different ‘icebreaking’ devices. After establishing the participation process in the Dialogue with audiences, the Mod’s invitation for each character to briefly introduce their name, concerns, and hopes for change asserts the commitment of each character to converse and to seek change. The Mod engages the audience by posing questions regarding their experiential or emotional connection to character and story or by rephrasing Sopha’s lament by asking ‘whether things have to be this way.’ The Drama Sunjon performances illustrated the importance of the Mod’s role in harnessing the audience’s emotional connection to story and character whilst attempting to establish the key element of Dialogue Theatre—that dialogue will occur with the actors in character throughout. The process of engaging the audience in this dynamic, fluid space between the ‘imagined’ character and Play and the ‘real’ audience and Dialogue emerged as a definitive measure of efficacy for a Dialogue Theatre performance. It also emphasised the degree to which the development of character achieved ‘believable truth,’ consistent with Stanislavski’s approach to acting. In Drama Sunjon, audience members’ affinities with characters,

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typically deriving from identification or sympathy, often triggered emotional interactions with characters. For example, during a performance with an audience of nursing students, a Chat Circle resulted in six students emotionally sharing their concealed indigenous identities after connecting with Sopha’s experiences of mockery and discrimination within the centralised education system. This notion of believable truth is also consistent with the importance of authenticating conventions in immersive performance, with the localised familiarity of the character of Sopha, based on the experience of a youth theatre group member from Makhampom’s partner Pang Daeng Nok community, allowing local indigenous audience members to identify closely with the scenario. Whilst an indigenous Karen actor’s direct cultural knowledge and lived experience could be imparted through his characterisation of Tupo, the development of other characters required extensive research to achieve believable multi-layered representations. In the case of Prayut, the police officer, this process included the acknowledgement of and objective response to actor biases and assumptions in order to develop a level of respect and fairness towards the character that was, in many ways, antagonistic to the actor’s values and beliefs. The audience interest in engaging in dialogue with Prayut, explained by one audience member in terms of the lack of opportunities in Thai society to challenge the authority of the police, also placed an onus on the actor’s ability to represent that character in the improvised dialogue process. That the actor playing the character of Prayut was asked on several occasions if he was a ‘real’ policeman reaffirmed the importance of the authenticity or believability of the character. However, the process of speaking to, or sharing grievances with, the ‘Other’ represents the basis of the dialogue process. This process in Drama Sunjon also required the sensitive facilitation of tensions or discomfort arising from the surfacing of deep emotional feelings or traumas, suggesting that an effective dialogue process was contingent on the creation of what Makhampom refers to as a ‘safe space to converse with the Other.’ The performances to different audience types also provided the important insight that the diversity of characters on stage made Dialogue Theatre accessible to a similar diversity of audiences. In the real world, a panel comprising a policeman, migrant worker, doctor, Dara’ang student, and university professor may seem implausible due to Thailand’s entrenched socio-economic stratification. However, the routine tendency of audiences to embrace this ‘opportunity’ to engage in dialogue with ‘the Other’

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appeared to supersede this imagined aspect of the Dialogue. In effect, it was apparent that the imagined space became the mechanism to achieve a level of discourse that is typically constrained by Thailand’s embedded hierarchies. Similarly, it indicated a general willingness of audiences to engage in such a discourse. Drama Sunjon provided initial insights into the transformative potential of the Dialogue Theatre method. Audience feedback, gathered through a process of dialogue observation, questionnaire, and post-­ performance networking with partner organisations, suggested an attitudinal change was achieved by a majority of audience members. The strategic participation of health and ethnic organisations expanded these dialogic outcomes into policy or procedural changes. For example, a joint hospital-local government plan to fund and train ethnic minority translators was implemented within health services in the Mae Sai District of northern Thailand, and a cross-cultural course was introduced into the formal curriculum of a Chiang Mai nursing college as a result of their participation in performances. Act 2: Holding Time Where the Drama Sunjon performances sought to test the efficacy of the Dialogue Theatre method while negotiating Thailand’s authoritarian context, the second iteration of the project in 2016 sought to return to the themes and intentions of The Blood Throne production. The localised, social development context of Drama Sunjon performances had allowed Makhampom to maintain a low-profile performance practice, and in so doing provide time to clarify the level of risk associated with Makhampom’s Dialogue Theatre practice. The immediate threats of persecution associated with The Blood Throne performances were perceived to have diminished by Makhampom and its legal advisors by this time. In 2015, the military government, under the banner of the National Council for Peace and Order, sought to legitimise its regime by ending martial law, proposing democratic elections, and projecting a platform of security, reform, and reconciliation. However, the introduction of Article 44 within the interim constitution giving the junta absolute power to counter threats to national security was also viewed as a means to reinforce Theatre State constructs of Thai-ness, nationalism, and autocratic, patrimonial rule. The suppression of all forms of political debate or dialogue in the name of pacifying the civil violence of the Red

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Shirt-Yellow Shirt conflict was seen by Makhampom as signifying an interest in absolute control rather than social reconciliation. The second work, Holding Time, revisited the themes of political violence portrayed in The Blood Throne with the objective of promoting such a reconciliatory dialogue space for audiences affected by the colour-coded socio-political polarisation. The Play was developed as a four-character allegorical piece, set in a parallel galaxy, with an aesthetic that loosely referenced Korean popular culture motifs, including polished, stylised design motifs, and dynamic, choreographed movement. Whilst these aesthetic elements were adopted to relate to the target audiences of predominantly middle-class students, an elaborately crafted clock as the stage centrepiece provided the dramaturgical device to represent the theme of Thailand’s political violence. The characters, named Number 3, Number 6, Number 9, and Number 12, corresponded to familiar characterisations of Red Shirt radicalism, Yellow Shirt traditional conservatism, urban salim34 middle-class apathy, and academic intellectualism. Each character portrayed had been affected by acts of violence, either directly or to a close relative, which were marked in time, physically on the clock and internally as a memory of loss and pain. These traumas drew Number 3, Number 6, and Number 9 as a mother, her son, and his girlfriend, together in conflict and loss. Number 12, as the teacher of Number 6 and Number 9, was directly connected to the scenario, but she removed herself from the conflict by maintaining an objective stance, with research-based inquiry motivating her role as Mod. Although Holding Time, like The Blood Throne, employed an allegorical style, the colour-coded and class-based ideologies of each character were familiar to audience members, which included vocal Red-Shirt and Yellow-­ Shirt activists and supporters. Audience members tended to initially identify with the character or characters according to their political affiliations whilst confronting their notionally ‘oppositional’ character or characters. The Dialogue process sought to challenge these divisions by centring the dialogue on the dilemmas emerging from the themes of human loss through political violence, derived from a scene in The Blood Throne. This prompted a form of cognitive dissonance around questions of association with both victims and perpetrators of political acts of violence, illustrating the importance of the notion of dilemma in facilitating self-reflexive responses by audience members. Holding Time was performed throughout Thailand to university students and civil society audiences, and like Drama Sunjon, the opportunity

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to engage in dialogue with the Other, in this case as political adversary, was popularly embraced in several performances. Several requests to host performances reinforced Makhampom’s understanding that Dialogue Theatre offered a viable reconciliatory platform within the current political climate, despite ongoing safety concerns, which often required audiences to be screened by Makhampom or host organisations for an openness to participate in a reconciliatory process and a balanced representation of political affiliation or viewpoint. In contrast, a performance at the Democrazy Theatre Studio, Bangkok’s most prominent artist-run contemporary theatre space, was embraced by some audience members as an act of political resistance. Similarly, a performance prepared for a commemorative anniversary event for a renowned intellectual at Chiang Mai University was subject to closure of the proposed venue and intimidation by security officers. These events reinforced the extant constraints on public performance and the ongoing symbolic significance of politicised theatre works, such as that which occurred with The Blood Throne. The risks associated with such democratic platforms and the sensitivities surrounding themes of politically inspired violence often resulted in intense, serious performance atmospheres and occasionally emotionally charged debate. The Makhampom actors found Holding Time more challenging in terms of achieving metaxis, or ‘the process whereby a person in role is able to both perform and view that performance.’35 Ideological differences between actor and character also required extensive social and political research to achieve a ‘believable truth’ in character portrayal. Furthermore, the fears associated with the military government’s persecution of free speech through lèse-majesté and other politicised laws meant that elements of suspicion and mistrust influenced levels of audience engagement and actor self-censorship during The Dialogue. Overall, audience feedback suggested that the most important outcome of the Holding Time performances was the creation of a uniquely safe dialogic space to address the deep-rooted tensions of Thailand’s colour-­coded conflict. The opportunity to directly engage with the Other was considered transformative, in the sense that increased understanding, acknowledgement, and tolerance of other perspectives essentially became a reconciliatory act. The third-person nature of the character was considered important in mediating the discomfort of engaging oppositional voices in dialogue. However, audience members also noted a sense of fatigue in directly addressing the colour-coded conflict, leading to calls for

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Makhampom to find ways to bring its characteristic humour and playfulness into the dialogic space. Act 3: The Voice Audience calls for the third iteration of the Dialogue Theatre project to restore a level of comic relief from the protracted national political debate was also consistent with a shifting perception of the military government and its public persona. The effort of the regime to legitimise its authoritarian role as the guardian of the imposed Theatre State ideology since the 2014 coup had been increasingly challenged by calls from a broad cross-­ section of society for a return to national elections. It is within this context of the military regime being drawn into the popular contested space of contemporary Thai politics that the notion of the Likay (Theatre) State is reimagined. General Prayuth’s persona as national leader could be perceived as resembling the likay character types of pra ek (hero) to his supporters, tua gong (villain) to his opponents, and tua talok or chok (joker)36 by all strata of society. His role extends from positive notions of the endearing comical uncle figure, manifested in characteristic respect for seniority, relational or familial support, and tendencies to make light of misogynistic behaviour, to the absurd target of mockery by opposition figures. The changing political context had also marked a shifting dialogic space, in its various melodramatic and absurd manifestations, from the behaviour of regime leaders regarding public behaviour, personal scandals, and allegations of graft to the cat-and-mouse efforts of the regime to create counter acts of defiance by pro-democracy activists. For Makhampom, this offered scope to integrate the melodramatic conventions of the likay form within the Dialogue Theatre method. As the third iteration of the National Endowment for Democracy-supported project, The Voice represented a revival of Makhampom’s contemporary likay project but also the embrace of a thematic shift towards addressing the national political conflict through the lens of socio-cultural conditions rather than colour-coded affiliation. In a sense, the production sought to unwrap the implications of the Likay (Theatre) State construct on contemporary political conflicts. An audience member who had attended all three productions noted that The Voice had more dimension to it, in reference to its exploration of the intersectional roots of Thailand’s anti-democratic forces in terms of

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class/caste, gender, ethnicity, religion, regionalism, the centre-periphery discourse, and intergenerational tensions. The conflict was still portrayed within a family context with the intergenerational Makhampom cast and the transgender identity of one actor becoming central to their characterisation. This intersectionality also extended to the diverse composition of audiences for the eight performances of The Voice in Chiang Mai, Ubon Rachatani, and Bangkok. The contemporary likay form was seen as a key factor in achieving a broad audience reach and the adaptation of a popular Thai literary text sought to provide another familiar cultural motif. The play’s setting referenced Ban Saithong37 (Saithong house), and its romantic dramatising of Thai class-based traditions, complemented by a text that primarily drew on the academic writing of Thai intellectual, Prajak Kongkirati.38 The play depicts the family household of three sisters and a housemaid, with their identities and interactions mirroring several elements of contemporary Thai socio-political identity, manifested in the national conflict. The story begins with the older sister, Pim, speaking about the death of her father a year ago and her wish to retain the traditional household customs. She lives with her younger sister, Phot, a middle-class businesswoman known for her conspicuous wealth and her marriage to a senior military official. The youngest sibling, Pink, having asserted their transgender identity, is ready to break free of the constraints of family tradition. The fourth character, Fah, is the working-class family housekeeper who becomes mistress to Pun, the brother of Pim, Phot, and Pink, who, like Phot’s husband, is an invisible but prominent character in the narrative. The themes of Thai-ness and contested constructs of Thai democracy are provoked through a series of scenes and motifs of contested values and beliefs. Pim refers to the different levels of the fingers on the hand as analogous to a natural order, suggesting status and roles are pre-ordained in accordance with Theatre State ideology. In spite of her husband’s patterns of corrupt and abusive behaviour, Phot maintains a passive silence and servility within her marriage. The ‘buffalo’ stigma accorded to Fah’s ethnicity and class is justified by Phot on the grounds of Fah’s low education. Pink’s gender identity is denigrated by Pim as un-Buddhist. Fah’s pregnancy is used as a reason to ‘evict’ her from the house by the sisters despite her assertion that as the mother of a child with the family’s lineage, she should not be accorded such status. And in the final scene, Pim’s prayer to her father’s ancestral spirit for help positions her dilemma of

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f­amily disunity and becomes a metaphorical prompt for the audience dialogue on national reconciliation. The ‘external’ Mod is introduced to the performance as the presenter of a reality TV show, with the dialogue culminating in a popular vote for the ‘most convincing voice’ of the four characters. These comic and absurdist elements were typically recognised by audiences as important in facilitating a more relaxed and accessible dialogue process, albeit with the risk of reducing the characterisations to caricature. The final popular vote also emerged as an interesting exercise in cognitive dissonance, as the inherent ideological biases of audience members were challenged by the requests to objectively adjudicate on the ‘most convincing voice’ question. The process of cognitive dissonance was evident within each Dialogue Theatre performance as audiences negotiated the real-imagined dialectic. Makhampom’s Dialogue Theatre also created distortions in the centre-­ periphery and class biases that permeate Thailand’s contemporary theatre, due to the rural subaltern background of the majority of the actors and the project’s locus in the remote, rural district of Chiang Dao. Common assumptions by audience members that the actors would necessarily be of urban, middle-class, intellectual background perpetrated the centre-­ periphery discourse that continues to define the contemporary theatre domain in Thailand, which Makhampom’s non-conventional contemporary theatre practice continues to distort. Evaluations done by the Makhampom team, academic researchers, and audience members revealed the efficacy of The Voice was derived from the adoption of the contemporary likay form, the dialogic focus on moral and ethical values and beliefs of the characters rather than experiences of conflict, and the high level of engagement with the meta-narrative of Thai-­ ness, national identity, and Thai constructs of democracy to be the distinctiveness of the performances. The continuity within the body of actors, with three actors playing core character roles in each performance, was seen as important in allowing them to develop the Dialogue Theatre acting craft. This was assisted by a degree of typecasting to maintain actor proximity to character, for example, with one actor taking on the roles of ideologically and culturally similar characters of Sopha, Number 9, and Fah in earlier productions.

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Conclusion: An Emergent Contemporary Theatre Praxis in Thailand’s Likay (Theatre) State Makhampom’s members consider the Dialogue Theatre project to be one of the most significant developments in the group’s history of praxis. This relates to both the methodological development of the theatre form and the political context within which it has emerged. Whereas Makhampom’s contemporary theatre practice has previously been designed to complement the pedagogical, transformative, and developmental objectives of the group’s applied theatre practice in different social contexts, the Dialogue Theatre method coalesced the group’s different methodological approaches within the national political context. The development of Dialogue Theatre is explicitly aligned to Thai political conditions of the 2010s and Makhampom’s commitment to playing an active, visible role within the disparate democracy movement, both latent and emergent. The group’s identification with conflict transformation approaches has seen the translation of this politically active stance evolve into a mediatory role within Thailand’s civil society. The Blood Throne production in 2013 marked the point of departure for that approach. However, it also exposed the limitations of public performance as a mediatory device in a politically polarised society. The development of the Dialogue Theatre method was motivated by the immutable nature of Thailand’s colour-coded political conflict and the sense that Makhampom’s praxis had been relatively ineffectual in this national sphere, in contrast to its recognised efficacy at the localised, community level. Whilst the transformative and dialogic potential of the method was evident in the first performance iteration, Drama Sunjon, it was the second and third works, Holding Time and The Voice, which increased the focus on the performative aspects of the Dialogue Theatre method. The question as to where Makhampom’s performance practice is placed within the contemporary theatre sphere has been a point of contention throughout its history, most recently at the onset of the contemporary likay project in the 2000s. Although questions of categorisation and definition have held limited concern within the group, the Dialogue Theatre project represents a further challenge to constructs of contemporary Thai theatre, in particular, due to its non-conformity regarding target audiences, the use of interactive techniques, and the method of engagement in the political conflict. Similar to the way the contemporary likay project sought to take Makhampom’s modern performance practice beyond typical urban,

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middle-­ class audiences and towards introducing contemporary theatre audiences to the popular ‘folk’ mode of the likay genre, Dialogue Theatre brings applied, immersive methods onto the theatre stage and seeks diversity in the audiences across social strata. Furthermore, in shifting its performance programme to its rural Chiang Dao site and developing a local pool of actors of local, subaltern background, Makhampom distorts the centre-periphery dialectic that confines contemporary Thai theatre to the domain of urban modernity and post-modernity. In so doing, Makhampom engages in a subtle process of challenging the inhibiting aspects of the common categorisations of Thai theatre modes and its parallels in the social stratification perpetuated by the Theatre State construct. For Makhampom, perhaps the most significant challenge emerging from The Blood Throne performances and the development of the Dialogue Theatre project was its response to the national colour-coded conflict and the extant threat of the post-coup military regime. The heightened political atmosphere of the 2013 October Event performances at Thammasat University forced Makhampom to address its political position within Thailand’s contested space. Whilst maintaining a tradition of acknowledging its legacy to the 1970s democracy movement through its commemorative anniversary performances, Makhampom had also maintained a politically non-aligned, neutral stance to accommodate the diversity within its membership. However, through its explicit opposition to the military regime and its Theatre State ideology, Makhampom’s active mediatory role within Thailand’s pro-democratic movement signalled its commitment to a politicised contemporary theatre practice.

Notes 1. On October 14, 1973, student-led demonstrations led to a brutal military crackdown, the collapse of the Thanom Kittikachorn dictatorship, and the establishment of a new constitutional democracy. 2. On October 6, 1976 (referred to as the October 6 Event), paramilitary and state forces attacked students inside Thammasat University, precipitating scores of deaths, disappearances, and exiles and the return to military rule. 3. Jungwiwattanaporn describes these Three Pillars as the hegemonic construct of Siamese nationalism to counter Western imperialism. See Parichat Jungwiwattanaporn, ‘Kamron Gunatilaka and the Crescent Moon Theatre: Contemporary Thai Theatre as Political Dissent’ (PhD diss., University of Hawai’i, 2010), 61.

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4. See Thongchai Winichakul interview in Drennan, Justin. ‘Interview: Thai Democracy Is Gone and Won’t Return Anytime Soon,’ Foreign Policy, November 25, 2014, accessed February 12, 2018, https://foreignpolicy. com/2014/11/25/interview-thai-democracy-is-gone-and-wont-returnanytime-soon/. 5. Likay troupes, at their most prolific in the early 1900s, were estimated to be in their thousands throughout Thailand. The ‘dominant’ popularity of the genre was, however, contrasted by its stigmatisation by conservatives and traditionalists due to its subaltern context, the sexualisation of actorpatron relations, and the use of popular tropes such as melodrama, vulgarity, and slapstick humour. 6. Parichat Jungwiwattanaporn‚’ Contemporary Theatre in Thailand: A Profile,’ SPAFA Journal 9, no. 2 (1998): 9. 7. Richard Barber, ‘Performing Praxis, Community Culture, and Neo-­ Traditionalism: A Study of Thailand’s Makhampom Theatre Group’ (PhD diss., Monash University, Melbourne, 2007), 135. 8. Barber, Performing Praxis, 147. 9. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire describes praxis as a process of reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed. See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2007). 10. Jungwiwattanaporn, Contemporary Theatre in Thailand, 6. 11. The economic depression in the 1930s led to the emergence of a politicised Thai working class and a constitutional political movement led by progressive intellectual, Pridi Banomyong. See Barber, ‘Performing Praxis,’ 36–37. 12. In 1976, the Goethe Institute invited German director, Nobert Mayer, to give a workshop on Brechtian theatre theory and practice for Thai theatre practitioners. 13. Taken from the Makhampom Foundation’s Mission Statement. See Barber, ‘Performing Praxis,’ 297. 14. ‘Cry of Asia’ ran from 1989 to 1997 as an annual Philippine-led Asian theatre collaboration with actors from up to a dozen Asian countries touring internationally in Asia and Europe. ‘Big Wind’ was a Hong-Kongproduced Asian theatre collaboration, touring seven Asian countries from 1994 to 1995, inspired by ‘Cry of Asia,’ and described as ‘a collaboration of popular theatre workers—East and West.’ References are taken from Makhampom documentation. 15. Kittisak Kerdarunsuksri, ‘The Transposition of Traditional Thai Literature into Modern Stage Drama: The Current Development of Thai Theatre’ (PhD diss., University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2001), 9. 16. Jungwiwattanaporn, Contemporary Theatre in Thailand, 10.

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17. Barber, ‘Performing Praxis’, 75. 18. Makhampom received multi-year funding from international development agencies to deliver theatre for community development projects in village communities in four provinces, addressing social and health issues such as child sex trafficking, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) stigmatisation, and indigenous rights. 19. The Makhampom Foundation was founded primarily to increase access to funding, in order to retain the pool of senior volunteers and sustain its praxis. 20. Romulus der Große (Romulus the Great) was written by German playwright, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, in 1949, as a melodramatic portrayal of the demise of the Roman Empire. 21. Matthew Yoxall, ‘Making Theatre, Discerning Silences: Engagements With Social Change In Burma/Myanmar And Thailand’ (PhD diss., The National University of Singapore, 2016), 329. 22. Members of the Crescent Moon Theatre group and Songs for Life musicians were amongst those exiled in the 1970s, following the October 6 event. 23. See Human Rights Watch, ‘Thailand: Theater Activists Jailed for Insulting Monarchy,’ Human Rights Watch, August 20, 2014, accessed January 30, 2018, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/20/thailand-theateractivists-jailed-insulting-monarchy. 24. Chiang Mai University denied access to the booked venue for the commemorative event in recognition of scholar Nidhi Eoseewong and due to the pro-democracy nature of the forum that included Makhampom’s work. 25. Bang Lamerd, performed by B-Floor in Bangkok in 2015, involved military video surveillance at each performance. Ironically, this resulted in full houses with attendance becoming seen as a form of political resistance. 26. Susan Haedicke, ‘Dramaturgy in Community-Based Theatre,’ Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism XIII, no. 1 (1998): 132. 27. A series of 6–10-day conflict transformation training programmes in Thailand and parts of the Asia-Pacific region led to Makhampom producing a training module and manual titled Art of Peace. 28. Forum Theatre is the renowned Theatre of the Oppressed technique pioneered by Brazilian theatre worker Augusto Boal, and it involves audience members engaging in the solution to staged oppressions. 29. Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre (London and New  York: Routledge, 1998), 4. 30. Tim Prentki, Applied Theatre: Development (London and New  York: Methuen Drama, 2015), 21. 31. The Dara’ang, also known as the Palaung, is an indigenous ethnic minority group located along the Thai-Burma border. Several communities in

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northern Thailand arrived as refugees from civil war in Shan State in the 1980s. Makhampom has worked with the Pang Daeng Nok Dara’ang community in Chiang Dao for 20 years. 32. Prentki, Applied Theatre, 76. 33. The ‘toolkit’ of dialogue methods consist of the Chat Circle (small group discussions), Hot Seat (grievance-based discussion with individual characters), Stage Debate (audience participation on stage in debate on divisive conflict theme), and Missing Voice (individual audience members on stage proposing other voices for dialogue). These methods are applied to complement the Open Dialogue and Closing Dialogue with these adapted to audience and performance contexts. 34. The term salim was originally coined in reference to the multi-coloured shirts, as a derivation of the Yellow-Shirt movement, before morphing into a word used by Red-Shirt activists to describe middle-class Bangkok people who take the middle ground in Thai politics. 35. Peter O’Connor and Michael Anderson, Applied Theatre: Research: Radical Departures (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 69. 36. The likay joker is a multi-functional character whose role straddles slapstick clowning and improvised social commentary. 37. Ban Saithong by Ko Surangkhanang was a 1950 serialised romantic novel adapted for stage, film, and television, including a popular 2000 TV drama version. 38. See Prajak Kongkirati, Democracy in Transition: On Democracy, Violence, and Justice (Bangkok: Fa Diew Kan Publishing House), 2015.

Bibliography Barber, Richard. 2007. Performing Praxis, Community Culture, and Neo-­ Traditionalism: A Study of Thailand’s Makhampom Theatre Group. PhD diss., Monash University, Melbourne. Boal, Augusto. 1979. Theatre of the Oppressed. New  York: Theatre Communication Group. ———. 1998. Legislative Theatre. London and New York: Routledge. Christie, Jan Wisseman. 1985. Theatre States and Oriental Despotisms: Early Southeast Asia in the Eyes of the West. Centre for South-East Asian Studies Occasional Paper No. 10. University of Hull, Hull, UK. Freire, Paulo. 2007. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Geertz, Clifford. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Haedicke, Susan. 1998. Dramaturgy in Community-Based Theatre. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism XIII (1): 125–132.

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Jungwiwattanaporn, Parichat. 1998. Contemporary Theatre in Thailand: A Profile. SPAFA Journal 9 (2): 5–13. ———. 2010. Kamron Gunatilaka and the Crescent Moon Theatre: Contemporary Thai Theatre as Political Dissent. PhD diss., The University of Hawai’i. Kerdarunsuksri, Kittisak. 2001. The Transposition of Traditional Thai Literature into Modern Stage Drama: The Current Development of Thai Theatre. PhD diss., University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. Keyes, Charles F. 1987. Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Kongkirati, Prajak. 2015. Democracy in Transition: On Democracy, Violence, and Justice. Bangkok: Fa Diew Kan Publishing House. Mulder, Niels. 2000. Inside Thai Society: Religion, Everyday Life, Change. Chiang Mai: Silk Worm. O’Connor, Peter, and Michael Anderson. 2015. Applied Theatre: Research: Radical Departures. London: Bloomsbury. Prentki, Tim. 2015. Applied Theatre: Development. London and New  York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. Rutnin, Mattani. 1999. Dance, Drama and Theatre in Thailand: The Process of Development and Modernization. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Sompiboon, Sukanya. 2012. The Reinvention of Thai Traditional-Popular Theatre: Contemporary Likay Praxis. PhD diss., University of Exeter. Van Erven, Eugene. 1992. The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Yoxall, Matthew. 2016. Making Theatre, Discerning Silences: Engagements with Social Change in Burma/Myanmar and Thailand. PhD diss., The National University of Singapore.

CHAPTER 7

Intervention, Openness and Ownership: Interview with Ong Keng Sen on Festival Dramaturgy Charlene Rajendran with contrib. by Ong Keng Sen

The Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) is a major event in the arts landscape of Singapore and Southeast Asia, as festival arts enthusiasts from the region travel to the island-state to watch theatre, dance, music, literary arts, multimedia and interdisciplinary performances, despite the relatively high cost of doing so, given the strength of the Singapore dollar relative to neighbouring currencies. The festival has grown in popularity and reputation, both locally and abroad, and thus succeeded in presenting Singapore as a ‘Global City of the Arts,’ a state-led project proposed in 1992 to expand the arts industry and ostensibly ‘soften’ the austere reputation of the government in the eyes of both the international and local public.1 Now in its fourth decade, SIFA has grown from a ‘modest ­home-­grown event’2 that began in 1977 and first organised by the Young Musicians Society (YMS—at the time the extra-curricular arm of the

C. Rajendran (*) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_7

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Ministry of Education) to a critically acclaimed event that is commissioned by the National Arts Council and presented by Arts House Limited. Initially named the Singapore Festival of Arts, and subsequently the Singapore Arts Festival in 1999, the festival has been steered by a range of different festival directors since 1982, each having brought their own particular vision and ideas to the purpose of the event. Since the early 2000s, the festival has also moved towards a more ‘global outlook’ that has included brokering partnerships with other international festivals and relationships between local and international companies for commissioned works.3 From 2010 onwards a conscious effort to develop deeper engagement with the public, incorporating programmes and events that allowed for public participation and co-creation was also incorporated.4 As a ‘national’ arts festival that first set out to play a role in nation-­ building by offering a ‘culture-making’ function for a diverse group of people whose backgrounds were varied and unaccustomed to being ‘unified,’ the aim was initially to ‘build a cohesive Singaporean culture’ and evolve ‘a Singaporean identity.’5 This may seem unrealistic and naïve in a contemporary context that is highly fragmented, fluid and globalised, when attempts to forge a unified culture or singular identity are rarely taken seriously. Nonetheless, the significance of the festival’s location, namely Singapore, and how the context has informed particular tensions and struggles that the festival navigates, cannot be underestimated. Not only has the festival been distinctive for its focus on Asian, intercultural and cutting-edge contemporary work,6 it has also been critiqued for having to observe ‘draconian’ censorship laws,7 apart from having to deal with audiences whose thresholds for experimentation and avant-garde work is generally low. Due to an overarching instrumentalist and pragmatic view of the arts as mainly desirable for profit and/or pleasure, when it comes to embracing the arts for its capacity to challenge and provoke, there is understandably more resistance than reception. When Ong Keng Sen was appointed festival director from 2014 to 2017, it was the first time an artist was taking on the position, as previous festival directors had been primarily administrators.8 Ong, an established theatre director, renowned for intercultural and interdisciplinary productions (e.g. Lear [1997], Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields [2001] and Sandakan Threnody [2004]), is also the only director whose artistic works have featured regularly in the festival and who continued to direct ­performances for the festival even while he was festival director (some examples include Richard Sandaime in 2016 and Trojan Women in 2017).9 Recognition of Ong’s ‘vision’ for the festival as crucial to its advancement

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suggests a more conscious aspiration for the festival to express the ideas of its director.10 Hopefully, artistic direction, and not just administrative prowess, will be a continued priority. With a reported 218,000 viewers at the 2017 iteration,11 Ong can be credited with enlarging the scope and reach of the festival to achieve more recent ‘national’ goals, which include drawing on the performing arts as a valuable resource to enhance the attractiveness of Singapore and thereby provide another basis for economic growth.12 Yet, it is his politics of art, understanding of aesthetics and philosophical perspectives that warrant attention, particularly since there were significant shifts he initiated and critical ideas that he propelled in leading the festival. In addition, his consciousness of the role of festival director as responsible for a public discourse and public funds, and thereby linked to questions of transparency and accountability, has also prodded him to draw comparisons between festival directors and those who take on public office. This chapter presents an edited transcript of a keynote dialogue with Ong held on 16 February 2017, in which he articulated his festival dramaturgy and explained his rationale for these choices.13 The dialogue was part of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network (ADN)14 symposium titled Tracing Asian Dramaturgy held in conjunction with the Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama (TPAM) 2017, and moderated by Charlene Rajendran, Co-Director of ADN. * * * Charlene Rajendran: I want to start with asking about what is meant by the dramaturgy of a festival for you as a festival director and as somebody who has got specific ideas about the thematic trajectories that you have created for SIFA, a festival for Singapore. What is your consciousness of this [festival as an event that occurs in relation to] public space, the city space and the political context into which this festival enters? Ong Keng Sen: In terms of festival dramaturgy I think there is a way in which the festival puts a frame around a period of time that it is playing in. It could be a theme, it could be a way of engaging the public, [or] it could be a way of putting certain politics at the forefront. That is for me a kind of festival dramaturgy. Of course it is also not stable in the sense that it is in transition all the time, over a number of years, and even within the frame of let’s say the six weeks or four weeks [of a particular festival]. There is a kind of a journey I think, a trajectory.

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CR: The themes selected for the festivals have been Legacies in 2014, Post-Empires in 2015 (which was a significant year because Singapore celebrated 50 years since independence, and the event was marked by year-­ long celebrations in the city-state), Potentialities in 2016, and coming up later in 2017, Enchantment. Tell us about the selection of these particular themes and how they worked individually and together? OKS: Actually, I always try very hard to put the themes in plural mainly because it is about pluralities and multiplicities. So, it’s Legacies, for example. And it is always a big debate. Like this year we are doing a project called Open Parliament and I said ‘Let’s call it Open Parliaments.’ And somebody in my team, my colleague, who is in charge of The O.P.E.N.15 and audience engagement, Noorlinah Mohamed, said ‘Sounds a bit strange because usually it is only one parliament.’ I wanted to have a way to reframe this kind of journey of moving back in time and moving forward in time, in the past, present and future. [To suggest] that we, at any one time, exist in these three [time frames simultaneously], if not more. I wanted to look at legacies and not so much histories mainly because I thought legacies felt a little bit broader. So we had Legacies of Science and we had Legacies of Violence, like apartheid, which came from the twentieth century. It is a kind of immediate reflection on the twentieth century’s misdemeanours as well. With Post-Empires, I was looking very strongly at the individual and looking at archiving specifically. How individual archival processes are redefining the empires from which we have come. And then last year I was looking into the future but it was framed more as Potentialities rather than the future. When I first agreed to do four editions I said that the last edition would be a kind of wild card. Actually, I thought it was just going to be a summary of all the three years because we are always living with legacies and we are always living with potentialities at the same time. But then Brexit and Trump came along. I often say that Singapore has pre-Trumped Trump. [Which led to] this idea that perhaps in this age of disenchantment we have to look at enchantment seriously. How do we continue to be enchanted with the world so that we can fight for it and sustain the fight because we can still believe and not become cynical in the process? CR: What are some of the strategies you use, once you decide on a theme, and you have an idea of how this theme is meant to connect with an audience—a potential audience, a legacy of an audience? What are the kinds of things that begin to inform some of the strategic decisions, choices and planning processes that go into place?

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OKS: It is usually [related to] the kind of landscape that we are in, like a domain. So, we enter and in a way we move through the domain of, let’s say, Legacies. In the first edition [of SIFA, themed Legacies, we had a thread in The O.P.E.N. called Digital Legacies in which] we invited Hans Ulrich Obrist, for example, to do his project called 89plus,16 which focuses on individuals born in 1989 and after. Mainly [those in] the digital age and the digital generation. I don’t come from that generation, but I work in the postmodern and beyond postmodernism, with fractured surfaces perhaps reflecting each other. So I work through a number of different lateral ways rather than trying to build a monolithic approach towards legacies. I have been asked, in relation to The O.P.E.N., why is it that I don’t become more didactic, and kind of teach the audience what to think about legacies? I just don’t really think this is possible, and it is also not the agenda. Particularly in Singapore, which is so top-down, I have seen my role as the Festival Director in a very specific way. I see my festival directorship as an intervention on many different levels. It is an intervention in the city. In a way to cut into the policies which politicians make about the arts in Singapore, and also to perhaps disrupt some of the capitalist tendencies of the city. So, I see my festivals really as a kind of a pause, or a way in which there is an interruption of the ‘festival event’ in Singapore. I do always reflect on the fact that, being an artist, what does it mean to actually run a city festival? One of the biggest frames that I use is to see my festivals as an intervention. CR: Talk about The O.P.E.N. as a significant intervention in your festival programming. It is an aspect that hasn’t been in the festival before. So, what led you to generate The O.P.E.N., and what is The O.P.E.N.? OKS: The O.P.E.N. is an open space. So it doesn’t have a particular fixed format. But it is a way in which the festival deals with its vagueness, and it also reflects my own frustration as an audience member in festivals. For example, you see Gob Squad or you see a show, let’s say Apichatpong [Weerasethakul]’s [film] Fever Room, and you want to know a little bit more of its context.17 But then it is gone. He [Apichatpong] is gone and the show disappears in a few days. And there is always this frustration that you are chasing after a UFO that has landed and is going off again. It is unidentified, as you get some sense of it, but you can’t really confirm any perspective. And this vagueness is what The O.P.E.N. addresses.

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The O.P.E.N. tries to create an ecosystem—an ecosystem before the festival arrives—where audience members are thinking about potentialities. For example, ‘what does this mean?’ CR: So, it happens about two months beforehand, say in June, if the festival begins in August or September? OKS: Yes, it happens in June and July, and then there is usually a month between [The O.P.E.N. and SIFA]. CR: It also occurs slightly differently because it is not the usual festival ticketing/programming approach. Tell us about The O.P.E.N. Pass and how that encourages a certain kind of viewing that is not typical of a conventional festival. OKS: One of the things we are always fussing with in festivals is the pricing of tickets. Even when you run a theatre company, you are thinking about how to price so as not to discourage people who cannot afford. Yet I will say that in Singapore, most people can afford tickets, it is just how people want to spend their money. In a way, it is also about trying to create a flexibility of thought. A kind of a post-discipline, or at least an interdisciplinary to post-disciplinary process, whereby you actually move between a film and a talk today, and then maybe the next day you are in a photo exhibition, the sense of being able to slip [across] and to actually transit between these genres. And The O.P.E.N. Pass allows, let’s say, for S$25 (not including early bird discounts) a student to actually watch 70 events in three weekends. All on that same pass. So, I don’t think that audiences at The O.P.E.N. are prohibited by pricing. But of course, it [this experience] is also a way in which I do believe that as you are slipping between the genres, as you are slipping between the disciplines, something productive happens. And The O.P.E.N. operates in that way, where you are actually put through a kind of mindf∗∗k or dream-­ state where you are moving between all these things. Usually the festival audience chooses: ‘I have $50. What can I watch? And these are my top three shows.’ And with The O.P.E.N. we do away with all that. You can watch everything on one very affordable pass. You don’t have to feel the pressure. CR: Tell us how that pertains to your thinking about Singapore as the city where this festival is happening, and why in particular your reading of Singapore as a city, as a city-state [and] as a nation as well, then warrants this kind of open session before the festival, and an ongoing commitment to that way of presenting the festival. That there is always a festival, but

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there is always The O.P.E.N. beforehand, and there is a different layer of thinking or a different approach to working that is specific to this Singapore that you are responding to. OKS: I think Singapore, for me, is a land of censorship where you are very often directed to think in a certain way. So you have a pathway, which you follow and you very seldom are allowed to discover or to fall, because you are not even allowed to fall. So, basically you actually start to think only of not just the possible but the successful possible. The O.P.E.N. allows for a space where you are not told why you are watching it and how you should be thinking about it, and this kind of openness is really important as a kind of life experience. A festival responds to the city, responds to the context in which the festival is. I feel that the festival is particularly successful when it makes the political process transparent. When a festival production is censored, that is when the political process becomes transparent. Actually, that is when I feel that as an intervention we have collided against the wall, and that collision becomes visible and the invisible political system becomes visible. I will give you an example. At the time when we publicise productions, it is usually in April and the festival, let’s say, is in June or in August. By then the plays are not yet classified, especially the commissions. So, it is always something like ‘rating TBC’—rating to be confirmed. This then becomes our leverage because when a performance is censored or disallowed, audiences begin to ask why. ‘I bought a ticket for it, why is it taken off the shelf?’ This is when the political process becomes transparent, and of course what the censors want us to do, as companies, as artists, as festivals, as institutions, is to pre-censor. So that the audience does not know that they are denied the show. But when a show is taken off, then they begin to ask, ‘Why? What was wrong about the show? Which scene was problematic?’ So, this is when the political process becomes visible, and the national performing arts festival, as a clustered series of events, becomes very visible and politically very strong. And in that way, I see my office actually as a public office. And I see my intervention as a Festival Director almost like an ombudsman, a legal term where you actually create a kind of check-and-balance, and you reveal some of the quiet censorships that are happening. CR: Ombudsman! That is really about mediation or facilitation of a process. And a very different kind of role to the assumptions made about the festival director. Earlier in our ADN meeting, we were talking about

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the dramaturg and what kind of role that is, and what are the hierarchies of that kind of collaborative process. So say a little bit more about this notion of the ombudsman in relation to the festival director and about the dramaturgy of a festival or dramaturgical work of a festival as an ombudsman. The festival is meant to have a national role as you say, and I think public office is interesting [to bring into the frame] because there is public interest engaged with public office. In Singapore particularly, the festival is meant to be a highly attractive hub for a range of things to happen, such that infrastructure and a range of support systems go towards fulfilling this. But if the festival director is an ombudsman, one is assuming conflict. Because you go to an ombudsman or a mediator if there is some conflict that needs to be settled, and perhaps a conflict that needs to be settled outside the decrees of the law courts. One that is more humane, hopefully. One that is more geared towards the people who are involved. So, how does that work? OKS: One of the realisations that happened for me when I started to be festival director was that sometimes I am dealing with Singapore commissions which run up to S$300,000 and the festival supports the entire commission, [which is rare in the festival circuit]. That is very easily €180,000 for one production. I have been questioned about [my decisions]. Sometimes you get the National Arts Council breathing down your neck and saying ‘Why are you commissioning this artist?’ and I say ‘Well, because he is interesting’ or ‘She is good,’ and they will say ‘But don’t you think there are some issues in the work?’ All these euphemisms are always floating around. Also, because we are dealing with a situation right now where funding is pegged to being aligned with the [ruling] party in many ways. This is a situation where [arts] companies are denied funding because they are critical. They are perhaps not directly penalised, but they are definitely affected in the funding process. So, I see my work, then, as a way to actually negotiate that. Because I sometimes commission artists who are difficult for the system. When I give a commission to an artist of €180,000, that is substantial money. It allows some kind of process of opening up and making transparent certain democratic thoughts, for example, in a city. You know you don’t normally have a festival commissioning that kind of big production alone. You have a budget of €180,000 shared between six parties or six festivals. Because of that, I do think there is a public role in the position of festival director. And I know, for example, that I have

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been very strong with my Board [of Directors] because I say things like ‘I am not here just to turn in a profit for the company.’ I see how we have to use the money because the arts is a public space. I don’t stand for the National Arts Council and neither do I stand for the private profit-making process of [The] Arts House [Limited], the holding company of the festival. CR: I am going to move on to this idea of public space then, because you talked earlier about the festival as an intervention in the city. So what are the kinds of interventions or ruptures that you perceive happening with audiences, with spectators, who come with particular kinds of intentions for viewing? Or who are more open, or who are really kind of seeking to scale themselves up or learn? There is a range of ways in which audiences are participating in the work, not just by buying tickets obviously but being part of an ecosystem. Some becoming volunteers, some actually being parts of a production, some which take on the role of ushers in outdoor events. I mean there is a range of ways in which this ecosystem is operating and, so what kinds of interventionary, if there is such a word, sites are you imagining when you think about intervention for audiences? OKS: First of all, I think that I am dealing with imagined audiences. Benedict Anderson talks about ‘imagined communities.’18 There is no such thing as who is your audience, because you cannot predict who they are, no matter how many surveys you do. Are there any survey companies here [in the audience]? Survey companies are the easiest way to make a fast buck, because they survey and they say ‘Oh, your audience is generally young, mostly women, mostly professionals.’ And it is like ‘Okay, I don’t need to do a survey. I know that.’ So, the thing about the audiences is that you really don’t know who your audience is. But how do you deal with that vacuum? You have to then imagine an audience. I love this art collective in Zagreb called What, How & for Whom/ WHW, and I always use their way for organising my thoughts, especially in a kind of a quick lecture like this. Like ‘what, how and for whom.’ So, one of the ‘hows’ that our festival is very strong on is that we try to have intimacies with the audience. So, we reject strategies of [performing for] 1000 people or 3000 people in a football field. We don’t really believe in that kind of process. I remember a funder who said to me, ‘How can you justify supporting a show with only 25 or 15 audience members?’ and I said to her ‘Would you like your child to go to a classroom for 40 students or 15 students?’ One of the things that we do therefore is projects like, in 2015, a project called Open Homes, which happens in the home of an individual, a

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resident.19 In Open Homes usually only 15 people can fit in the [living] room. This year, for example, we have a project called O.P.E.N. Kitchens.20 We are inviting a Lebanese food activist, Kamal Mouzawak, who has a tagline ‘Make Food Not War.’ There is so much silent censorship in Singapore right now. I think that we are in some kind of cultural war at the moment but again always invisible. So I wanted very much this idea of ‘Make Food Not War,’ and to open up to 18 home cooks who are going to be cooking in their homes for audiences. But of course, again, 15 people, maybe 30 people if you are lucky, can fit into a house, let alone a kitchen. This idea of intimate experience rather than something with 1000 people, these are all deliberate ways to reinvent looking at performance indicators. Because one performance indicator used by funders of course is numbers. How many people came to your show? What is your cost recovery? All these things, which are insidiously being appropriated by different arts councils around the world. It is not just in Singapore. They are all learning a kind of language from each other which is ‘How effective is your art making?’ And we deny that instinct or that accounting process by actually saying that we want intimacy, and we actually push for that as a ‘how’ as a strategy of trying to reduce this sense of being focused on mass numbers. CR: It is interesting for me as an educator that the analogy you presented to this funder is of a child going to school. And the association is that for schooling, you want good education by having smaller numbers because of quality interaction. But there is a different pedagogy, in relation to this public space for performance, which is not necessarily a form of schooling but engaged with literacy no less. In which you are intervening, or you are seeking to intervene, in an imaginative literacy, if I can call it that. Where [oftentimes] the imagination is meant to operate according to certain rules and stipulations. And you go to learn how to do art appreciation, you go to learn how to do music appreciation, drama [and] dance and then you come back with the right words [and critical criteria] for it. But here you are suggesting something else is operative. Something political, sensorial and pedagogical, which then links back to being director, ombudsman, mediator [and] dramaturg. OKS: In that particular case the funder was looking at funding education in the arts, that is why the specific example of a classroom. But that is why I keep talking about this idea that the festival I am creating is an intervention. I am also very happy that it is happening only for four years

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because, as an intervention, you cannot sustain it forever. You constantly have to come in and intervene, as appropriate, for those number of years. I am a completely un-institutional person, non-institutionalised and rejecting this institutional process. I am a foreign body. I am an alien with viral potentials for the National Arts Council, because they probably felt that after a couple of years I would become less virulent. But I have become more so or perhaps sustained the virulence. In this climate of constant suspicion of the Other, I have been seen to be disloyal. I am seen to be a disloyal artist who constantly bites the hand that feeds it. This is the kind of public speak in Singapore, in which they will say something like ‘How can you as an artist bite the hand that is funding you?’ That is why I feel like there is specificity with this festival that I have made here in Singapore. It is very specific to the Singapore context. I think that all festival directors’ dramaturgy is very much linked to the city that they are making the festival for. CR: How much are artists aware of this when they come and be part of the festival? How much are they conscious of these broader questions that they are in some ways either participative of, or implicated in, or empowered to then take further in relation to how they want to see their work and engage their work in relation to other works? Because there is a conscription of their work, and how they operate, if this broader agenda is also operative. OKS: Yes, for the international artists who arrive in Singapore without much knowledge of the context, they are probably not so privy to all this background. It is mainly because they, and their works, may not be touched by censorship. There are many standards of censorship, or ‘classification,’ as the government ministries in Singapore call it. So, for example, I think that if there was nudity in a show by an international artist, it would probably be okay. But with a Singapore group, there would be issues. There would be questions. So, it’s a very stupid thing, but if you have a production about an art studio with a nude model, for a Singapore group, they will probably be told that you cannot be nude, and you must wear something. And it is like, ‘Okay, this is a drawing class. So do I wear a brassiere and do I wear my underwear as I am standing there for the nude drawing session?’ But the censors probably wouldn’t say the same thing with an international group, for example. There are times when we have to be strategic. There are times when we discuss, as the artist and as the festival director, what is the best way to

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clear the path for this work to happen. It has so many ramifications—this process of censorship—as we have to have a clause in the contract, for example, that if the performance is censored it is almost like force majeure. Therefore the contract stops. But then how would the artist be remunerated? How would the festival be responsible? What are the relationships between the commissioner and those commissioned, so to speak? I would say all Singapore companies are very privy to this conversation, because right from the very beginning you are inside that conversation. Of course, different people become complicit in different ways, even myself. The National Arts Council has said, ‘Why do you all have to talk about censorship all the time? Because you are doing so many other things, why do you want to concentrate on that one work that is censored?’ What they don’t realise is that it is very, very basic to the process of art making, because you become complicit in so many different ways. However, with an international production like Five Easy Pieces by Milo Rau, that was a production about paedophilia, and performed by young actors, rated R18 [by the Singapore authorities], which meant that the only young people or children in the performance were the actors.21 So, can you imagine how cannibalistic we were as the audience, watching a play being done by seven children between the ages of 8 to 12? It is really like, ‘Okay, let’s eat them.’ That is the kind of structure which makes it so problematic. It is not just a play being classified or censored. It creates a kind of culture of ungenerosity. This is what happens. CR: It seems like a lot of the dramaturgical work that you are doing involves making links [between artworks and themes], sometimes suturing them, sometimes leaving them open. But seeing the associations that are possible as a result of certain choices that are made, and therefore put in motion. And this kind of dramaturgical work involves an aesthetic consciousness or political consciousness that entails a force, or capacity, to have a wide network of ways of working—apart from a committed team of artists and festival colleagues to drive the work as well. If I can just go back to the idea of dramaturgy, and look at how you are also a performance maker who is involved in shaping the dramaturgy of particular works of art. Be they intercultural and/or interdisciplinary, difference is a key part of your approach. A lot of the festivals you have curated have brought in different forms of work, from different countries, different ways of engaging material and also different sensibilities. I would say these are different affective modes.

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How would you suggest, for the purposes of somebody who is thinking of creating a festival, [or] is a new festival director, [or] is negotiating festivals because he/she wants to be part of festivals, that one reads the dramaturgy of festivals, and work within these dramaturgies or resist them, contest them [and] oppose them? How does one begin to have a literacy that leads to an artist or a producer not just feeling, ‘Okay, I have just got to go [to the festival] because somebody has asked me’? OKS: It is about the dramaturgies of ownerships. That’s really a very central thing for me. How the audiences can own what they are doing in those ten days or three weeks. In a sense, for whom is this festival for? Of course there is also a kind of luxury in Singapore, because there are so many festivals throughout the year. There is almost one festival every week, so SIFA is just one in a very multifarious landscape. I insist on saying that, well, this is a festival for those who want it, who desire it. So it is not just the artist who owns it but the audiences. It is not a festival for everyone on the street, and I actually say that very directly to the National Arts Council. It is about people who have made a commitment and a choice to be there, be it as an artist or an audience member. There is the question then of what is ownership and how do you own a festival that is actually being directed by somebody that is not you, an audience member. I would say making transparent your thinking process as festival director is quite important because when it is transparent, then ownership can start to creep in and people can dialogue, resist or disavow the festival that you are making. Because it is transparent. For example, this year Alfian Sa’at is involved with other playwrights, artists and civil society players as well, in making a project called Open Parliament, which will open the festival. Open Parliament is about having three new plays presented to a public jury, and the public jury will decide whether the plays are to be censored or not. It can really be a confrontational process, so we might be banned.22 Of course, the Info-­ communications Media Development Authority, the IMDA, doesn’t want to talk about censorship. They prefer that it is [kept] hidden, so that it appears that there is no censorship in Singapore. When you have this public jury, 50 members every night, looking at these works, which are being read, you begin to see that it is very, very transparent, and it is frightening. And the volunteers have to stand up in parliament. Our old parliament is now an arts venue called The Arts House. So you can actually sit in the actual seat where the Prime Minister used to sit, and stand up and discourse on why this play should or should

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not be performed. And this is not just having an opinion, but pinning the opinion to your face, which is almost never done in Singapore. This is usually hidden behind so many layers. It is a kind of work which has to be done in this last year of the intervention. Perhaps we have to then see what is at stake, what is hidden behind this very opaque context. Sometimes you just get a newspaper saying, ‘Oh these performances are disallowed because they are not rated.’ Not rated means censored. Mediation is a way to make something transparent, and there are many different ways of mediating. This is one way I have chosen, but at the same time it is about getting this buy-in from the artist and from the audiences. And that is why we say that it is only for the people who really have a desire, because for many people they don’t see censorship as affecting them. CR: Since [we are running out of time and] you referred to an ‘Open’ Parliament, I think it is time to ‘open’ the floor to dialogue. Question 1: I very much appreciate your presentation, and I am very much a friend of your thoughts. From my own experience with working with certain topics in festivals or research events, I would like to know a bit more about how you construct your topics for the festival, and whether or not there are first artistic works or first just a topic, and how you differentiate between the topic that you develop for the festival and a buzzword that kind of rings a bell to people, as opposed to really having a concise planning of content. OKS: I am not so linear when I am constructing the content of the festival. As I said there is a kind of landscape where there are high points [and] low points, and it tends to be more fluid. I would say that I do have some kind of building blocks, like for example, when I look at Post-Empires I am looking at the individual as opposed to the empire. And, for example, I also look at how individuals are archiving. So, through these individual ways of re-archiving the empire you also start to break down the monolith of one empire into many small empires, perhaps. There are some building blocks, and I usually do work with a book or with a theorist. For example, with Enchantment, I am working with a book called Enchantment, written by Jane Bennett, and she has a key line, which I love very much, where she talks about how enchantment is the antidote to cynicism. That you have to not be cynical and you have to remain enchanted with the world. So, I do have these keywords and key phrases, which then allow me to enter into the curation. So for Potentialities, I worked with some theories but also the idea that potential is also dangerous rather than a more con-

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ventional way of looking at the positivities of potential. Instead, I am often looking at the ambiguity of potentialities as well. So, is Xinjiang or Uyghur land in China a site of terrorism or a site of potentiality? So, I have these little steps or little pointers. Very seldom do I start with wanting to bring a particular artist. Partly because I feel that there has been very little discourse development in performing arts festivals, because most curators in the performing arts are not really curating according to themes. They just say, ‘Oh, I like this artist,’ ‘I want to bring this artist,’ ‘I brought this artist last year and so I will bring this artist again this year,’ and I think that it is too much artist driven. It starts to affect the discourse in performing arts curation because it is just about, ‘Oh, I like him’ or ‘I like her.’ But why do you present him or her? Question 2: I am from Hong Kong. From your observation or experience when you talk to the government or artists in Singapore, to what extent is your dramaturgical direction emancipating future directors or festivals or local artists, or is your dramaturgical direction ringing the alarm bells of funders or the government in supporting future directors? OKS: Art is not something that can be docile. Art has an ambivalence and ambiguity. In trying to make something transparent there is also then the danger that funders don’t want to fund trouble. But at the same time, it is very important that artists don’t become too dependent. I always cite the example of Singapore and Indonesia. That Indonesia has [relatively] no money, and [almost] no artist has any grant to start [with]. But they are so creative and they are making things from scratch, from whatever [they can find, like] the Coca-Cola can or something. And in Singapore very often the artist doesn’t start until they have a confirmed grant. It is about a kind of dependence. I have been very critical of grant bodies and I am very critical about how we are ‘over-granted,’ and this begins to take the edge out of why an artist is making work. I think that artists should very often be supported by their communities, meaning people who think like them, people who would write a check for them, even if it is just S $50 a year. These are ways in which I think that the grant system has to move forward and the festival system has to move forward. Of course, then you can’t think big all the time. You have to go underground. You have to do something with a group of people who are like you. In Asia, politicians are very afraid of the arts, because the arts is a rupture to control, and it is a self-questioning mechanism in society. As the arts festival director I am very aware, for example, that we need the

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money to make big shows, and you can’t always have small scratchy solo performances. But this is a tension which, as the festival director, you have to think about. So, sometimes it also means, ‘Okay, let’s just cook for each other and not make a show.’ So, this idea of, for example, in SIFA 2017 O.P.E.N. Kitchens—what is happening there is the audiences are cooking together with a home cook or chef. So it is not that you go as an audience member and you are just waiting to be fed but you have to cut the chillies and you have to dice [them] and you have to cook and you have to do things. Not just wash the dishes, but you have to do things that contribute to the cooking. So this sense of bringing back art making to the places we already have, rather than always saying that it must be in a big auditorium. Some of these things I do value and I try to bring in as part of the festival. Question 3: I am just wondering if you could say a little bit more about the terminology of your theme for the festival, Enchantment. I guess in the context of Singapore, for example, why not vibrancy? And a follow-up question from that is, could you talk a little bit about the possibility or the role that dramaturgy might play to ensure that that term does not get co-opted as a kind of consensual euphoria or a kind of euphoric reverie that becomes in a sense an apolitical space outside of critique. OKS: The dramaturg is the ombudsman, in many ways, in a process. You have a director or you have a number of creators, and the dramaturg sometimes stops the process, so that you can rethink, so that we don’t get oppressed, so that we don’t just keep running with the ideas. But we stop and we rethink. And so the dramaturg is for me someone that we don’t really have in Asia and that is why Lim How Ngean [Founding Director of ADN] was earlier talking about a dramaturgical sensibility [rather than a dramaturg per se] in relation to the work of ADN. It is almost a luxury to think of having somebody there, an ombudsman, to provide checks and balances so to speak. It is important for a festival theme to be ambiguous, to be dual. So it is not ‘enchantment’ like Disney, for example. Or escapism. But it is to have a kind of a turn—a kind of a turn on the word ‘enchantment.’ So it is like Erika Fischer-Lichte talked about the affective turn—in which she looks at this turn of affect in performing arts.23 Where you then, [through an ­experience with something, come to] own something because you have been affected to watch [or encounter] this thing.

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I like the themes to have some kind of potential for [creating a] turn, so that this is turned on its head. For example, in trying to explain this idea of Enchantment, we may start off with something like ‘Oh, enchantment is a shot in the arm. It is an animating pleasure.’ But then as it gets more and more serious, it starts to become an antidote against control. It becomes a kind of comment on the age of disenchantment that we live in. And I think this isn’t just [for] Singapore. But it is very complicated right now, be it in [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe’s Japan, or [President Donald] Trump’s America or Brexit in the UK. These are all clear examples of a kind of disenchanted world where people are very often not voting, not feeling that their vote counts. This is disenchantment. So, of course it [the theme] could be vibrant matter, it can be vibrancy, it can be vibration. But at the same time I want the audience to feel they understand the word but then yet they don’t understand the word. So there is some kind of duality of that term, which is interesting. In terms of how the dramaturg can rethink the festival, [in ways that are different to the ways in] which the festival director is thinking, this [aspect of the work] is really crucial. Of course we have become very used to wearing two hats. So we are Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. So we go [perform as] A [then] B, A [then] B—sometimes you are the [festival] director and sometimes you are the dramaturg. But you are one person. It is of course ideal that you should have a dramaturg to bounce ideas off. We were discussing a little bit yesterday about when you have been a good dramaturg, when you were effective—effective is a terrible word. But when did you think that you were contributing to the process beyond just being a logbook or beyond just watching the rehearsal and giving some comments? This is something that is not yet there [in normative practice], of course, in Asia. Usually the engagement director24 or the person who is doing conferences [for the festival] would have that role, for example, of being the dramaturg in the festival. And in SIFA we have that person in Noorlinah [Mohamed]. She is very involved in terms of just bouncing off ideas for me, especially for The O.P.E.N., the pre-festival. CR: I am going to end by asking Keng Sen to respond to the idea that this is an Asian Dramaturgs’ Network meeting and we are trying to trace Asian dramaturgy. As somebody who has been observing and watching and participating and curating across Asia and wider afield, what in your view is the notion of an Asian dramaturgy? What does that signify, or bring up, because this is one of the questions that we have been raising and I know you have done a lot of work that you now term inter-Asian.

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OKS: Or intra-Asian. CR: Or intra-Asian. Which then raises the term multi-Asian as well as, trans-Asian. But it is a question because all the things that you have been identifying in relation to your festival in Singapore emerge from an Asian context. And first and foremost we tend to identify what is Asia based on where we are. So if this is Asia then it counts, but if you are West Asia obviously you count less, because there is difficulty just getting people from West Asia to be accepted as Asian. OKS: I suppose for me it deals with the politics of difference. Because in Asia it is not unusual for most of us to be in a room of mixed Asians, where we speak a default language of English. It is something which I don’t see so much when I am in Europe, where people are not so often talking about the politics of performance, but usually about the aesthetics of the contemporary. Yes, everybody is political, but being in a same rehearsal room with many different languages, this is something which then has hierarchies. Tradition and the contemporary have hierarchies. The disciplines have hierarchy. For example, film has perhaps a higher [position in the] hierarchy today in Asia than performing arts, in terms of funding [and] in terms of reach. So I think the dramaturg in Asia has to address hierarchies. This wasn’t so much an issue in Europe, although now it is changing. We have a changing Europe. Who is European? This is something which I think is very, very pronounced in an Asian dramaturg’s role—that he or she has to address the hierarchy of Ong Keng Sen on the rehearsal floor or Tadashi Suzuki on the rehearsal floor. But you don’t have to do that if you are in Ariane Mnouchkine’s theatre. There is no dramaturg addressing hierarchy. Or in [Jerzy] Grotowski’s theatre, for example. There is almost a sense that the Asian dramaturg deals with negotiating hierarchies and negotiating these kind[s] of divisive differences on the floor. I think. CR: Thank you very much Keng Sen. Your ideas feed into many things that have begun to be discussed and will continue to be discussed [at ADN]. We thank you for articulating these ideas, these principles and these spaces and thus making them available to us.

Notes 1. Terence Chong, The Theatre and the State in Singapore (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 36–7. 2. William Peterson, ‘The Singapore Arts Festival at Thirty: Going Global, Glocal, Grobal,’ Asian Theatre Journal 26, no. 1 (2009): 114.

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3. Venka Purushothaman, Making the invisible visible: three decades of the Singapore Arts Festival (Singapore: National Arts Council, 2007), 74–81. 4. See ‘Annex C: Celebrating 35 Years of the Singapore Arts Festival,’ SIFA Arts Festival 2012: Programme Booklet, accessed November 14, 2018, https:// www.nac.gov.sg/dam/jcr:19d9656d-24ac-4495-84d7-ea8dd1ae0a2e. 5. Daniel Teo, ‘Our national arts festival: an origins story,’ Centre42: The Repository, April 3, 2018, accessed November 25, 2018, http://centre42. sg/our-national-arts-festival-an-origins-story/. My emphasis. 6. See Peterson, ‘The Singapore Arts Festival at Thirty,’ 113–114. 7. See Bharati Jagdish, ‘Remove “exam pressure” mentality: On the Record with Gaurav Kripalani, Singapore International Festival of the Arts director,’ ChannelNewsAsia, March 4, 2018, accessed October 20, 2018, https:// www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/gaurav-kripalani-singaporefestival-of-arts-on-the-record-10007502.; and Steph Harmon, ‘Art v government in Singapore: “I fear once I leave, they will punish me,”’ The Guardian: International Edition. September 9, 2017, accessed October 20, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/09/art-vgovernment-at-singapore-festival-i-fear-once-i-leave-they-will-punish-me. 8. For list of festival directors, see Kaylene Tan and Valerie Chew, ‘Singapore International Festival of Arts,’ Singapore Infopedia: National Library Board, Singapore, accessed December 1, 2018, http://eresources.nlb.gov. sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2014-12-22_185217.html. 9. See TheatreWorks, ‘Artistic Director,’ TheatreWorks: The Company, accessed November 10, 2018, http://www.theatreworks.org.sg/the_ company/artistic_director.htm. 10. See Reena Devi Shanmuga Retnam, ‘Visionary artistic director appointed for Singapore International Festival of Arts,’ TodayOnline, March 23, 2017, accessed December 1, 2018, https://www.todayonline.com/entertainment/arts/visionary-artistic-director-appointed-spore-internationalfestival-arts. 11. Akshita Nanda, ‘Sifa 2018: Fewer events and viewers but 11 shows sold out,’ The Straits Times, May 14, 2018, accessed November 20, 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/sifa-2018-fewer-eventsand-viewers-but-11-shows-sold-out. 12. In the 2000 Renaissance City Report, presented by then Ministry of Information, Culture and the Arts (MICA), the link between the arts and economic development is underlined, and a clear argument is made to develop the arts in order to help ‘forge an environment that is conducive to innovations, new discoveries and the creation of new knowledge’ such that ‘[B]uilding up a cultural and creative buzz will thus help to attract both local and foreign talents to contribute to the dynamism and growth of our economy and society.’ See National Arts Council, Renaissance City

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Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore (Singapore: 2000): 5, accessed November 20, 2018, https://www.nac.gov.sg/dam/ jcr:defaf681-9bbb-424d-8c77-879093140750. 13. Video documentation of this event is available on the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network website. See http://www.asiandramaturgs.com/resources/ meeting2017#ongkengsenvid, accessed November 1, 2018. 14. The Asian Dramaturgs’ Network (ADN) was formed in 2016 with the intent of mapping and networking the region’s dramaturgical experience and knowledge. It aims to provide platforms for dialogue and scholarship on the role of the Asian-based dramaturg, interrogate notions of dramaturgy that stem from practice and research, and develop critical resources for performance makers keen to deepen dramaturgical practice and discourse. ADN is collaboratively conceptualised and organised with Centre 42, a theatre development space in Singapore that is committed to the creation, documentation and promotion of texts and writings for the Singapore stage. See Asian Dramaturgs’ Network website for details on programmes and events: Asian Dramaturg’s Network, accessed November 1, 2018, http://www.asiandramaturgs.com/. 15. The O.P.E.N. (Open, Participate, Enrich, Negotiate) was a pre-festival of ideas and events held over 4–5 weeks and scheduled a month or two before the main festival. It offered opportunities to connect with SIFA prior to its opening, and was inspired by the festival theme. It was styled as a popular academy, in which a curated selection of performances, talks, films and other activities were meant to contribute to a deeper enjoyment of SIFA. See The Open Brochure 2014, https://sifa.sg/2014/theopen/pdfs/ The%20Open%20Brochure%20For%20Web.pdf. 16. See ‘#Digital Legacies: Overview of 89plus,’ accessed November 5, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2014/theopen/digital-legacies.html. 17. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an acclaimed Thai filmmaker and the first Southeast Asian winner of the 2010 Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. Fever Room (2015) is a projection-performance that presents a theatrical experience within a cinematic frame that takes audiences on a multi-sensory journey. Although Fever Room and Gob Squad, a British-German artists collective well known for its immersive and ­unconventional performances, were not events at SIFA, they represent examples of festival highlights that are seen regularly on the circuit, and often only present in any one place for a brief period. 18. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London & New York, Verso, 1983). 19. See Jeffrey Tan, ‘Open Homes,’ SIFA.SG 2017, accessed November 3, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2017/sifa/programme/shows/open-homes/.

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20. See Noorlinah Mohamed, ‘O.P.E.N.  Kitchens,’ SIFA 2017, accessed November 3, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/programme/shows/ o-p-e-n-kitchens/. 21. See Milo Rau, ‘Five Easy Pieces (R18),’ SIFA.SG 2016, accessed November 3, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/show/Five-Easy-Pieces/. For further discussion, see Akshita Nanda, ‘Arts Fest director questions R18 rating for play on paedophilia by children,’ The Straits Times, August 18, 2016, accessed November 7, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/blog/OngKeng-Sen-on-the-R18-rating-of-Five-Easy-Pieces/; and Ng Yi-Sheng, ‘Ong Keng Sen on the R18 rating of Five Easy Pieces,’ SIFA 2016 Blog, accessed November 7, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/blog/ Ong-Keng-Sen-on-the-R18-rating-of-Five-Easy-Pieces/. 22. Open Parliament was reconfigured and renamed as ‘Art As Res Publicae.’ See Eugene Tan, ‘Art As Res Publicae,’ The O.P.E.N. Blog 2017, accessed November 5, 2018, https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/blog/art-as-respublicae; and Akshita Nanda, ‘Ong Keng Sen disappointed after 4 years as Arts Fest director,’ The Straits Times, September 12, 2017, accessed November 5, 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/directorleaves-disenchanted. 23. Erika Fischer-Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics (London & New York, Routledge, 2008). 24. This refers to someone whose role is similar to an Engagement Manager, whose responsibility is primarily to build positive relationships with audiences.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso. Annex C: Celebrating 35 Years of the Singapore Arts Festival. SIFA Arts Festival 2012: Programme Booklet. Accessed November 14, 2018. https://www.nac. gov.sg/dam/jcr:19d9656d-24ac-4495-84d7-ea8dd1ae0a2e. Chong, Terence. 2011. The Theatre and the State in Singapore. Abingdon: Routledge. #Digital Legacies: Overview of 89plus. 2014. Sifa.sg 2014. Accessed November 5, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2014/theopen/digital-legacies.html. Fischer-Lichte, Erika. 2008. The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics. London and New York: Routledge. Harmon, Steph. 2017. Art v Government in Singapore: ‘I fear once I leave, they will punish Me’. The Guardian: International Edition, September 9. Accessed October 20, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/09/

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ar t-v-government-at-singapore-festival-i-fear-once-i-leave-they-willpunish-me. Jagdish, Bharati. 2018. Remove “exam pressure” Mentality: On the Record with Gaurav Kripalani, Singapore International Festival of the Arts Director. ChannelNewsAsia, March 4. Accessed October 20, 2018. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/gaurav-kripalani-singapore-festival-of-artson-the-record-10007502. Mohamed, Noorlinah. 2017. O.P.E.N.  Kitchens. Sifa.sg 2017. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/programme/shows/ o-p-e-n-kitchens/. Nanda, Akshita. 2016. Arts Fest Director Questions R18 Rating for Play on Paedophilia by Children. The Straits Times, August 18. Accessed November 7, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/blog/Ong-Keng-Sen-on-the-R18-ratingof-Five-Easy-Pieces/. ———. 2018. Sifa 2018: Fewer Events and Viewers But 11 Shows Sold Out. The Straits Times, May 14. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www. straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/sifa-2018-fewer-events-and-viewers-but-11shows-sold-out. ———. 2017. Ong Keng Sen Disappointed after 4 Years as Arts Fest Director. The Straits Times, September 12. Accessed November 5, 2018. https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/director-leaves-disenchanted. National Arts Council. 2000. Renaissance City Report: Culture and the Arts in Renaissance Singapore, 5. Singapore. Accessed November 20, 2018. https:// www.nac.gov.sg/dam/jcr:defaf681-9bbb-424d-8c77-879093140750. Ng, Yi-Sheng. 2016. Ong Keng Sen on the R18 Rating of Five Easy Pieces. Sifa. sg 2016 Blog. Accessed November 7, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/blog/ Ong-Keng-Sen-on-the-R18-rating-of-Five-Easy-Pieces/. Peterson, William. 2009. The Singapore Arts Festival at Thirty: Going Global, Glocal, Grobal. Asian Theatre Journal 26 (1): 111–134. Purushothaman, Venka. 2007. Making the Invisible Visible: Three Decades of the Singapore Arts Festival. Singapore: National Arts Council. Rau, Milo. 2016. Five Easy Pieces (R18). Sifa.sg 2016. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2016/sifa/show/Five-Easy-Pieces/. Shanmuga Retnam, Reena Devi. 2017. Visionary Artistic Director Appointed for Singapore International Festival of Arts. TodayOnline, March 23. Accessed December 1, 2018. https://www.todayonline.com/entertainment/arts/ visionary-artistic-director-appointed-spore-international-festival-arts. Tan, Eugene. 2017a. Art As Res Publicae. The O.P.E.N.  Blog 2017. Accessed November 5, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/blog/art-as-res-publicae. Tan, Jeffrey. 2017b. Open Homes. Sifa.sg 2017. Accessed November 3, 2018. https://sifa.sg/2017/sifa/programme/shows/open-homes/.

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Tan, Kaylene, and Valerie Chew. Singapore International Festival of Arts. Singapore Infopedia: National Library Board, Singapore. Accessed December 1, 2018. h t t p : / / e r e s o u r c e s . n l b . g o v. s g / i n f o p e d i a / a r t i c l e s / S I P _ 2 0 1 4 - 1 2 22_185217.html. Teo, Daniel. 2018. Our National Arts Festival: An Origins Story. Centre42: The Repository, April 3. Accessed November 25, 2018. http://centre42.sg/ our-national-arts-festival-an-origins-story/. The Open Brochure 2014: SIFA 2014. Accessed October 23, 2018. https://sifa. sg/2014/theopen/pdfs/The%20Open%20Brochure%20For%20Web.pdf. TheatreWorks. Artistic Director. TheatreWorks: The Company. Accessed November 10, 2018. http://www.theatreworks.org.sg/the_company/artistic_director.htm.

CHAPTER 8

Wayang kontemporer: The Politics of Sponsorship and Innovation Miguel Escobar Varela

On May 14, 2018, the artistic world of Indonesia was shocked by the untimely death of Ki Enthus Susmono (1966–2018). He was perhaps the most influential dalang (puppetmaster) of the early twenty-first century in Indonesia, both loved and despised.1 He was also well known for his political activities (at the time of his death, he was the mayor of the city of Tegal in Central Java) and for his immense wealth. He came from a poor family and struck it rich by becoming one of the most coveted and most expensive performers in Java. More than most dalangs ‘he openly talks about wayang as a commercial enterprise.’2 In one of his last public addresses in 2017, he urged scholars of wayang to consider money carefully when talking about wayang.3 He suggested that it was impossible to speak about the moral values or the history of aesthetic innovations in wayang without also considering the part that money plays. This chapter responds to the exhortation of the late Ki Enthus by considering the interplay of sponsorship and innovation in wayang kontemporer (contemporary Javanese shadow puppetry).4

M. Escobar Varela (*) National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_8

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The death of this great master almost coincided with the 20th anniversary of another momentous event in the history of Indonesia: Suharto, who held the Indonesian presidency for 32 years, resigned on May 21, 1998. Suharto’s presidency was known as the New Order (1966–1998), an era now widely criticised for its corruption and intolerance of free expression. Where does Indonesia stand 20 years after Suharto? This theme was discussed extensively during the same week that Indonesia mourned the loss of Ki Enthus. The consensus among observers, within and without Indonesia, is that the current situation is uncertain: hope is combined with delusion, and many economic and social indicators are on the rise while religious intolerance is spreading. The current era, known as post-Reformasi has been marked by globalisation, mediatisation, corporatism, religious conflict and the hope for a better future.5 How has wayang kontemporer responded to these issues? Although some of these themes are addressed in new performances, the major political preoccupations of the artists are the following: making wayang Indonesian (as opposed to Javanese), questioning its feudal values and modernising wayang aesthetically while keeping its moral values intact. These themes are sometimes incompatible with each other, and they have long been discussed by wayang practitioners and observers. They are treated in new ways today, but they can be linked to longer histories of reflection and practice. This chapter places new developments in a historical perspective and answers Ki Enthus’s call by looking at where the money is coming from. Sponsorship in wayang has already been dealt with by leading scholars. Boonstra offers an overview of the role of sponsorship in all-night wayang performances.6 As Matthew Cohen argues, the preferences of the courts and of rich businessmen have shaped the landscape of the performing arts in Indonesia since the early nineteenth century.7 What this chapter adds to previous work is its focus on wayang kontemporer, 20 years after Reformasi. In present-day Indonesia, there are no government bodies that offer financial support for the creative development of specific performances. Individual audience members typically do not buy tickets for all-night wayang shows but just turn up at a performance, and all costs are borne by the sponsor. This puts the dalangs in a complex relationship to sponsors, where they must accommodate their wishes. Dalangs often use many subterfuges by means of allusion and humour to both honour and mock their sponsors. During much of the New Order, dalangs used widely understood tropes to address political woes but never issued explicit statements. The effectiveness of their usage of double-entendres enabled them the

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power of deniability—they could always claim that their meaning had been misconstrued.8 The role of sponsorship in wayang kontemporer is markedly different. The biggest sponsor of wayang kontemporer today is corporate Indonesia: banks, businesses and television networks. As we shall see, for the most part, the sponsors do not want to change the specific content of the performances but just the ways they are framed. They want to associate their brand with the allure of specific creative innovators. In this sense, they are working as typical corporate sponsors endorsing an artist, rather than as traditional wayang sponsors that wanted to choose a specific story to address a specific topic. This mode of sponsorship is extended to both morally conservative and progressive innovations in wayang. Artists that accept corporate sponsorship would be accused of ‘selling out’ in the liberal West. But such admonishment would be misplaced in Indonesia since it would amount to ignoring the history of performing arts sponsorship there. As we shall see, there are also many artists who do not receive corporate sponsorship and are either financed by production companies aiming to make a profit or by foreign cultural bodies. Wayang kontemporer performances in the second decade of the twenty-first century are characterised by a multiplicity of aesthetic perspectives and of types of sponsorship, as opposed to the attempts at political control and official patronage of Suharto’s New Order. Creativity, globalisation and corporativism are fitting labels for the current political era in Indonesia: a confusing time without a clear enemy. Writing about the state of Indonesian theatre in 2015, Hatley states that ‘[I]n contrast to New Order times, there is no clear pattern of political and social organization which shapes expression in the performing arts, with which performances engage and debate.’9 Hatley’s description is also true for wayang kontemporer. The themes studied in this chapter are, in some ways, lingering reactions to the anxieties of the New Order: making wayang Indonesian, questioning its feudal values and modernising wayang aesthetically while keeping its moral values intact. But the level of innovation currently displayed in the treatment of these topics is unprecedented. This creativity is fuelled, or at least not hampered, by the current climate of political confusion and the availability of corporate sponsorship. Before exploring each of these themes in detail, I shall offer a definition of how wayang kontemporer is understood in this chapter and a short history of political analyses of wayang.

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Government Intervention in Wayang: A Short History This overview focuses on the New Order since this is the most immediately relevant period for comparison with the present.10 In such a period, policies were often aimed at direct interventions in the performance practices of Indonesia. A key motivation for such interventions was to craft and uphold a depoliticised version of the performing arts that had no direct impact on political life but merely reflected adiluhung (classic and sublime) values. This was achieved in several ways. In the case of wayang, government intervention was manifest in conferences and sponsorship. After Suharto seized power in 1965–1966, several restrictions were placed on wayang kulit. One reason for this was that many dalangs had been actively involved in the Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat (LEKRA, Institute for the People’s Culture), the artistic wing of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI, Indonesian Communist Party). In 1969, Suharto organised a workshop for dalangs, where explicit instructions about the aesthetics and content of wayang shows were communicated. That same year saw the formation of the Lembaga Pembina Seni Pedalangan Indonesia (GANASIDI, Institute for the Development of the Art of the Dalang), a political wayang organisation supported by the ruling Partai Golongan Karya (GOLKAR, Party of the Functional Groups) and military patrons. Two years later, another organisation Persatuan Pedalangan Indonesia (PEPADI, Indonesian Association of Dalangs) was set up. It was then, in 1971, that restrictions on performances began to ease. More performances were allowed, but the form and messages of wayang were determined by workshops held every few years, roughly coinciding with the five-year national plans for development.11 There was resurgence in wayang intervention at the end of the New Order. Suharto, an avid wayang aficionado, had always favoured comparisons of himself to Semar, the adoptive father of the clown servants in wayang, who is close to the people but who was formerly a god.12 In the mid-1990s, this was further formalised by the sponsorship of specific stories. The most notable is Semar membabar wahyu jati diri [Semar creates an amulet for his true self]. The show was first performed by the late Yogyakarta dalang Timbul Hadiprayitno (1934–2011), who would later achieve international fame by performing a wayang show that was recorded as the official inscription of wayang for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in

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2003. Back in 1995, Ki Timbul performed this newly created story in the emblematic Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII, Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park).13 The newly created story was also performed as part of a big festival that showcased 50 stories in Surakarta and then toured an equal number of cities in central Java.14 Direct government intervention was not limited to wayang, and I shall discuss other examples to illustrate the ways cultural engineering shaped performance practices. Tayuban dance was commonly held on public occasions when alcohol was consumed and men and women danced together. The government opposed these characteristics and championed an ‘artistic’ version of tayuban called Seni Tayub (The Art of Tayub). Dancers had to attend workshops on the appropriate dance (in both form and context) and specific performances were monitored.15 In the case of classical Javanese dance, Dyah Larasati suggests that the Suharto regime was interested in prosecuting people who went against its ideas while at the same time upholding and crafting very specific forms of dance. Through discourse, sponsorship and education, dance was constructed as the embodiment of Javanese ideals of citizenship, beauty and femininity.16 This meant that sometimes the very same people who were being prosecuted (politically active dancers) were also expected to embody the highest forms of Javanese values.17 Cultural engineering was one of the key policies of the New Order, but in some ways, it also constituted a continuation of older colonial-era trends. During the Dutch colonial rule, the Javanese courts retreated into the idealised, depoliticised versions of their culture, becoming a cultural elite that lived on ceremony. Artistic expressions celebrated certain Javanese values such as subtlety and restraint rather than seeking improvement to social life.18 Government intervention thus has a long history, and it did not end with the New Order. Post-Reformasi governments have also tried to influence what kinds of performances are deemed proper, for example, by stating that certain performances are examples of pornographic actions.19 In no small measure, these regulations bear the markers of politicised Islamic parties, which are experiencing resurgence in present-­ day Indonesia. Political intervention in the performing arts of Java has a long history, as it dates back to the colonial era, and it took on particularly strong guises in the New Order and continues to this day. It has shaped the development of dance, theatre and wayang in both contemporary and traditional forms. Since wayang is considered the most important and prestigious

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tradition in Java, it has been the object of continued attempts to change its content and aesthetics. The developments in wayang kontemporer should be read against this backdrop.

Which Contemporary? A Working Definition of Wayang Kontemporer The overview offered here is based primarily on the collections of the Contemporary Wayang Archive.20 The archive includes short performances that combine conventions of wayang kulit with conventions from contemporary theatre. They are new experiments in wayang, which are mostly aimed at younger generations that do not fully enjoy or understand wayang. Most of the practitioners are seasoned dalangs or at least work in collaboration with known dalangs. But the performances are enjoyable even for people without detailed knowledge of the stories, puppets and musical structure of wayang. In contrast, enjoyment of classical wayang requires extensive connoisseurship of several areas. The movements of the puppets are highly codified, as is the music. The range of linguistic registers of wayang is very complex, and the poetic pleasures of wayang language are only fully available to one who can understand everything from rude vernacular expressions to archaic literary tropes. Wayang is full of codified rules, but dalangs playfully adapt and reinterpret them. One of the pleasures of watching classical wayang is being able to understand variations that subtly flout expected formats. Bernard Arps describes such pleasures as eminently philological, in the sense that performers and seasoned spectators share a historical consciousness of gradual changes in wayang.21 According to Arps, if philology is the art of tracing and explaining the historicity of compositional choices (in the language, stories, music and puppet movements), then the dalang is eminently a philologist that comments and expands on a history of transmission. The performances in Contemporary Wayang Archive (CWA) require no such philological disposition on the part of the audience—although this possibility is not foreclosed to spectators with expert knowledge of wayang. In several performances, the mixing of conventions from different formats and genres is part of the show, and the more one knows about it, the better the experience will be. Other possibilities exist between the purely classical and the kontemporer, such as the garapan (contemporary-­ interpretive) style of Ki Purbo Asmoro analysed in detail by Kathryn

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Emerson.22 In a performance style developed since the late 1980s, Ki Purbo integrates intensely garap (crafted) scenes into an all-night wayang performance. The practice of intensely crafting the music, puppet movements and linguistic components of each scene can be traced back to wayang padat (condensed), an invention of Ki Gendon Humardani (1923–1983), a visionary arts practitioner who led the Surakarta school of the arts—the present-day Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI, Indonesian Institute of the Arts, then called Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia or ASKI, Indonesian Academy of Music)—in the late 1970s. Ki Gendon encouraged young dalangs to develop condensed versions of wayang that lasted only a couple of hours. This meant doing away with long ceremonial dialogues and narrations and concentrating instead on plot development. Starting in the late 1980s, Ki Purbo started applying concepts of padat performance within all-night wayang shows. In such a way, Ki Purbo and those inspired by him have also reworked wayang for contemporary audiences. These developments are themselves the product of specific histories. Emerson argues that Ki Purbo’s innovations are in part a reaction to the 1990s, when wayang hura-hura (entertainment wayang) shows became the norm. In these shows, the comic interludes were extended so much that they lasted a few hours, featured a motley crew of guest artists and sometimes never returned to the stories.23 Jan Mrázek has argued that the entire performance became expanded comic interludes.24 The expansion of the comic effects and continued presence of guest artists have resulted in a range of responses, both by academics and spectators. Like many innovations that challenge the status quo, they are intensely loved and intensely disliked. The overview in this chapter shall focus on certain kinds of innovations. But, it is important to note that both the pursuit of new dramatic conventions in all-night garapan performances and the still-­ common practice of expansive comedy are also contemporary aspects of wayang. Contemporary wayang, like classical wayang, is not monolithic but textured and multiple. Creativity is always a feature of wayang, albeit in different ways. A classical dalang, even the most purist follower of the canon, would never present the exact same story twice. Minor variations in character interpretation and plot development will always be introduced. Jokes and asides will always comment on the context of the performance. But this level of adaptation is different to that of garapan practitioners, who reduce the amount of formulaic narration, dialogue, puppet movement and musical accompaniment and seek instead new adaptations firmly grounded in tradition. It

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is also different from the kontemporer shows I shall describe in the rest of this chapter, since these are partially outside the world of wayang. They are for the most part theatrical events that use wayang or are combinations of theatre and wayang. But, they are still part of the complex tapestry of contemporary wayang. They require other kinds of creative adaptation and inspire other kinds of love and hate.

Rejection of Wayang’s Feudal Values The stories of classical wayang are steeped in feudal attitudes and symbolism. The main characters are almost always from the nobility and the etiquette (in both language and demeanour) reflects the values of the court. Most wayang stories revolve around the plight of a noble hero who must accomplish a spiritual quest, find something (or someone) that has been lost or prove worthy of receiving a boon from the gods. In accomplishing these tasks, the heroes often restore balance in a kingdom, one often affected by plague or famine. The heroes are always of noble birth, and the implicit values in their plights are that through their spiritual or martial adventures, they benefit the people at large. In most cases, the stories are never about the poor or everyday people. The only exceptions are stories about clown servants who temporarily become kings (such as Petruk Dadi Ratu [Petruk Becomes King]). These stories are invariably comic in nature, and the clown’s incursions into statesmanship are always explained away as brief carnivalesque inversions of the status quo, to which the stories always return in the end. The relative social hierarchy of wayang characters is always explicitly attested through language. Javanese is a highly registered language where a speaker’s lexicon fully depends on who the interlocutor is. There are at least three levels, ngoko (the most informal), madya (a middle register) and krama (the highest one). There are certain words in another register (krama hinggil) which are only reserved for other people (i.e., it is impolite for a speaker to use them to refer to him or herself). Thus, even while speaking in krama, one cannot use those words to refer to oneself. Differences in status mean that younger people or servants always speak in krama/krama hinggil to their elders and superiors. In turn, they can respond in a lower register to their servants and younger relatives. The ogres are, however, usually dismissive of these conventions. They generally speak in ngoko to anyone, regardless of their relative status. There are many other exceptions and politeness levels are a complex topic, but these

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descriptions should suffice to paint a picture of the complex interconnection between language and status in Javanese. The difference in lexicon is so large that, at times, it would seem the characters are using different languages to address each other. This complexity is the very reason why the revolutionary leaders of Indonesia famously rejected Javanese as the national language and instead settled for a Malay-derived invention, now called Indonesian, where differences in status are not as ingrained in the language. Status is also underscored by the paraphernalia of a wayang show. The dalang conventionally sits in front of two gedebogs (banana tree trunks) where the characters are placed. The two gedebogs, one high one low, are also indicative of the relative social status of characters in a scene. Since independence from colonial rule, intellectuals and artists have been troubled by the feudal, hierarchical nature of wayang, and several attempts to celebrate the artistic sophistication of wayang while decoupling it from feudal values have been attempted. Perhaps, the first to do this were the dalangs associated with LEKRA, who wanted to change wayang to make it a better medium to communicate the struggles of the people and spread revolutionary messages, as well as convey a more optimistic attitude towards social change than the one commonly present in classical wayang.25 Theatre artists such as W.S. Rendra (1935–2009) also used wayang stories and symbols to depict contemporary social struggles in proscenium-­style theatres aimed at urban audiences. Other theatre artists have followed in this vein. Many younger practitioners, especially those from big cities such as Jakarta, have only a fragmentary connection to tradition; this enables them to be critical about it and to creatively select and rework certain aspects of wayang whilst disavowing others.26 These theatrical interventions have proven inspirational for dalangs. An example is Teater Garasi (whose name is inspired by Richard Schechner’s Garage Theatre). Their own work is post-dramatic in style and often the result of long exploratory research processes. Although they do not deploy conventions from traditional performance forms such as wayang, they often use stories that are present in wayang, such as the narrative Sudamala for Waktu Batu #2 (2004).27 Performances such as this aim to question what it means to be Javanese while moving away from essentialist answers and offering personal, syncretic and polyvocal responses to cultural identity.28 This vantage point is enabled by the group members’ extensive knowledge of theatrical experimentation around the world and by a detached connection to Javanese culture. Although the group leader Pak Yudi Tajuddin is ethnically Javanese, he grew up in Jakarta and has both

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an insider’s and outsider’s perspective on Javanese performance culture. The members of Teater Garasi have actively collaborated with dalangs of wayang kontemporer. Most notably, they hosted performances by the late Ki Slamet Gundono (1966–2014), one of the most influential dalangs of wayang kontemporer. Ki Slamet Gundono himself was also an advisor to some performances by Teater Garasi.29 Other members of the company, such as musician and director Pak Yenu Ariendra, have also collaborated in Pak Eko Nugroho’s Wayang Bocor series, of which more is discussed in the following paragraphs. Another influential theatre company that has used wayang extensively is Teater Koma in Jakarta. This is a commercially successful theatre company in Indonesia, but their performances often focus on the plight of the poor and marginalised city dwellers. The company has reworked many wayang stories. Most notably, Semar Gugat (1995) used a conflict between Semar and the Mahabharata heroes to criticise the New Order government. As mentioned earlier, towards the end of the New Order, Suharto encouraged the creation of new stories about Semar with whom he favoured identification. Teater Koma playfully subverted this dictum by following official guidance but turning it on its head. In the same vein as Teater Garasi, Teater Koma also collaborated with dalangs such as Ki Budi Ros and played a role in the creative exploration of new aesthetic and political dimensions of wayang.30 Through their collaborations, Teater Garasi and Teater Koma have provided specific avenues for rethinking wayang kontemporer. But, more importantly, their attitude of detached, post-dramatic reinvention of tradition has proven inspirational for a new politics of wayang kontemporer, one that questions wayang’s feudal values. It is along these lines that I now turn to wayang that explicitly challenges the feudal values from within wayang. Perhaps, the most famous group to do this is Wayang Kampung Sebelah [The Wayang of the Neighboring Village], led by the Solonese puppeteer Ki Jlitheng Suparman since 2000. As Alexandra Crosby notes, the word kampung, which is often translated as ‘village,’ lacks a direct translation into English, as it implies community, neighbourhood, home or even slum.31 All these words are present in the group’s playful use of the term. Wayang kampung could be understood as village wayang, in the sense of popular, or ‘unrefined’ wayang. But adding the word sebelah (next-door, adjacent) further complicates the meaning, opening up new semantic possibilities. Wayang Kampung Sebelah (WKS) is the wayang of the other village, of an

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a­ lternative but contiguous reality where other modes of artistic expression and political participation are possible. The aesthetics of WKS are those of wayang’s parallel universe, where the clowns are the central characters. Ki Jlitheng’s clowns are not the punokawan (clown servants) of classical wayang but everyday villagers puzzled and enticed by the woes of modern Indonesia. The performances actively question government policies or mock elite values and tackle topics such as environmental destruction, corruption, prostitution and greed.32 For a long time, Ki Jlitheng used his own funds and rejected sponsorship, priding himself on independence. But since 2014, the show has regularly been produced for television by Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) TV.33 A special performance of WKS was staged for the opening of the Langgeng Gallery in Yogyakarta in 2011, established as a branch of the Langgeng Gallery in Magelang, one of the most prominent contemporary art galleries in Indonesia. In this performance, Karyo and Kampret, two contemporary clowns, mocked the values and lifestyle of elite curators. The audience consisted of curators and art enthusiasts who revelled in this mockery. As in other WKS performances, there was an element of carnivalesque escape at play, as those being mocked gingerly accepted their own comedic humiliation with the finesse that only those who pick up the bill can display. That being said, WKS often manages to voice criticism of corruption and of elite culture in more overt ways than classical wayang can afford to because Ki Jlitheng’s stories are always topical, and there is no reference to the mythological world of classical wayang. Ki Jlitheng often uses the lower register of Javanese exclusively in his performances, or he combines it with Indonesian. His performances have also been the object of controversy. In 2011, a performance was forcefully stopped by people claiming allegiance to a conservative religious group. According to a news report, the performance’s host was intimidated into stopping the performance, but the specific reason why the group wanted the performance stopped is not clear.34 This was in the days before WKS’s television fame. Their performances were often voluntary (i.e., sponsored by Ki Jlitheng himself) as part of a strategy called serangan pentas (performance attacks), where the group performed politically charged pieces in different villages to raise awareness of important issues. There is no observable change in the themes of his performances after receiving sponsorship. But both the gallery and the television network have benefited from association with the brand of this critical and humorous dalang.

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Ki Jlitheng has also been vocal about his views on culture and society through his social media presence. One good example is the opening paragraph of one of his blog posts which states, As a result of elitist actions, both at an elite level and elsewhere, our people have suffered from a chronic disease: they don’t understand culture, and don’t actively make culture anymore. This has led to a narrowing of the meaning of culture and it has brought the very existence of culture into question. A narrow definition of culture only takes into account local products connected to ritual practices and ritual arts. Even worse, these products are often taken as mere commodities, not as a means to discuss our values.35

The post then goes on to criticise the organising committee of a wayang festival in 2013 for the way they treated the artists. Ki Jlitheng argues that the lack of politeness and consideration displayed by the organisers is indicative of the larger problem he sees in society: culture suffers from too narrow a definition and art becomes either a commodity to be sold or a vestige of traditional life. In contrast, Ki Jlitheng is interested in carving out a different space for the arts, where comedy and political commentary are more closely ingrained in social life. Arguably, his current fame as a TV figure has allowed him to achieve just that. In the same vein as WKS, Wayang Hip Hop is a performance group that focuses only on the comic characters. In their early years, from 2009 to 2014, the dalang Ki Catur ‘Benyek’ Kuncoro mostly used the clown servants from classical wayang in stories that addressed sociocultural change in Java.36 More recently, Ki Catur has developed a new set of urban punokawan, who are the sons of the classical punokawan. Gary is the son of Gareng, Patrik is the son of Petruk and Bogy is the son of Bagong. These modern punokawan have shed their traditional garments and opted instead for the fashionable hipster attires that characterise urban dwellers of Yogyakarta. They no longer accompany their masters but are the protagonists of their own adventures. In its early days, Wayang Hip Hop was openly criticised in newspapers for ravaging the values and conventions of wayang.37 Ever since, the content of its dialogues has become less directly confrontational. The new urban puppets are less concerned about politics, and this could perhaps also be symptomatic of an apolitical, consumerist millennial population that is on the rise in Indonesia.38 Wayang Hip Hop now often performs in events sponsored by banks, private corporations and television stations. These sponsors are not interested in changing the

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specific content of the performances, but they also benefit from association with the brand of Wayang Hip Hop. Both WKS and Wayang Hip Hop make the clowns the protagonists of their shows. But while for WKS the clowns are still markedly lower class, the clowns of Wayang Hip Hop are part of a globalised urban, young middle class. Both cases bear the influences of modern theatre companies and of historical experiments in decoupling wayang from feudal values. Both have managed to remain true to their innovativeness and are immensely popular. They have succeeded in decoupling wayang from feudal associations. The irony is that they achieved this dream which the revolutionary intellectuals had by learning to work with corporate sponsors.

Wayang in Indonesia Both WKS and Wayang Hip Hop sometimes mix Indonesian with Javanese in their performances, but there are many other wayang kontemporer shows that are delivered entirely in Indonesian. This choice appeals to certain audiences and sponsors and can also be read through a political lens. Wayang in Indonesian resulted from the collision of two opposing cultural policies: the ambition to make Indonesian the national language and the efforts to preserve wayang as the quintessential Javanese art, and the best example of Indonesian culture. On one hand, we have what is perhaps the most successful cultural intervention of post-Independence Indonesia: the establishment of Indonesian as a national language. This transformation began with Sukarno, but it was Suharto’s regime that implemented the policies that would bring about generations for whom the first language is Indonesian.39 On the other hand, we have wayang, which was one of the few cultural expressions where a local language was encouraged. Thus, it was accorded a problematic status, as a form that is difficult to comprehend but that must be revered. One of the main impediments to the enjoyment of wayang is the linguistic barrier: as explained above, classical wayang is delivered in a complex combination of Javanese registers that is difficult even for native speakers of Javanese. It was thus inevitable that Indonesian-language wayang would be developed. This idea was first proposed by artists associated with LEKRA, who wanted to make wayang accessible to non-Javanese Indonesians, but there was significant disagreement within the Indonesian communist intellectuals about the place of wayang. While some proposed the usage of Indonesian language in wayang as a way to include people not from Java,

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others saw this move as a new form of cultural imperialism.40 It would be only in the 1980s that Indonesian-language wayang would become more common, in large part due to the efforts of the aforementioned Ki Gendon.41 From a political point of view, what should we make of wayang in Indonesian? Is it a conservative or a progressive practice? Indonesian-­ language wayang endorses the conservative view that wayang is the most notable example of ‘Indonesian’ culture. However, it is also possible to read this intervention as a challenge to a traditionalist view that is averse to change. When looking at the actual kontemporer performances, neither of these competing interpretations is quite fitting. Instead, we see these two attitudes: wayang that is delivered in Indonesian for commercial purposes and wayang that uses Indonesian to speak about social problems. Both are aimed at the middle classes. Interestingly, both are outside of the corporate sponsorship model. The first one is financed by production companies aimed at making a profit. The second one is made possible in large part because of support from foreign cultural institutions. The best example of Indonesian-language wayang with specific profit-­ making objectives is the work of Mirwan Suwarso, in performances such as Jabang Tetuko (2011),42 Pak Mirwan is a film producer and advertisement director interested in making wayang wong (wayang with actors) a commercial success, for which he combines aspects of this traditional performance with an emphasis on special effects and fast-paced narrative techniques that he sees as a hallmark of Broadway-style productions. Pak Mirwan is more explicit about his commercial interests than almost all other artists mentioned here. His shows are produced by his own production house, using money he received from a successful career in advertising. Pak Mirwan has adapted four wayang wong stories for a paying Jakarta audience: Jabang Tetuka: Birth of the Superhero (2011), Gatotkaca Kembar: The Evil Within (2012), Arjuna Wiwaha: The Quest for Ultimate Power (2012) and Hanoman: The Ultimate Warrior (2013). The first one featured an all-Indonesian cast, but the more recent ones have featured foreign performers such as Camille Guaty and Daniel Torres from the US and Laura Vall from Spain. The tickets for the performances are very steep for Indonesians (the most expensive was Rp 2 million or about US$150). According to Pak Mirwan, people complained about the prices of the first performance. But once foreign actors were involved, tickets were quickly sold out. ‘Sometimes Indonesians can’t appreciate their own culture until a foreigner steps in to take a role,’ he said.43 The traditional arts community has been dismissive of Mirwan’s market orientation, but he has

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responded to these accusations with candour. Mirwan readily admits he does not have a background in the traditional arts and does not speak Javanese. His performances are aimed at the segment of society that he belongs to—the upper-class, Jakarta elites that are ethnically Javanese but have no deep understanding of the performance traditions of Java. In a 2012 interview, he told me that he wanted the audiences to be as interested in wayang as they are in Broadway shows and Hollywood films.44 A similar idea was echoed in an interview with the online newspaper Media Indonesia: I am interested in making performances such as this wayang performance to show that our culture can be packaged in a modern way. If today’s children are asked to watch traditional performances they will certainly be bored as their entertainment consumption habits are different. This is not the fault of the children, but of my generation, which is unable to bridge that gap.45

This call to making things simple and easy to consume for younger children is echoed by other artists such as Ki Aneng Kiswantoro (who shall be discussed in the next section) and Ki Catur Kuncoro. Independent producers such as Pak Mirwan and Teater Koma have more control over the messages they aim to portray, although these decisions are still circumscribed by ticket sales and political climate. While Teater Koma engages in politically risky performances that place them in the crosshairs of New Order censors, Pak Mirwan’s performances, in their spectacular displays of classical stories, are perfectly in line with conservative visions of tradition. However, the distinguishing feature here is market orientation. The next section shall consider different motives for safeguarding the traditional morals of wayang with new aesthetic guises. The best example of the second attitude to Indonesian-language wayang kontemporer performances that address social issues is Eko Nugroho’s Wayang Bocor (Leaked Wayang) series, which has received funding from foreign institutions such as the Institut Français d’Indonésie.46 The word bocor (leak) alludes to an attitude of permissible exchanges between wayang and other art forms, where contemporary visual arts and literature permeate the world of wayang. According to Pak Eko, the form of a performance is ‘like a bucket with holes in it from which water keeps leaking.’47 In these performances, Pak Eko, the most famous Indonesian visual artist of his generation, collaborates with dalangs (such as Ki Catur Kuncoro), writers (such as Pak Goenawan Maryanto from Teater Garasi)

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and musicians (such as Garasi’s Pak Yennu Ariendra). In these performances, contemporary problems such as sexuality and violence are explored within a theatrical framework that reuses some but not all the conventions of wayang. These performances sometimes have fragments in Javanese, but Indonesian is still the dominant language used. In these, the stories are usually taken from news reports, and they always have a sociological critique in mind. One could also identify other aspects of these performances that could be analysed in terms of their political significance. For example, the collaborative creative process challenges the hierarchical structure of traditional wayang. The usage of contemporary news stories could be interpreted as political critique towards hegemonic media. The presence of foreign funding has also allowed Wayang Bocor performances to travel overseas. God Bliss (In the Name of Semelah), for example, was performed in New York and Chapel Hill in 2017, where it served different political purposes.48 Semelah (as it became known in Indonesia) was originally sponsored by the US-based Asia Society. This sponsor’s intentions enabled the examination of specific themes. The performance tells a mythologised history of how Islam first came to Java. The performance places Islam within the vibrant multicultural and multireligious environment of sixteenth-century Java. It thus champions a vision of Islam that is syncretic, open and constantly changing. The performance was sponsored by Asia Society’s Creative Voices of Muslim Asia programme, which aims to present Islam as complex and multifaceted.49 Such a vision has significant political purchase amid progressive political movements of the US that oppose the recent rise of ethnonationalist discourses. Equally, it strikes a chord with those in Indonesia who advocate for a multicultural vein of Islam, in opposition to conservative Muslim movements that have gained support in Indonesia in recent years.50 This project illustrates another side of the complex political dynamics of sponsorship. The show’s message is certainly aligned with Pak Eko’s own politics, but the specific circumstance that led to its inception is linked to the political climate and funding structures available elsewhere in the world. The works of Pak Mirwan and Pak Eko are both made possible by globalised production models: commercial production houses and international funding based on the urgency of certain themes. They both use primarily Indonesian as their language of communication but depend crucially on foreign actors or foreign funds, and they are aimed at cosmopolitan audiences, either in Indonesia or overseas.

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Conservative Innovations In contrast to the artists discussed in the previous section, Ki Aneng Kiswantoro is interested in aesthetic innovation and moral classicism. His main interest lies in developing beautiful and engaging shows that still preserve the traditional values of wayang but which can also appeal to a younger generation. As part of his master’s studies in artistic creation, Ki Aneng developed a one-hour version of an old story, the death of Abimanyu titled Sumpah Pralaya (An Oath of Death).51 The performance required multiple dalangs and voice actors, with Ki Aneng working as a director. There were wayang golek (rod-controlled) puppets, wayang kulit puppets and digital projections on a complex, multi-levelled stage. The music was performed with gamelan instruments, but the compositions—especially made for this performance—more closely resembled the musical score found in Indonesian commercial films. Ki Aneng’s directorial style combined theatre, cinematic conventions and wayang. However, he explicitly pursued classical values. The story chosen emphasises filial piety and the role of sacrifice in a traditional Javanese worldview.52 Ki Aneng is interested in making wayang contemporary in terms of aesthetic interventions, but he still believes in the beauty, value and universal usefulness of the philosophy contained in traditional and classical wayang stories. Ki Aneng’s performance started as an individual project but was subsequently sponsored by banks and performed in schools. He has moved on to develop other stories along the same lines in what he calls wayang sinema (which he sometimes spells as cinema) or ‘cinematic wayang.’ The new name further supports Ki Aneng’s goal of making wayang fun and interesting for young audiences. Ki Aneng started referring to his innovative performance style as wayang sinema in 2014.53 As opposed to his previous performances, wayang sinema shows are explicitly made for a younger audience of middle school, aged 13–15 years old. The performances are still offered in Javanese, but they make less use of poetic tropes and are easier to understand by younger audiences not familiar with wayang. When performing for older audiences, his stories are complex stories of love and betrayal (such as Sumpah Pralaya, Fig. 8.1). But for younger audiences, Ki Aneng adapts traditional story materials for children. For example, in a 2016 performance in Semarang, the story centred on Hanoman, the simian commander of the army that saves Sinta from Rahwana in the Mahabharata. Unlike conventional performances, this performance focused exclusively on the infancy

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Fig. 8.1  Aneng Kiswantoro’s Sumpah Pralaya. (Photo: Contemporary Wayang Archive, Miguel Escobar Varela)

of Hanoman, an episode hardly portrayed in classical wayang.54 This performance was sponsored by Bank Central Asia as part of a festival entitled ‘Wayang for Students,’ a five-day festival in Semarang in 2016, under the direction of teacher and cultural activist Ninik Liestyati. The festival included a performance by acclaimed dancer Didik Nini Thowok as well as performances by students: drama, dance and flash mobs. This event was the third wayang-themed festival sponsored by the bank. The previous ones were ‘FUN-tastic Wayang at School’ in 2014 and ‘Wayang in Town— Journey in A Thousand Years’ in 2015. Does the work of Ki Aneng represent a different approach to the politics of wayang? As he uses a traditional source of stories and the Javanese language, his attitude and interests are certainly different from those of the dalangs in the previous sections, but insofar as he is sponsored and supported by similar mechanisms as other dalangs, his work is symptomatic of the current relationship between performance, corporations and political institutions in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The contemporary experiments of Ki Aneng, Ki Catur and Ki Jlitheng are all enabled by the same structures: spaces for individual experimentation later underwritten by corporate sponsorship. Perhaps, the biggest political story here is not that their own individual attitudes towards tradition and innovation are different but that in the end these differences do not matter.

Conclusion This chapter surveyed the development of post-Reformasi wayang kontemporer in relation to three areas: questioning the feudal values of wayang, the ambitions of making wayang accessible to non-Javanese Indonesians and a quest for ‘conservative’ innovations that can rekindle

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interest in old values through aesthetic modernisations. These areas can be read as political since they constitute reactions to the evolving nature of culture in Indonesia. None of these developments should be written off as entirely new. The current situation of wayang is but the latest episode in its long history. Wayang has always been embedded within dominant political structures: royal patronage, colonial administrations, the post-revolutionary Guided Democracy, the New Order regime and now the permissive corporatism of post-Reformasi Indonesia. Being embedded in those contexts, however, does not mean that wayang has always been fully congruent with dominant attitudes. Wayang practitioners have always eked out spaces for detachment and resistance within hegemonic structures, in turn parroting and parodying official discourse. In New Order times, this meant repeating the party line in lengthy exchanges during the first part of the show while overtly mocking those very viewpoints during the comic interlude, once the sponsor had left. For kontemporer practitioners, it means accepting sponsorship while also pursuing their own agendas, whether this is exploring the woes of the poor or re-imagining Javanese moral values in a new guise. But, it would be disingenuous to believe that all practitioners are confrontational in their political attitudes. Many practitioners, from Pak Mirwan to Ki Aneng, demonstrate alignment with dominant political views and attitudes. And in some cases, as in Wayang Hip Hop, one could also discern an ambivalence to politics, where caution and creativity are used to avoid being identified with any specific political attitude, a strategy with a long history within wayang. The range of views and attitudes of wayang kontemporer is varied and complex, and as such, it is a good mirror of the confusion, creativity, globalisation and corporatism of post-­ Reformasi Indonesian society.

Notes 1. Wayang (shadow puppetry), kontemporer (contemporary) and dalang (puppetmaster) are terms so central to the present discussion that they will not be italicized. Although words do not have plural forms in Indonesia, I will speak of dalangs with an ‘s’ to signify the plural, following international practice, for example in Jennifer Goodlander, Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2016).

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2. Jan Mrázek, Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia: New Approaches to Performance Events (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), 20. 3. Enthus Susmono, ‘Perkembangan Dan Pemanfaatan Wayang Klasik Dan Wayang Pesisir [The Development and Application of Classical and Coastal Wayang Styles],’ Menghidupi Wayang di Abad 21 [Making Wayang Alive in the Twenty-First Century], Yogyakarta, November 7, 2017. 4. Most Javanese people do not have hereditary last names. When referring to them, one would always use an honorific that indicates the difference in age vis-à-vis the speaker. In English-language scholarship, a writer is faced with several options, none of them ideal: using a person’s second name as a last name (Susmono), keeping the honorific (Ki Enthus) or using only the first name (Enthus), which would be unthinkable when talking to them in Javanese or Indonesian. In this chapter, I include honorifics, although I have used other conventions elsewhere. Artists are referred to as Ki and others as Pak (literally ‘father,’ but akin to ‘Mister’). The exceptions are the Indonesian presidents (i.e., Suharto, who are commonly referred to without an honorific in political discussions in Indonesia). 5. See Robert W. Hefner and Barbara Watson Andaya, Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia (New York: Routledge, 2018). 6. Sadiah Nynke Boonstra, Changing Wayang Scenes Heritage Formation and Wayang Performance Practice in Colonial and Postcolonial Indonesia (uitgever niet vastgesteld: Vrije Universiteit, 2014). 7. Matthew Isaac Cohen, Inventing the Performing Arts: Modernity and Tradition in Colonial Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2016). 8. Ward Keeler, ‘Wayang Kulit in the Political Margin,’ in Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia, ed. Jan Mrázek (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), 92–108. 9. Barbara Hatley, Brett Hough, and Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti, ‘Introduction: Performance in Contemporary Indonesia—Surveying the Scene,’ in Performing Contemporary Indonesia, eds. Barbara Hatley, Brett Hough and Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 6. 10. For a longer history, starting with the influence of Dutch colonial rule in wayang, see Laurie Jo Sears, Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996). 11. Victoria M. Clara van Groenendael, The Dalang behind the Wayang. Vol. 114. Verhandelingen van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1985). 12. Semar appears in almost all wayang stories, regardless of the story cycle and commonly features in kontemporer performances as well.

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13. TMII, a brainchild of Suharto’s wife, was established in 1975 to showcase the architecture and cultural traits from ethnic groups across Indonesia. 14. Helen Pausacker, ‘Presidents as Punakawan: Portrayal of National Leaders as Clown-Servants in Central Javanese Wayang,’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35, no. 2 (2004): 213–33. 15. Jörgen Hellman, Performing the Nation: Cultural Politics in New Order Indonesia (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2003), 46–47. 16. Felicia Hughes-Freeland, Embodied Communities: Dance Traditions and Change in Java. Vol. 2 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008). 17. Rachmi Diyah Larasati, The Dance That Makes You Vanish: Cultural Reconstruction in Post-Genocide Indonesia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 18. John Pemberton, On the Subject of ‘Java’ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). 19. Jennifer Lindsay, ‘Media and Morality: Pornography Post Soeharto,’ in Politics and the Media in Twenty-First Century Indonesia: Decade of Democracy, eds. Krishna Sen and David Hill (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), 172–195. 20. Miguel Escobar Varela, ‘Contemporary Wayang Archive,’ CWA | Contemporary Wayang Archive, 2016. http://cwa-web.org/ 21. Bernard Arps, Tall Tree, Nest of the Wind: The Javanese Shadow-Play Dewa Ruci Performed by Ki Anom Soeroto: A Study in Performance Philology (Singapore: NUS Press, 2016). 22. Kathryn Emerson, Transforming Wayang for Contemporary Audiences: Dramatic Expression in Purbo Asmoro’s Style, 1989–2015 (PhD diss., Leiden University, Netherlands, 2016). 23. Emerson, Transforming Wayang for Contemporary Audiences, 127. 24. Jan Mrázek, ‘Javanese Wayang Kulit in the Times of Comedy: Clown Scenes, Innovation, and the Performance’s Being in the Present World. Part One.’ Indonesia 68 (October 1999): 38–128. 25. Ruth McVey, ‘The Wayang Controversy in Indonesian Communism,’ in Context, Meaning and Power in Southeast Asia, eds. Max Hobart and Robert Taylor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 32. 26. Benny Yohanes Timmerman, ‘The Development of Indonesian Modern Theatre: Four Periods of Creativity from 1970 to 2015,’ Asian Theatre Journal 34, no. 1 (2017): 66. 27. Barbara Hatley, ‘Contemporary and Traditional, Male and Female in Garasi’s Waktu Batu,’ Indonesia and the Modern World 35 (2007): 93–106. 28. Hatley, ‘Contemporary and Traditional,’ 98. 29. Timmerman, ‘The Development of Indonesian Modern Theatre,’ 66. 30. Ani Mulyani, ‘Wayang tavip hadirkan wayang yang berbeda,’ BBC News Indonesia, July 14, 2015, accessed August 16, 2018. https://www.bbc.

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co.uk/indonesia/majalah/2015/07/150709_majalah_seni_budaya_ wayang_tavip 31. Alexandra Crosby, ‘Relocating Kampung, Rethinking Community: Salatiga’s “Festival Mata Air,”’ in Performing Contemporary Indonesia, eds. Barbara Hatley, Brett Hough, and Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti (Leiden: Brill, 2015): 71. 32. For insight into a WKS performance that dealt with environmental issues, see Crosby, ‘Relocating Kampung,’ 73. 33. This TV station is owned by Media Nusantara Citra (MNC, ‘Nusantara Image Media’), but its full name is never used. It was first established as Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI, ‘Indonesian Educational Television’) by Tutut Suharto, the first daughter of former president Suharto in 1990. 34. Arrie Boediman, ‘Nggilani! Pagelaran Wayang di Solo Dihentikan Secara Paksa Oleh Sebuah Ormas Keagamaan (Crazy! Wayang Performance in Solo Forcefully Stopped by Civilian Group),’ KOMPASIANA, April 6, 2011, https://www.kompasiana.com/arrie_boediman_laede/nggilanipagelaran-wayang-di-solo-dihentikan-secara-paksa-oleh-sebuah-ormas-kea gamaan_5500d83ca333119a7251216d, accessed October 18, 2018. 35. Jlitheng Suparman. ‘Wayang Kampung Sebelah’ (blog), August 7, 2013, http://wayangkampungsebelah.blogspot.com/, accessed October 18, 2018. 36. Miguel Escobar Varela, ‘Wayang Hip Hop: Java’s Oldest Performance Tradition Meets Global Youth Culture,’ Asian Theatre Journal 31, no. 2 (2014): 481–504. 37. Rahayu Astrini, ‘Wayang Hip Hop Kebablasan? (Has Wayang Hip Hop Gone Too Far?),’ Joglosemar, May 13, 2012, http://revisi.joglosemar.co/ berita/wayang-hip-hop-kebablasan-80511.html, accessed October 18, 2018. 38. Ella S Prihatini, ‘Mapping the “Political Preferences” of Indonesia’s Youth,’ The Conversation, February 12, 1028, http://theconversation. com/mapping-the-political-preferences-of-indonesias-youth-91270, accessed March 10, 2018. 39. Sukarno (1901–1970) was the first president of Indonesia, in office 1949– 1966. He suppressed the country’s original parliamentary system in favour of an authoritarian ‘Guided Democracy.’ 40. McVey, ‘Controversy,’ 29–30. 41. Matthew Isaac Cohen, ‘Contemporary Wayang in Global Contexts,’ Asian Theatre Journal 24, no. 2 (2007): 358. 42. Mirwan Suwarso, Jabang Tetuko, trans. Miguel Escobar Varela, Egbert Witts, and Josephin Novi Marginingrum, CWA First Release, Singapore:

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Contemporary Wayang Archive, 2016. http://cwa-web.org/en/ JabangTetuko 43. Dhania Sarahtika. ‘Director Mirwan Suwarso Has His Plate Full With International Projects.’ The Jakarta Globe, October 26, 2017. 44. Mirwan Suwarso, personal communication, March 11, 2012. 45. Indriyani Astuti, ‘Mirwan Suwarso Berupaya Gelorakan Semangat Kebangsaan,’ Media Indonesia, October 23, 2017. http://www.mediaindonesia.com/read/detail/128497-mirwan-suwarso-berupaya-gelorakansemangat-kebangsaan 46. See, for example, Institut Français d’Indonésie, ‘Pertunjukan Wayang Bocor,’ July 11, 2014, http://old.ifi-id.com/yogyakarta/pertunjukanwayang-bocor, accessed October 18, 2018. 47. Dhania Sarahtika, ‘Eko Nugroho’s Puppet Show “Semelah” Tells Story of Islam in Java,’ Jakarta Globe, July 19, 2017. http://jakartaglobe.id/features/eko-nugrohos-puppet-show-semelah-tells-stor y-islam-java/, accessed October 18, 2018. 48. ‘Eko Nugroho and Wayang Bocor,’ Asia Society, https://asiasociety.org/ new-york/events/eko-nugroho-and-wayang-bocor, accessed March 26, 2018. 49. ‘Creative Voices of Muslim Asia,’ Asia Society, https://asiasociety.org/ creative-voices-muslim-asia, accessed March 26, 2018. 50. See Jonathan Chen and Emirza Adi Syailendra, ‘Old Society, New Youths: An Overview of Youth and Popular Participation in Post-Reformasi Indonesia,’ Working Paper, 2014, https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/handle/10220/19846, accessed October 18, 2018. 51. See Aneng Kiswantoro, Sumpah Pralaya, trans. Miguel Escobar Varela, Jozina Vander Klok and Yosephin Novi Marginingrum. CWA First Release. Singapore: Contemporary Wayang Archive, 2016. http://cwa-web.org/ en/SumpahPralaya 52. Aneng Kiswantoro, personal communication, June 21, 2016. 53. Sigid Adrianto, ‘Lebih Dekat Dengan Kesenian Wayang Sinema,’ Kebumen Ekspres, September 26, 2016. http://www.kebumenekspres.com/2016/ 09/lebih-dekat-dengan-kesenian-wayang.html, accessed October 18, 2018. 54. ‘Wayang Sinema, Pergerakan Unik Perkenalkan Wayang ke Pelajar,’ Mediajateng.net, September 23, 2016, http://mediajateng.net/2016/ 09/23/wayang-sinema-pergerakan-unik-perkenalkan-wayang-ke-pelajar/4891/, accessed March 25, 2018.

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Bibliography Aneng Kiswantoro. 2016. Sumpah Pralaya. Translated by Miguel Escobar Varela, Jozina Vander Klok, and Yosephin Novi Marginingrum. CWA First Release. Singapore: Contemporary Wayang Archive. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://cwa-web.org/en/SumpahPralaya. Ani Mulyani. 2015. Wayang tavip hadirkan wayang yang berbeda. BBC News Indonesia, July 15. Accessed August 16, 2018. https://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/majalah/2015/07/150709_majalah_seni_budaya_wayang_tavip. Arps, Bernard. 2016. Tall Tree, Nest of the Wind: The Javanese Shadow-Play Dewa Ruci Performed by Ki Anom Soeroto: A Study in Performance Philology. Singapore: NUS Press. Asia Society. Creative Voices of Muslim Asia. Accessed March 26, 2018. https:// asiasociety.org/creative-voices-muslim-asia. Asia Society. Eko Nugroho and Wayang Bocor. Accessed March 26, 2018. https:// asiasociety.org/new-york/events/eko-nugroho-and-wayang-bocor. Astrini, Rahayu. 2012. Wayang Hip Hop Kebablasan? (Has Wayang Hip Hop Gone Too Far?). Joglosemar, May 13. Accessed October 19, 2018. http:// revisi.joglosemar.co/berita/wayang-hip-hop-kebablasan-80511.html. Boediman, Arrie. 2011. Nggilani! Pagelaran Wayang di Solo Dihentikan Secara Paksa Oleh Sebuah Ormas Keagamaan (Crazy! Wayang Performance in Solo Forcefully Stopped by Civilian Group). KOMPASIANA, April 6. Accessed October 19, 2018. https://www.kompasiana.com/arrie_boediman_laede/ nggilani-pagelaran-wayang-di-solo-dihentikan-secara-paksa-oleh-sebuahormas-keagamaan_5500d83ca333119a7251216d. Boonstra, Sadiah Nynke. 2014. Changing Wayang Scenes Heritage Formation and Wayang Performance Practice in Colonial and Postcolonial Indonesia. PhD diss., Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Chen, Jonathan, and Emirza Adi Syailendra. 2014. Old Society, New Youths: An Overview of Youth and Popular Participation in Post-Reformasi Indonesia. Working Paper. Accessed October 18, 2018. https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/ handle/10220/19846. Clara van Groenendael, Victoria M. 1985. The Dalang behind the Wayang. Vol. 114. Verhandelingen van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Cohen, Matthew Isaac. 2007. Contemporary Wayang in Global Contexts. Asian Theatre Journal 24 (2): 338. ———. 2016. Inventing the Performing Arts: Modernity and Tradition in Colonial Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. Crosby, Alexandra. 2015. Relocating Kampung, Rethinking Community: Salatiga’s “Festival Mata Air”. In Performing Contemporary Indonesia,

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Southeast Asia Mediated, ed. Barbara Hatley, Brett Hough, and Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti, 67–82. Leiden: Brill. Dhania Sarahtika. 2017a. Director Mirwan Suwarso Has His Plate Full With International Projects. The Jakarta Globe, October 26. ———. 2017b. Eko Nugroho’s Puppet Show “Semelah” Tells Story of Islam in Java. Jakarta Globe, July 19. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://jakartaglobe. id/features/eko-nugrohos-puppet-show-semelah-tells-story-islam-java/. Emerson, Kathryn. 2016. Transforming Wayang for Contemporary Audiences: Dramatic Expression in Purbo Asmoro’s Style, 1989–2015. PhD diss., Leiden University, Netherlands. Escobar Varela, Miguel. 2014. Wayang Hip Hop: Java’s Oldest Performance Tradition Meets Global Youth Culture. Asian Theatre Journal 31 (2): 481–504. ———. 2016. Contemporary Wayang Archive. CWA | Contemporary Wayang Archive. http://cwa-web.org/. Goodlander, Jennifer. 2016. Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali. Athens: Ohio University Press. Hatley, Barbara. 2007. Contemporary and Traditional, Male and Female in Garasi’s Waktu Batu. Indonesia and the Malay World 35 (101): 93–106. ———. 2015. Introduction: Performance in Contemporary Indonesia—Surveying the Scene. In Performing Contemporary Indonesia, Southeast Asia Mediated, ed. Barbara Hatley, Brett Hough, and Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti, 1–21. Leiden: Brill. Hefner, Robert W., and Barbara Watson Andaya. 2018. Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia. New York: Routledge. Hellman, Jörgen. 2003. Performing the Nation: Cultural Politics in New Order Indonesia. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. Hughes-Freeland, Felicia. 2008. Embodied Communities: Dance Traditions and Change in Java. Vol. 2. New York: Berghahn Books. Jlitheng Suparman. 2013. Wayang Kampung Sebelah (blog), August 7. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://wayangkampungsebelah.blogspot.com/. Keeler, Ward. 2002. Wayang Kulit in the Political Margin. In Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia, Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, ed. Jan Mrázek, 92–108. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Larasati, Rachmi Diyah. 2013. The Dance That Makes You Vanish: Cultural Reconstruction in Post-Genocide Indonesia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lindsay, Jennifer. 2011. Media and Morality: Pornography Post Soeharto. In Politics and the Media in Twenty-First Century Indonesia: Decade of Democracy, ed. Krishna Sen and David Hill, 172–195. London: Routledge.

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McVey, Ruth. 1986. The Wayang Controversy in Indonesian Communism. In Context, Meaning and Power in Southeast Asia, ed. Max Hobart and Robert Taylor, 21–53. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Mediajateng. Wayang Sinema, Pergerakan Unik Perkenalkan Wayang ke Pelajar. Mediajateng.net. Accessed March 25, 2018. http://mediajateng. net/2016/09/23/wayang-sinema-pergerakan-unik-perkenalkan-wayangke-pelajar/4891/. Mrázek, Jan. 1999. Javanese Wayang Kulit in the Times of Comedy: Clown Scenes, Innovation, and the Performance’s Being in the Present World. Part One. Indonesia 68 (Oct.): 38–128. ———. 2002. Puppet Theater in Contemporary Indonesia: New Approaches to Performance Events. Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Centres for South and Southeast Asian Studies. Pausacker, Helen. 2004. Presidents as Punakawan: Portrayal of National Leaders as Clown-Servants in Central Javanese Wayang. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35 (2): 213–233. Pemberton, John. 1994. On the Subject of ‘Java’. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Prihatini, Ella S.  Mapping the ‘Political Preferences’ of Indonesia’s Youth. The Conversation. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://theconversation.com/ mapping-the-political-preferences-of-indonesias-youth-91270. Sears, Laurie Jo. 1996. Shadows of Empire: Colonial Discourse and Javanese Tales. Durham: Duke University Press. Sigid Adrianto. 2016. Lebih Dekat Dengan Kesenian Wayang Sinema. Kebumen Ekspres, September 26. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://www.kebumenekspres.com/2016/09/lebih-dekat-dengan-kesenian-wayang.html. Suwarso, Mirwan. 2016. Jabang Tetuko. Translated by Miguel Escobar Varela, Egbert Witts, and Josephin Novi Marginingrum. CWA First Release. Singapore: Contemporary Wayang Archive. Accessed October 19, 2018. http://cwa-web. org/en/JabangTetuko. Timmerman, Benny Yohanes. 2017. The Development of Indonesian Modern Theatre: Four Periods of Creativity from 1970 to 2015. Asian Theatre Journal 34 (1): 48–74.

CHAPTER 9

Authenticity and Contemporary Musical Theatre in Thailand Wankwan Polachan

Rethinking Authenticity in Contemporary Thai Theatre One of the most popular types of contemporary theatre performances in Thailand today is the local Broadway-style musical. It is commonly staged in downtown Bangkok, mainly at two venues that dominate the theatre scene: Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre, a venue with a seating capacity of 1500, and KBank Siam Pic-Ganesha Centre of Performing Arts, a 1060-­ seat theatre. The size of the theatres is reflective of the growing popularity of these Broadway-style shows and theatrical formats that are imported from the West. However, popular Thai public perception seems to regard such contemporary musical theatres as Westernised and lacking in authenticity, and this effectively means they do not foreground aspects of Thai cultural identity and the characteristic elements of Thai performance. From the outset, many popular and successful musical productions staged in these two commercial theatres are unashamedly influenced by Western musical theatre, and this is evident in the form the contemporary Thai

W. Polachan (*) Mahidol University International College, Bangkok, Thailand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_9

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musical theatre assumes. Although most are based on local fables, folklore and novels, they are staged in the format of a Broadway theatre musical and, thus, are seen as more Western than local. These productions feature extravagant costumes, modern technology, elaborate large-scale settings, large ensembles of performers and realist acting styles. The sharp distinction between traditional Thai stories and Broadway-style productions brings into question the notion of authenticity in contemporary Thai theatre and the representation of Thai identity and values, concepts that are discussed later in the chapter. In spite of this general (mis)conception about the ‘inauthencity’ of contemporary Thai musical theatre, this chapter posits that authenticity, as it is understood in terms of Thai performance aesthetics, is still very much present in these popular contemporary forms. Authenticity is not achieved through genealogical transmission, as generally believed by the public, regarding the form of an imported style and origin. It is revealed in the way that the content exemplifies particular characteristics of Thai traditional theatre’s aesthetic roots, found embedded in the performance of the modern musical theatre. This chapter contends that authenticity continues to be evident in the popular musical theatres that preserve a core Thai identity despite the substantial shifts towards Western-style theatrical productions in its external forms. Thai traditional theatrical aesthetic values still persist in contemporary forms. These values are found in the aesthetics of form derived from the traditional dance-drama in relation to spectacular visual presentation and the combination of various emotional moods. Such values, representing Thai traditional characteristics and authenticity, are mixed with modern Western musical theatre influences in a form of cultural assimilation. Throughout Thai history, these characteristics have formed the core of Thai culture, politics, religion and identity, thus contributing significantly to the construct of contemporary Thailand as a nation. Authenticity is defined as ‘the leading member of a set of values that includes [the] sincere, essential, natural, original, and real.’1 It brings people together in groups to affirm their essential identity, providing them a sense of rootedness, meaning, unity and belonging. According to Charles Lindholm, this concept of authenticity can be applied to both individuals and collectives. For example, persons are authentic if they are true to their ethnic and cultural roots and if they live their lives as the direct expression of their essence. Similarly, their communal daily-life products such as food and crafts are authentic if they are produced through practices valued

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within the culture and the lines of historical heritage can be traced. In Thai theatre, the traditional dance-drama is authentic because it has been created by ancestral groups of Thai people in a genealogical fashion. Thai traditional dance-drama also contains the essence of the aesthetic of Thai traditional performing arts that has been transferred from the past to the present, which consists of the curved line that is formed by hand and body movements and the unique style of recitation. There are ‘two overlapping modes for characterising any entity as authentic: genealogical or historical (origin), and identity or correspondence (content).’2 In terms of the first mode of origin, people or objects are real when they are true to their ethnic roots, historically constructed on the basis of identity—such as being Thai. This provides a sense of origin and related connections to what is deemed original or autochthonous culture. However, the latter mode of authenticity that emphasises content fluctuates as culture is ever-changing, often abstract and thus fluid and mutable. This mode of authenticity can be constructed rather than derived from an ‘original’ source.3 For example, Thai contemporary musical theatre is derived from the West, but the core of Thai traditional dance-drama aesthetics is, nonetheless, embedded in the main content of the theatrical presentation. Thus, authenticity is achieved in the ‘imported’ musical theatre form through the choice of story, plot and character, and the development of spectacle and feeling or ‘rasa,’ which I discuss more fully later in the chapter. The two modes of authenticity seem to be very different, but they share common standing in contrast to whatever is unreal, false and fake. In this study, authenticity is examined in the Thai cultural context of the performing arts. Given the different approaches to authenticity, Thai contemporary musical theatre is not authentic—in terms of origin (the first mode)—when considering genealogical traces. The Broadway-West End musical styles and formats are influences from the West. This Western-influenced art form is what the local public deems ‘contemporary’ musical theatre, namely something Western, foreign and ‘unfaithful’ to the genealogy of Thai performing arts. However, this chapter postulates that it is in the latter mode (content) that the local contemporary musical theatre remains authentic and true to Thai traditional theatre aesthetics. In other words, while distinctly different in form and style, the current popular musical theatre derives, sustains and advances authenticity by choosing to continue adopting Thai traditional theatrical aesthetics in the construction of the performance as opposed to simply being an imitation of the West in every sense, particularly in the representation of Thai contemporary identity.

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While Lindholm explores the definition and concept of authenticity, Daniel Schulze considers the significance and the making of authenticity in the contemporary period that he calls ‘metamodernism,’4 which supersedes postmodernism. In postmodernism, starting from the 1960s, the superficiality of fast-paced media, rampant consumption and a detachment from reality have been the dominant social forces, and the values associated with authenticity have become, as such, less valorised. Yet people often seek to overcome the consequential sense of loss and confusion, in such a state, by seeking authenticity because of the perception that moving away from the grand narratives of modernity or tradition have led to a loss of meaning and faith. However, this period of metamodernism allows for authentic experience that is not parody or nostalgia but is genuinely real (even) while everyone knows that it is fake. This is the central point: because audiences are aware of concepts of fakeness and simulation, even of their own performative self, they are now able to gain authentic experience in this fake situation [.…] The fakeness of all theatrical production becomes a virtue because it puts individual truth in the centre of attention.5

Following Schulze’s perspective, Thai contemporary musical theatre can be authentic through the spectacular presentation in settings, props, costumes, lighting and staging. Although the entire presentation as seen is ‘fake’ and will vanish once the curtain falls, audiences can gain true emotional or spiritual experience, a kind of ‘truth’ as Schulze posits, through their spectatorial experience. The theatre, thus, provides an authentic experience for the spectator. Both Lindholm’s and Schulze’s theoretical concepts and definitions serve to delineate authenticity as comprehended in this chapter. While Lindholm’s understanding is used to analyse authenticity as it is experienced from the content of the theatrical production, in relation to the concept of rasa, introduced in the Natyasastra, (which is further expounded on later in the chapter), Schulze’s definition of authenticity is exemplified in contemporary Thai musical theatre’s extravagant and spectacular visual presentation; this notion of authenticity is also discussed with reference to the Buddhist ideology of impermanence of all beings. Buddhism is the official religion in Thailand where more than 95% of the population claim themselves to be Buddhists. Thus, Buddhism is a key component of Thai identity. Buddhism’s main objective is to attain enlightenment when non-existence of self and all beings is finally accepted,

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and emptiness holds supreme. To have the extravagant setting and spectacular visuals on stage when the performance is on and, when the curtains roll down and all things eventually disappear with the stage left empty, is a gesture to that emptying of the self and the emptiness of all phenomena. This is a process in which the audience comes to terms with the fact that material things, though beautiful, are fake and impermanent. The audience appreciates that they should detach themselves from what is transient and insubstantial. One of the reasons for the common misconception about contemporary Thai musical theatres being ‘foreign’ and lacking in a ‘Thai’ performance authenticity stems from the commercial qualities and associations of popular entertainment that the performing venues, Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre and KBank Siam Pic-Ganesha Centre of Performing Arts, share. Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre is Thailand’s first privately owned grand theatre. It was built by the country’s most successful director-­ producer, Takonkiat Viravan, who is known as ‘the wizard of Thai stage and television.’6 Takonkiat started his career in the local media industry nearly 30 years ago after graduating with a Master’s degree in Broadcasting and a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Theatre from the United States.7 He created one of the most successful sitcoms and the longest-­ running TV series Sam Nhum Sam Mum (Three Brothers) between 1991 and 1998. The series featured famous singers and television stars and focused on the urban lives of three cosmopolitan brothers living in a Bangkok condominium. Takonkiat followed that with many successful TV shows, such as Rak Nai Roy Khaen (Envy Love), which became a hit soap opera. This drama series depicted romance, personal struggles and a tragic love story. While the melodramatic plot has always been popular in Thailand, as seen in several performing art forms having staged the story several times, this Thai television drama was different. For the first time, the main characters in the plot were realistic rather than stereotyped; there were depth, strength and weakness depicted in the characters, whereas most melodrama television shows would incite excess emotions and heightened sensations but neglect in-depth character development. Due to the resonance of the stories and situations, Thai audiences became attached to the characters of the groundbreaking Rak Nai Roy Khaen. In addition, the ending twist of having the hero being killed off shocked the audience immensely since they had expected a similar happy ending as in most melodramatic shows. This injection of the unpredictable prodded deeper reckoning and engagement with audiences accustomed to less

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demanding questions about life. The series was also accompanied by the most popular soundtrack of the year, called ‘Love You More,’ by a renowned pop singer. The combination of the above strategies helped Rak Nai Roy Khaen become the top hit TV drama of all time in Thai media industry. For Takonkiat, ‘arty, serious plots are not Thai’s cup of tea … the audience enjoy love stories and family-theme plots with entertaining storylines.’8 This form of entertaining yet thought-provoking plot, inhabited by well-rounded rather than two-dimensional characters, became Takonkiat’s formula for success in both television drama and later on his musical theatre productions. Distinctly, Takonkiat’s approach to television drama, and the appeal of his insightful and character-driven plots, would impact the kinds of musical theatre shows he staged, and consequently the audience reaction. Takonkiat has been fascinated by theatre since he was young and dreamt of following in the footsteps of his role model,9 Andrew Lloyd Webber.10 He staged his first musical theatre production Wiman Muang (City of Heaven) in 1997. It was a hit among local urban audiences. He built on this success by producing and directing many crowd-pleasing shows such as Ballang Mek (Throne of Cloud) in 2001, 2002, 2007 and 2019; Tawipob (Two Worlds) in 2005; Khang Lhang Phab (Behind the Painting) in 2008; Luerd Kattiya (The Royal Blood) in 2013; Mae Nak Phra Khanhong (Nak of Phra Khanhong) in 2009 and 2018; and Si Phaendin (Four Reigns) in 2011, 2014 and 2017. The celebrated director-producer believes that the key to musical theatre’s success lies in achieving a balance between commercial and artistic drives.11 Notwithstanding that, his production investment is frequently in the range of US$320,000–1,280,000 (฿10–40 million); this is a large sum when compared with other budgets of many contemporary theatre productions. Most of his shows are sold out even though the ticket prices are considered costly in the Thai context (US$32–100 or ฿1000–3000), and many sold-out performances have been restaged. Ballang Mek, for example, premiered in 2001, ran for 44 shows and returned for another 45 shows in 2002. Si Phaendin, another runaway hit, opened in 2011 with 100 performances; in 2014, it was performed 50 times, and in 2017, it ran for another 65 shows. This was an extraordinary phenomenon in Thai theatre since most shows rarely exceeded 12 performances, averaging at 6, with the maximum of perhaps 24 performances. The other major theatre, KBank Siam Pic-Ganesha Centre of Performing Arts, is the new upstart of huge theatres. It opened in 2015 with the magnificent grand-scale musical production of Hom Rong (The

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Overture). The theatre is run and operated by Workpoint Entertainment Public Company Limited, currently one of the biggest and most successful media companies in Thailand. Workpoint Entertainment consists of businesses involving television programmes, post-production services, movie productions, event organisation, printed media, live concerts and theatre performances. It was founded and still managed by a group of graduates from the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. The Siam Pic-Ganesha theatre is one of the few venues in Thailand that can stage full-scale musical productions. Most of the original shows performed in this theatre, including Hom Rong, have been directed by Teravat Anuvatudom of Toh Glom Television, a subsidiary of Workpoint Entertainment. Hom Rong proved so successful that Toh Glom went on to produce several more hit musicals, including Nithan Hing Hoi (Tales of Firefly, 2016) (Fig. 9.1). Prior to the examination of some of the musical productions performed in these two theatres, it is necessary to first consider the impact of Western theatre on traditional Thai performance forms in the history of exchange between the West and Thailand. Characteristically, in Thailand, as it is in all other countries in Southeast Asia, much of Thai society has been transformed by the symbiotic interactions between modernity and tradition. Modernisation was largely imposed by Western administrators, who were the Europeans in the era of imperialism, and the Americans in the post– World War II period. Their impact can be found in many aspects of Thai life such as science and technological innovation and invention, Western-­ centric systems of education and the development and practice of the arts. Thai performing arts have not been exempted from the impact of such a relationship and of the influences from the powerful arts centres of the commercial West. Perhaps most significantly, the Western theatre tradition was adopted in Thailand in response to King Rama V’s call for the modernisation of Thai culture and people during his reign from 1868 to 1910.12 In that time, there were a range of adaptations of Western theatrical practices in Thai theatre such as the invention of Lakhon Dukdamban (modernised dance theatre), a form influenced by Italian operas in which actors sang, danced and spoke; in traditional Thai dance-drama of that period, performers only danced to accompanying music and song, and these roles were distinct (though symbiotic). There were also new stories and adaptations of well-known Western tales incorporated into Thai theatrical plays. The arrival of the representational theatre of spoken drama, in the era of King Rama VI (1910–1925), as opposed to the more

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Fig. 9.1  PR poster of Hom Rong the musical (restaged) in 2015

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­ resentational styles of Thai traditional forms, brought significant changes p with an increase in the number of performances of new plays, predominantly in the spoken drama form. Although there had been Western influences in traditional Thai theatre before this, these were usually assimilated into the Thai aesthetics of dance-drama in which acting, singing and dancing remained central to its style and a combination of these elements was distinctly familiar to the local Thai audience—it was what was considered authentic Thai theatre (or dance-drama). Spoken drama, on the contrary, was a completely new approach for Thai audiences. Nonetheless, both spoken-word and dance-drama found their way into commercial theatres before World War II, when live theatrical performance was a form of popular entertainment prior to the emergence of mass and broadcast media such as television and films. During World War II, all live performances were prohibited by the government. After the abolition of the absolute monarchy in 1932, the government undertook a modernisation programme that promoted nationalism. Mandates were established to dictate the behaviour of citizens, encouraging them to work hard, favour Western fashion and adhere to national customs. The fine arts, as sources of popular influence, did not escape scrutiny. These art forms included playing certain musical instruments and many traditional dance-drama performances. The role of live theatre was, thus, diminished. Since then, television has become the most popular form of entertainment. After the introduction of a democratic political system, live theatre made a comeback in the 1970s with a new form of spoken drama. It originated from the study of English Literature in Thai universities. Both Chulalongkorn University and Thammasat University started offering courses in theatre in 1971. The new spoken drama form that emerged was distinctly ‘Western’ since both founders of the programmes, Ms Sodsai Pantumkomol of Chulalongkorn University and Dr Mattani Rutnin of Thammasat University, were educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, and the theatre they learnt, understood and appreciated there was brought back to the university courses they offered. The spoken-word plays by American and European playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett and Eugene O’Neill were translated and staged. In these stagings, rather than mere entertainment, theatre became a way to express social values, politics, philosophy and ideology. This genre of serious spoken drama, in which audiences value the importance of every spoken line and follow the story attentively in order to empathise with the protagonists,

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was popular among the local intellectual class who received a Western education, as well as the Thai urban middle class. After the royals, they were the first groups in the social hierarchy to experience Western-­ influenced modernity, including this modernity expressed in art and aesthetics. Theatres adopting the realist style became middle-class mouthpieces for instigating political and social change. These theatres emphasised the theatrical mode of realism, such as in visual presentation and acting style. Representational spoken drama took a while to develop in Thailand because it had neither lineage nor tradition in the Thai theatrical aesthetic where music, song and dance have been the dominant modes for centuries. Thus, many original productions performed in the local language struggled to gain popularity; for Thai theatregoers in general, the shows seemed foreign, unfamiliar, alienating and inauthentic, given the vastly different approach to ‘performance’ that spoken drama assumed. These shows also did not provide the entertainment value that audiences were accustomed to, and there was, as such, little motivation by the public to see them. According to Daniel Schulze, ‘theatre […] must always be viewed in close relation to the society it springs from.’13 This applies to Thai contemporary musical theatre, which, from the outset, is an imported style of Western musical theatre yet still serves and is intimately related to the Thai local audiences and community where it is created. This is evident in the context, narrative and the popularity of the shows among audiences. Furthermore, as Maud Derbaix and Alain Decrop posit, authenticity is context-dependent.14 This means that the sense of authenticity in a performance would not emerge independently. Rather, it must be derived, originated and related to the context of society, folklore, beliefs, ideology and life of the surrounding communal members. Thai contemporary musical theatre remains authentic in its rooted content and traditional aesthetics of the past. Additionally, as Walter Benjamin declares, ‘the presence of the original is central to the concept of authenticity, and the existence of the original is enhanced by its survival through time […] everything that is to be transmitted, from its origin, its material duration as well as its historical testimony.’15 In accordance with Benjamin’s argument that the transmission of the ‘original’ is key to comprehending authenticity, in the following part of this chapter, I analyse the transmission of traditional Thai theatre aesthetic values to contemporary musical theatres and explain how the original aesthetics survive through time and are evident in contemporary musical productions. Furthermore, I discuss the current middle-class

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commodification of authenticity. According to Derbaix and Decrop, ‘authenticity of the performing arts may be constructed both socially and through a spectator’s personal experience.’16 This is to say that society and its members or the audiences are the ones that create, shape, construct and transfer authenticity to its communal theatres and performing arts. Consequently, Lindholm points out, ‘the individual’s inner being is both experienced and revealed by means of the external objects it chooses (or disdains) to surround itself with. As this occurs, reality becomes self-­ consciously mediated and no longer immediate […] Identity depends on what you choose to buy and display in order to present yourself to others and to yourself.’17 In contemporary Thai consumer society, middle-class identities are shaped by the objects and external products consumed. Since middle-class Thais form the majority of the audiences of expensive musical productions in modern and fully equipped theatres, it is this upwardly mobile and status-conscious middle class that cultivates the elite aesthetic style, which is present in the Thai musical and values ‘displays of objects radiating authenticity’18 that pertain to their everyday lives. As is examined, a socially constructed authenticity of Thai life and Thai preferences, which are evident (and acknowledged) in the long-established aesthetic of Thai traditional dance-drama, remains the primary aesthetic of the contemporary Broadway-musical theatre in Bangkok.

Reworking Tradition in Adaptations for the Thai Musical Traditional Thai theatre is characteristically, as mentioned, dance-drama. These are primarily Khon (royal masked-dance theatre), Lakhon (the popular folk dance-drama) and Nang Yai (local shadow puppetry). Such forms of dance-dramas are considered authentic since they have long been regarded as a ‘touchstone of cultural identity.’19 Additionally, characteristic of these dance-dramas, the essence of traditional Thai theatre lies in the aesthetic of the presentational—as opposed to naturalistic presentation— that uses masks, stylised gestures, dance and movement, acting and poetic recitation by the characters.20 According to Jungwiwattanaporn, these traditional aesthetics make traditional Thai theatre ‘very presentational.’21 The aesthetic presentation serves to portray the contrast of two worlds, that of the aspired and idealised world of heroes and the inferior world represented by the jokers and/or the villains. In order to represent the

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ideology of the contradiction between opposing extremes of the cosmos, the emphasis of appearance becomes significantly essential in Thai traditional theatre. From my study, there are two major elements that reveal the authenticity of Thai culture and identity in contemporary musical performances: the aesthetics of flavours, moods or emotions and the spectacle. Four plays are considered on the basis of storyline and theme to elaborate on the above-mentioned elements. The first three plays are popular shows staged at Rachadalai Theatre by Scenario, with Takonkiat as director, and the last play is staged at KBank  Siam Pic-Ganesha Theatre by Toh Glom, with Teravat as director. Mae Nak Phra Khanhong (Mae Nak of Phra Khanhong, 2009 and 2018) is a romantic zombie story.22 It depicts Mae Nak, a woman who lived 150 years ago in the Phra Khanhong area of Bangkok. This local female commoner becomes the titular ghost as she dies while giving birth, and while her husband is away fighting in the war against the Burmese. With her powerful love for her family, she repels death and waits at home for her husband’s return. Mae Nak is a combination of the dual figure of ‘seductress/monster and dutiful wife/mother.’23 Romance, horror and Thai folklore are the main themes. The play takes on various forms including soap opera and slapstick comedy that is reminiscent of B-grade movies, with pop music tossed in for good measure. Mae Nak has been frequently reproduced in many forms of media: television, film, dance, spoken play and opera. Her tale is the most well-known ghost story in Thailand and that makes her the most famous ghost of the nation. The story is in such demand that when Mae Nak Phra Khanhong was performed in Rachadalai Theatre, another musical production of Mae Nak was staged in M Theatre by Dreambox at the same time, without any concern that the repetition of the story would deter audiences from attending.24 Si Phaendin (Four Reigns, 2011, 2014 and 2017) is Thailand’s most commercially successful musical.25 It is an epic narrative of the protagonist’s life, a fictional young girl called Mae Ploy who is a daughter of an aristocrat in the 1900s. The play proceeds chronologically from her growing years in the royal court and young adulthood to her marriage, raising of her children and her death. Her life is set against the backdrop of a most crucial time in Thai society, from the period of Thai King Rama V’s reign to the revolution of 1932 (when democracy replaced absolute monarchy), until World War II. The themes include patriotism, royalist attachments and cultural traditions.

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Khang Lhang Phab (Behind the Painting, 2008) is a musical adaptation of the popular novel of the same name. It had been made into a television drama series and films many times. The story is about the tragic romantic love between two protagonists of different age and social class. The heroine is a married middle-aged elite lady who travelled to Japan and met the hero, a young Thai male university student. They were in love but could not express it. The heroine painted a picture of the waterfall where they fell in love and gave it to the hero as a token of her true love. The themes include unfulfilled love, destiny and social class differences. The show achieved immense success in Thailand, and Takonkiat later staged it under the name ‘Waterfall’ in California and Washington. The last play, Nitan Hing Hoi (Tales of Firefly, 2016), is one of the most successful musical productions of Workpoint under the direction of Teravat. Nithan Hing Hoi was a theatre performance styled after the jukebox musical. It used the popular songs of Chaleang, a popular music band in Thailand. The story depicts conflicts between people of two communities living together, suggesting the clash of ideas in society between those who believe in rationality and discipline and those who hold liberal views and support creativity. The story is set in a fantasy land, and the theme reveals that the most unified and harmonised society can happen when people, even though they come from extremely different societies, listen and respect differences. The above-mentioned musical productions are examples of how rasa and spectacle, the two core elements, indicate the authenticity of Thai contemporary musical performances. Concentrating on rasa, the aesthetics of flavours, Mae Nak, Si Phaendin and Nithan Hing Hoi are studied because of their success and popularity among Thai audiences and its mixture of emotional moods that engage and entertain audiences. For spectacle, Si Phaen din and Khang Lhang Phab are analysed in view of their memorable and extravagant visual settings.

Rasa and Spectacle in the Thai Musical Rasa is a concept related to traditional Indian aesthetics found in the Natyasastra, an ancient Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, possibly written between 500 BC and 500 AD.26 The Natyasastra is a manual for the creation of successful Indian dramatic works which include music, dance and acting. Rasa is a complex term that is difficult to translate adequately, but it can be taken to mean ‘juice, taste and flavor.’27 It can also

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be inflected as ‘the emotional flavor of an aesthetic experience.’28 In its aesthetic employment, the theory of rasa refers to the analysis of aesthetic transformations that occur in the Indian dramatic performance tradition. Natyasastra articulates the theory of rasa as a framework to understand what it means to evoke the audience’s emotional states by performing in particular ways, given that these emotional states are considered vital features of a performance experience. In terms of traditional Indian aesthetics in the Natyasastra, there are two types of emotions that emerge in theatre. Rasa focuses on the attainment of an aesthetic experience through the spectator’s emotional state rather than the emotion rendered by the performer in the dramatic performance.29 The emotion that audiences experience in a performance has a different quality to that of real life. This is because to create rasa the emotion that the audiences experience must be ‘awakened in the mind in such a manner that it has none of its usual conative tendencies and is experienced in an impersonal, contemplative mood.’30 As interpreted by Kathleen Higgins, elemental human emotions consist of eight rasas. There is the erotic, the comic, the pathetic or sorrowful, the furious, the heroic, the terrible, the odious and the marvellous.31 To comprehend the need for a combination of various sets of human emotions in Indian aesthetics, the Natyasastra compares the production of rasa to the preparation of Indian food in which a gourmet dish is constructed from various ingredients which combine multiple tastes. Similarly, for spectators to attain pleasure, several rasas must be enacted and combined skilfully in a piece of dramatic performance.32 Entertainment is one desired effect of a dramatic performance but not the primary goal within the rasa frame of performance. The supreme goal of Indian theatre is to offer the audience spiritual liberation and tranquillity through contemplative emotion.33 This is achieved when rasa is created to ‘transport the individual audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder and bliss, where he experiences the essence of his own consciousness, and reflects on spiritual and moral questions.’34 This journey to the ultimate ‘reality’ and the discovery of transcendent values is created when a spectator emotionally ‘absorbs’ the performances such that he or she will lose his or her ‘egoistic, pragmatic aspect and assumes an impersonal contemplative attitude.’35 The opportunity to experience or taste the impersonal identification that rasa evokes in audiences would contribute to the liberation of the soul.36 In order to successfully transport the audience to a parallel reality where they assume impersonal identification, the harmonious combination of rasas in dramatic performance must be created.

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In Western dramatic arts aesthetics, Aristotle’s theory of unity is achieved through the unified plots of the story and the actions of the character within the drama. On the contrary, in Indian aesthetics, ‘everything within the drama should be subordinate to the aim of producing rasa, including the construction of the plot.’37 It can be said that unity is the primary criteria of both theatres, but while the West looks at the plot for the creation of pity and fear that leads to catharsis in a tragedy, its Indian counterpart looks for sets of mood in conveying rasa through music, detailed physical movements, facial expressions and gestures of the actors for the purpose of attaining an experiential unity that stems from varied emotional and reflective states. Unity in Indian theatre stems from embodying the perfect mixture of dominant emotional moods that affect audiences accordingly. For contemporary Thai musical theatres, being influenced by, and distinctly attempting to mimic, Broadway musicals, the Aristotelian theory of catharsis has been used as the central dramaturgical principle for the purposes of scripting and constructing plots. These storylines incorporate well-rounded multidimensional character creations to integrate strengths and weaknesses in the characterisation process.38 The plots also centre on the cathartic moments of a protagonist, as is often present in Western tragedies. However, if one looks past the outer appearance of the contemporary Thai musical performance form, one will find that there is a unified balance of many aesthetic flavours or moods and emotions—of rasa. This suggests that the storyline is embellished through staging and performance choices to become highly affective and evocative when presented on stage, seeking to engage audiences through their feelings and moods, as much as their cognitive responses and thoughts, and thus drawing from the rasa framework. According to Isvaran, the rasa theory of the Natyasastra has significant influence across Southeast Asian performing arts: almost every classical dance form in South and South East Asia (not to mention music, sculpture, poetry and literature) claims some form of rasa as its goal. In this endeavour, dance in these parts of the world becomes ‘pure communication using body, facial expressions, music, rhythm, dialogue, storytelling […] It is a complete theatre that endeavours to transport the audience into the realm where nothing exists but art’.39

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For Thai traditional theatre, there is the use of Na Phat in the music; it is considered a means in Thai musical tradition to produce certain feelings in an audience. Since the music in traditional Thai theatre is used to accompany the dance in the dance-drama form of Thai performing arts, a na phat refers to the dance of a particular song. Each song and its dance are composed to represent specific emotions dictated in the script for the overall harmonious combination of rasas in one dramatic theatrical performance. Na Phat is similar to the Indian classical music tradition of raga where each set of the melodic structure affects the emotions of the audience. Rasa, raga and na phat are three concepts relating to the audience’s emotional connection. Note that na phat (a Thai term) and raga (Indian term) both carry the same meaning and define the classical music tradition in which sets of music structure affect the emotions of the audience. Rasa, however, is a combination of moods created in a single piece of art that causes emotional transformation among the audience. Thai performing arts have had the concept of rasa within their performance forms from the period of traditional dance-drama till today, seeing as contemporary Thai musical theatre still values rasa as its central framework. Toh Glom’s Nithan Hing Hoi, the jukebox musical, promoted itself as ‘the musical of romance-comedy-fantasy-drama.’40 Mae Nak by Takonkiat is aimed at entertaining audiences, with its mood-shifting mixture of ‘comedy, horror, fantasy, drama, and spectacle dance.’41 Even Si Phaendin, based on a most cathartic structure, still merges soap opera, slapstick comedy, pop music and Broadway tunes in its format. These dominant emotional moods, which are varied and combined to evoke multiple emotions, are created by the storyline, then through music composition, choreography, acting and singing. A specific mood is designated in each song and the choreography is designed according to the concept, meaning and mood of music, script and lyrics. The combination of various emotional moods is chosen by the theatre producer, director and playwright to produce different kinds of feelings, as well as evoke combinations of affective responses. Thus, the combination of many modes/ elements of rasa in one musical storyline can be read as an authentic Thai element, derived from traditional Thai aesthetics and performance forms, that allows Western-influenced contemporary Thai musicals to be well received by Thais as part of their cultural and artistic terrain. It is a formula that currently helps this theatre genre to outrank spoken drama in terms of popularity with audiences in Thailand. Both theatre companies, Scenario and Toh Glom, mix many moods and aesthetic tastes in a single

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­ erformance as their predecessors of Thai traditional theatre have done by p blending several rasas harmoniously in any one performance. Thus, the prevalence of rasa in Thai contemporary musical theatre is one of the significant frameworks that render these performances authentic in reference to Thai theatrical and aesthetic roots. The grand-scale visual production in Thai contemporary musical theatre is the second major element of authenticity. It may range from the extravagant and lavish costumes to the spectacular three-dimensional sets and cutting-edge technology such as the revolving stage in Si Phaendin and the Mitake waterfall in Khang Lhang Phab where there was real water running on stage. One may argue that the use of real water for the Mitake waterfall is in the realm of realistic presentation as opposed to a ‘grand-­ scale visual presentation’ as stated earlier. Nevertheless, the continuous rapid flow of water on stage, amidst a backdrop of beautifully arranged yellow and orange autumn leaves, is designed to give an illusion of the main characters dancing on the river romantically. The use of spectacle here enhances the moment when they first fall in love. The surreal, even extravagant, presentation of the setting is much more beautiful and spectacular than the actual Mitake waterfall in Japan, such that audiences can become immersed in the romantic atmosphere; this is a distinctly romanticised representation of the waterfall. This corresponds with Schulze’s concept of metamodernism as stated earlier in this chapter. When audiences become aware of the artifice and simulation of a theatrical production, in the search for individual truth through emotional and spiritual encounters in the show, the spectator’s authentic experience emerges. For example, the spectacular waterfall in Khang Lhang Phab is the visualisation of how beautiful the world becomes when you fall in love. Audiences can encounter this feeling and experience it through watching the performance, although in real life they might never have fallen in love and encountered the overwhelming, immersive feeling being performed. It may well be that these examples of spectacle are merely producers’ and directors’ attempts to give the audience their money’s worth or to strive to match the standards of being ‘world class.’ Consumers are ‘no longer interested in history, art and culture as such but in fantasy and spectacle.’42 Fantasy is foundational to generate a context for creating spectacle in Thai theatre, adding to the potential of rasa theory to generate heightened sensuous and affective modes of engagement. According to Chari, the emotional mood created in rasa is a special ‘art-emotion.’43 It is distinctively different from real-life feelings and can be envisaged in an

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immersive as well as an ‘impersonal contemplative attitude.’44 Rasa creation, therefore, goes against the naturalistic approach in both performance and theatrical visual presentation. In order to produce rasa and delight the audience through an aesthetic experience, the visual spectacle has to be non-ordinary, extravagant and surreal. These are the conventions that are used in Thai traditional dance-drama as evidenced in the theatre of the royal courts, such as Khon and folk theatre like Likay (improvised dance-drama). This aesthetic trend that demonstrates authenticity persists in contemporary Thai musical theatre in which a grand visual spectacle remains distinctly influenced by traditional forms. Audiences expect visual spectacles in contemporary Thai musical theatre. They consume musical productions as cultural and artistic products that offer a steady supply of the fantastic, the emotional and the enjoyable, all of which are aimed at ‘satisfying the consumer’s hedonic and aesthetic need.’45 Rose and Wood refer to an individual’s reflexive consumption of spectacle that is a blend of fantasy and reality.46 This blending of fantasy and reality is well received by Thai audiences who deem such entertainment as worthy of the ticket price and a requisite standard for audience satisfaction. The blending of two realms, that is, fantasy and reality, is an attempt of the theatre director to create a world of dreams and imagination for the audience. As previously stated, the imported spoken drama that arrived in Thailand after World War II became a mouthpiece for social criticism. However, it did not gain popularity except with the urban middle class, often limited to university graduates. This was due to its realistic and naturalistic portrayals and perceptions that wider Thai audiences did not find entertaining, as they had always traditionally enjoyed a mix of fantasy and reality. The contemporary musical uses extravagant visual presentation that, for Thai theatregoers, conjures fantasy, which represents the realm of the surreal. This allows the audience to experience aesthetic transformation outside of their real world. In this way, elements of authenticity in contemporary Thai musical theatre are derived from the traditional dance-drama in which the symbolic and surreal merge with the representational and realistic. The extravagant spectacle that blends fantasy with reality has been popular and well received by Thai audiences since the traditional dance-drama era. Lastly, the idea of the presentational approach in this grand-scale visualisation should also be considered. The disposition for extravagant visual presentation is clearly discernible in contemporary popular musical theatres in Bangkok where, as a formula for success, the lavish spectacle is the

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norm and standard of presentation in every performance. Such an approach is also an evident characteristic of Thai dance-drama. In the presentational approach of Thai theatre, the relationship between the core Buddhist teaching on the impermanence of life and theatre as the illusion-creator can be discerned. ‘Supreme emptiness’ or nirvana is the ultimate state that Buddhists aim for: total emptiness and detachment of self (both soul and body), and of any essence that the human person might hold on to. The naturalistic approach in theatre is unable to emphasise the concept of ‘impermanence’ since it cannot reveal the totality of the two worlds, which is reality versus illusion. In this context, the principal aspiration of Thai theatre, for both traditional dance-drama and contemporary musical theatres, may be the creation of theatrical illusions to propose the fundamental truth of emptiness involving life and all beings, as well as a recognition and comprehension that existence is an illusory experience. This theatre involves invoking emotions that relate to an attachment of sensual experiences that cause human suffering. By presenting a world of absolute illusion and fantasy through extravagant presentation in visual production, audiences are persuaded to resist indulging in worldly desires. In this way, illusions become ‘an aspiration of art towards permanence.’47 In other words, by creating a complete illusion, the audience is constantly reminded of the truth of impermanence both in the moment that they are watching the illusion of lavish spectacle and when the curtain falls, when all things that have happened on stage disappear instantly. At the end, the audience may acknowledge that there is no self present in anything at all, thereby practising non-attachment to sensory experience. There is also a connection between presenting theatre as an illusion to reveal the Buddhist concept of impermanence and the use of rasa in the theatrical aesthetic. The use of the grand visual spectacle is a core element in the process of creating rasa. It leads the audience to finally realise the Buddhist teaching of impermanence with a presentation of theatre illusion in its entirety. The adoption of extravagant and exotic surface presentation in visual production, regarded as conventional in contemporary Thai musical performance, is not all that surprising then. It may be convenient to point to Western influences in the design of the sets, the staging techniques and construction, but Thai religious sensibilities and tendencies have a significant role to play in co-opting such presentational mechanics. The success of this approach lies in the idea of inventing theatrical illusion to intimate that life itself is impermanent, and truth does not reside in physical forms. Although the illusion of theatre on stage can be impressive and persuasive,

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all forms are transient; objects, bodies and substances are temporary—they can both be invented and extinguished at the same time. The presentational approach in traditional dance-drama that stylises every traditional element (reciting, dancing and singing) succeeds in emphasising theatre as illusion more than contemporary Thai musical theatre possibly can, since many elements in musicals seem more naturalistic. This may be the reason why Thai musical theatre makers are still trying hard to develop lavish and advanced technological visual scenographies to satisfy the audience. This can be seen in Mae Nak, specifically the scene in which Mae Nak gives birth as she is dying: the one-storey traditional wooden house she is in transforms into a two-storey house, and she flies towards the audience. In another scene, she is burnt alive and suddenly disappears with only smoke lingering on stage. These presentational approaches and spectacular visuals emphasise the palpable qualities of impermanence whereby all scenes, settings and emotions that are created on stage in the end return to the emptiness of the bare stage when the production ends. Contemporary Thai musical theatre is a hybrid—a combination of several aspects of persistent authenticities in Thai performance, culture and cultural practice—including Western styles of musical performance. It is an aesthetic reflection of Thai society’s principle beliefs of assimilation and non-confrontation, earlier mentioned. Throughout her history, Thailand has always portrayed her neutrality in political roles and relations with other nations on the global stage. ‘Neutrality’ through the assimilation of the superior culture into social and communal practices has become the standard political principle in contrast to ‘resistance.’ This principle is rooted in a long-standing cultural belief. Since the Ayutthaya era (1629–1767), Thai people have been incorporating foreign concepts and ideas in government.48 In the period of Rattanakosin, when Bangkok became the capital (1810s), Western influence gained power. Foreigners and foreign influences became symbolic of new ideas, progress and innovation. In the court of King Rama IV (1851–1868), foreigners were appointed as senior advisors. There were ‘58 British, 22 Germans, 22 Danes, 9 Belgians, 8 Italians, and 20 others.’49 These Westerners represented ‘progress’ and a source of power and knowledge in such fields as international finance, accounting, astronomy, navigation, architecture and art. During the colonial period, their expertise was ‘assimilated’ to deal with the threats from other imperial powers. In World War II, Thailand, first, declared neutrality and then allowed Japanese troops to dominate the kingdom. After the

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war, as Japanese influence diminished, Thailand welcomed the new patrons of the West, the United States. It would appear that throughout its history, Thailand has maintained ‘neutrality’ through a ‘semi-colonial compromise,’ a principal political practice for survival.50 Such a practice is also reflected in the performing arts where there is significant assimilation of Western theatrical influences into traditional Thai aesthetics of dancedrama. Rather than ‘resist’ the Western form, or vehemently assert traditional dance-dramas as the only authentic performance forms in Thailand, the contemporary Thai musical exemplifies the benefits of ‘neutrality’ (even non-reaction) and assimilation. The contemporary musical theatres in Bangkok possess the two major authentic elements of Thai performing arts as mentioned earlier, namely rasa and spectacle. However, theatre producers might not have been consciously harnessing authenticities of Thai traditional theatre. Most of them were educated in theatre and art in Western countries. Notwithstanding the fact that the directors and producers might not have been too concerned about the issue of authenticity, the fundamental reason for the commercial success of their productions, in comparison with other genres of theatres and performing arts, is that they all accommodated these two elements of Thai authenticity that have always been central to Thai aesthetics. That Thai theatre continues to feature these elements of authenticity proves that no matter how much time passes, or how influences from other cultures impact Thai theatre, Thai aesthetics shall—with resilience— persist for a long time to come. In the local context, such elements apparently generate success and popularity, which indicate that the productions succeed not because they were imported, modern or Westernised but because they incorporate aspects of authenticity that reflect Thai traditional theatre of a bygone era.

Notes 1. Charles Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 1. 2. Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity, 2. 3. Maud Derbaix and Alain Decrop, ‘Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest?’ in Advances in Consumer Research 34, edited by Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz (Duluth: Association for Consumer Research, 2007), 75.

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4. Daniel Schulze, Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 57. 5. Schulze, Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, 57–58. 6. See Takonkiat Viravan’s profile in Phatarawadee Phataranawik, ‘The World Maker,’ The Nation, August 3, 2017, accessed March 17, 2018, http:// www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/big_read/30322597. 7. ‘Takonkiat Viravan,’ Person, Thairath, accessed July 5, 2018, https:// www.thairath.co.th/person/3804. 8. Phataranawik, ‘The World Maker.’ 9. ‘Theatre of Life Boy-Takonkiat Viravan,’ Positioning, November 5, 2007, accessed March 18, 2018, https://positioningmag.com/10459. 10. Webber is the most successful musical theatre composer-maker of all time both on Broadway and in West End, US and UK, respectively. Michael Billington, ‘Andrew Lloyd Webber at 70: how a ruthless perfectionist became Mr. Musical,’ The Guardian, March 21, 2018. 11. Takonkiat reveals his thoughts and strategies of making theatre in ‘Theatre of Life Boy-Takonkiat Viravan,’ Positioning. 12. Parichart Jungwiwattanaporn, ‘Contemporary Theatre in Thailand: A Profile,’ SPAFA Journal 9, no. 2 (1999): 5. 13. Schulze, Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, 2. 14. Derbaix and Decrop, ‘Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest?’, 77. 15. Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ in Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt (London: Fontana Press, 1973), 214. 16. Derbaix and Decrop, ‘Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest?’, 79. 17. Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity, 53–54. 18. Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity, 54. 19. Catherine Diamond, Communities of Imagination (Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press, 2012), 2. 20. Wankwan Polachan, ‘Postmodernism and Thai Theatre,’ in Ethical Encounters, edited by Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe and Daniel Watt (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 106. 21. Jungwiwattanaporn, ‘Contemporary Theatre in Thailand: A Profile,’ 5. 22. Kong Rithdee, ‘Mae Nak through the years,’ Bangkok Post, March 27, 2013, accessed March 20, 2018, https://www.bangkokpost.com/ print/342541. 23. Diamond, Communities of Imagination, 32. 24. Dreambox is a theatre group founded by drama graduates of Chulalongkorn University and Thammasat University.

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25. Pawit Mahasarinand, ‘Tales of sex reigns,’ Nation Multimedia, August 14, 2017. 26. Wallace Dace, ‘The Concept of Rasa in Sanskrit Dramatic Literature,’ Educational Theatre Journal 15, no. 3 (1963): 249. 27. G.B.  Mohan Thampi, ‘Rasa as Aesthetic Experience,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism 24, no. 1 (Autumn 1965): 75. 28. Kathleen Marie Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism 65, no. 1 (Winter 2007): 43. 29. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 44. 30. Pravas Jivan Chaudhury, ‘The Theory of Rasa,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism 24, no. 1 (Autumn 1965): 145. 31. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 45. 32. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 46. 33. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 49. 34. Susan Schwartz, ‘Rasa: Performing the Divine in India’ (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 12. 35. Chaudhury, ‘The Theory of Rasa,’ 146. 36. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 50. 37. Higgins, ‘An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthrough,’ 44. 38. Thanakorn Juangphanit, ‘Optimum View: Behind the Painting,’ Optimise, October 15, 2015. 39. Sangeeta Isvaran, ‘Rasa—A Life Skill,’ in Education in the Arts, edited by Lindy Joubert (Dordrecht: Springer Press, 2008), 275. 40. ‘The Musical of Nithan Hing Hoi,’ Manager Online, July 28, 2016. 41. @Nookkill, ‘Mae Nak Phra Khanhong the musical,’ TravelxMoviexDiary, February 2, 2018, accessed March 17, 2018, https://isanook.wordpress. com/2018/02/28/maenak-themusical-10years. 42. Derbaix and Decrop, ‘Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest?’, 78. 43. V.K.  Chari, ‘Poetic Emotions and Poetic Semantics,’ The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism 34, no. 3 (Spring 1976): 288. 44. Chaudhury, ‘The Theory of Rasa,’ 146. 45. Derbaix and Decrop, ‘Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest?’, 77. 46. Randall L.  Rose and Stacy L.  Wood, ‘Paradox and the Consumption of Authenticity through Reality Television,’ in Journal of Consumer Research 32 (September 2005), 294. 47. Chetana Nagavajara, Khrun Khid Phinit Nuk (Bangkok: Praphansarn, 1994), 239. 48. Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, A History of Thailand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 78.

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49. Baker and Phongpaichit, A History of Thailand, 68. 50. Baker and Phongpaichit, A History of Thailand, 78.

Bibliography @Nookkill. 2018. Mae Nak Phra Khanhong the Musical. TravelxMoviexDiary, February 2. Accessed March 17, 2018. https://isanook.wordpress. com/2018/02/28/maenak-themusical-10years. Baker, Chris, and Pasuk Phongpaichit. 2005. A History of Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1973. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, 211–244. London: Fontana Press. Billington, Michael. 2018. Andrew Lloyd Webber at 70: How a Ruthless Perfectionist Became Mr. Musical. The Guardian, March 21. Accessed July 22, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/mar/21/andrew-lloydwebber-at-70-british-musical-theatre-cats-phantom. Buddhadasa, Bhikku. 2007. Handbook of Mankind. Bangkok: Amarin Publishing. Chanasongkram, Kanokporn. 2013. Prince Announced for the Princess. Bangkok Post, November 21. Accessed March 12, 2018. https://www.bangkokpost. com/print/380929. Chari, V.K. 1976. Poetic Emotions and Poetic Semantics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism 34 (3, Spring): 287–299. Chaudhury, Pravas Jivan. 1965. The Theory of Rasa. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1, Autumn): 145–149. Dace, Wallace. 1963. The Concept of Rasa in Sanskrit Dramatic Theory. Educational Theatre Journal 15 (3): 249–254. Derbaix, Maud, and Alain Decrop. 2007. Authenticity in the Performing Arts: A Foolish Quest? In Advances in Consumer Research, ed. Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz, vol. 34, 75–80. Duluth: Association for Consumer Research. Accessed July 20, 2018. http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/12741/volumes/v34/NA-34. Diamond, Catherine. 2012. Communities of Imagination. Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press. Higgins, Kathleen Marie. 2007. An Alchemy of Emotion: Rasa and Aesthetic Breakthroughs. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (1, Winter): 43–54. Isvaran, Sangeeta. 2008. Rasa—A Life Skill. In Educating in the Arts, ed. Lindy Joubert, 275–287. Dordrecht: Springer Press. Jansuttipan, Monruedee. 2003. Lakorn and Director “Boy” Takonkiat Viravan. BK Magazine, November 15. Accessed March 17, 2018. http://bk.asia-city. com/city-living/ar ticle/thai-lakorn-theater-director-takonkiet-boyviravan-luerd-kattiya.

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Juangphanit, Thanakorn. 2005. Optimum View: Behind the Painting. Optimise, October 15. Accessed July 22, 2018. http://optimise.kiatnakinphatra.com/ cover_story2.php. Jungwiwattanaporn, Parichart. 1999. Contemporary Theatre in Thailand: A Profile. SPAFA Journal 9 (1): 5–13. Lindholm, Charles. 2008. Culture and Authenticity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Mahasarinand, Pawit. 2017. Tale of Sex Reigns. The Nation, August 14. Accessed July 14, 2018. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/art/30323537. Mayer-Dinkgrafe, Daniel. 2005. Approaches to Acting: Past and Present. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Mulder, Niel. 1992. Inside Southeast Asia; Thai, Javanese, and Filipino Interpretation of Everyday Life. Bangkok: Duangkamol. Nagavajara, Chetana. 1994. Khrun Khid Phinit Nuk. Bangkok: Praphansarn. Nantasukon, Francis. 2005. The Drama Master. Position Magazine, January 12. Accessed March 18, 2018. https://www.positionmag.com/6996. Pajee, Parinyaporn. 2015. A New Home for Hom Rong. The Nation, March 24. Accessed March 18, 2018. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ life/A-new-home-for-Hom-Rong-30256590.html. Phataranawik, Phatarawadee. 2017. The World Maker. The Nation, August 3. Accessed March 17, 2018. http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/big_ read/30322597. Polachan, Wankwan. 2010. Postmodernism and Thai Theatre. In Ethical Encounters, ed. Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe and Daniel Watt, 105–106. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Prawatpattanakul, Saransiri. 2007. Producer and Director Takonkiat Viravan. BK Magazine, May 24. Accessed March 20, 2018. http://bk.asia-city.com/ events/article/producer-and-director-takonkiet-viravan. Rithdee, Kong. 2013. Mae Nak Through the Years. Bangkok Post, March 27. Accessed March 20, 2018. https://www.bangkokpost.com/print/342541. Rose, Randall L., and Stacy L.  Wood. 2005. Paradox and the Consumption of Authenticity Through Reality Television. Journal of Consumer Research 32 (Sept.): 284–296. Salete. 2017. Change of Si Phaendin. The Standard, September 1. Accessed March 17, 2018. https://thestandard.co/seephandin-themusical. Schulze, Daniel. 2017. Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance. London: Bloomsbury. Schwartz, Susan. 2004. Rasa: Performing the Divine in India. New  York: Columbia University Press. Thai Rath. Thakonkiat Viravan. Accessed July 5, 2018. https://www.thairath. co.th/person/3804. Thampi, G.B.  Mohan. 1965. Rasa and Aesthetic Experience. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1, Autumn): 75–80.

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Theatre of Life Boy-Takonkiat Viravan. 2007. Positioning, November 5. Accessed March 18, 2018. https://positioningmag.com/10459. The Musical of Nithan Hing Hoi. 2016. Manager Online, July 28. Accessed March 20, 2019. http://www.manager.co.th/drama/vienewsaspx?New sID=9590000074912.

CHAPTER 10

Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia—The Politics of Memory and an Aesthetics of Remembrance Marcus Cheng Chye Tan

Narratives of Mourning In the prologue of Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, 60 members of the Cambodian American diaspora, with white cloths draped over their shoulders, ascend the stage to place an offering of blocks that subsequently form a symmetrical bridge-like structure.1 This formation is flanked by stone effigies of Gautama Buddha, one reclining and another seated in the lotus position, and the śivaliṅga and yoni (an aniconic representation of the Hindu supreme deity Shiva). Meant to represent the river of a thousand lingas at Kbal Spean, an eleventh-century archaeological site in the Kulen Hills in northern Cambodia that is known to reveal stone carvings of Hindu deities and hundreds of śivaliṅgas, the offerings serve both a dramaturgical and symbolic function. The careful construction of the ‘river’ not only bridges the Buddhas and the śivaliṅga on stage as choreoM. C. C. Tan (*) National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_10

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graphed movement that is part of an integrated intermodal, polycultural dramaturgy but also symbolically connects the historical past to the performative present. Above the performers is a triptych screen that features a photographic still, duplicated thrice, of two Khmer classical dancers (Robam Preah Reach Trop, or ‘dances of royal wealth’). The audience is also swathed in a white cloth; they watch the procession with respectful silence and sobriety; this solemnity is broken only by the meditative sounds of chirping crickets.2 In its ceremonial practice, the prologue marks Bangsokol as a ritual performance; in this liminal temporality, where the performance interpellates the historical past in the performative present while invoking the political future of Cambodia, the act of performing, witnessing and partaking in the performance liberates the nomadic souls who perished during the tumultuous and troubled period of the Khmer Rouge regime. It also liberates the living present—both the ‘living’ audience present at the performance and the contemporary ‘present’—from the sufferings of memory. Intended by the creators of the show as a procession of wandering souls trapped in the earthly plane, unable to depart because of traumatic memories, the prologue can be regarded as an offering to the deceased, to history and to memory. The act commences the religious and ritualistic overtones that the performance will assume as it prepares those involved to perform their own ritual of remembering and healing which the performance will bring to focus as its core concern. Bangsokol is a 70-minute symphonic performance conceived to commemorate the fall of the Khmer Rouge. It is a ‘specific response to the immeasurable loss of life and dignity under the Khmer Rouge and an artistic monument to the memory and memorialising of Cambodians mourning these losses since 1979.’3 Commissioned by Cambodian Living Arts, one of Cambodia’s most established performing arts initiatives formed to preserve traditional Cambodian performing arts and rituals that were endangered due to the Khmer Rouge’s relentless persecution of the arts and artists, and its Executive Director Phloeun Prim, Bangsokol is the concept of two survivors of the Cambodian genocide: composer and musician Him Sophy, one of Cambodia’s most distinguished classical musicians and composers, and Oscar-nominated film-maker Rithy Panh. They are accompanied by librettist Trent Walker, a scholar of Southeast Asian music and researcher in Southeast Asian Buddhist liturgy, as well as director of staging Gideon Obarzanek, an Australian playwright, director and choreographer. The production premiered at the Melbourne Festival in 2017 and subsequently travelled to New  York, Boston and Paris, and returned to

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Phnom Penh in November 2019 to mark the 40th year of the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. The requiem begins in the heavens, with celestial music and an invocation to the deities to listen to the Buddha’s teachings. Moving down to Earth and witnessing a funeral in the Cambodian countryside, it is soon interrupted by distressing memories of the Khmer Rouge and the appearance of ‘hungry ghosts’ wandering the lands in the second movement. In the third movement, the audience experiences the acceptance of impermanence and the path to peace, as the bangsokol ceremony itself gives solace to the dead and helps the living to heal.4 Paul Connerton, in The Spirit of Mourning (2011), posits that histories ‘legitimate a present order of political and social power’5 and thus are metanarratives that exclude micro-narratives, what Lyotard terms petit recit,6 that do not conform to the narrative schema. Yet in societies that have experienced trauma, there exists a different kind of ‘history’ and one where mourning customs are invented as a response to these catastrophes. These conditions precipitate cultural bereavement and for which the victims (and society) turn to ‘histories’ in order to cope with an otherwise ‘uncontainable experience of loss.’7 These are not legitimating histories but histories of mourning that are collective composites of the subjective narratives of mourning individuals. Intended as a performance of memory and mending, remembrance and reconciliation with the traumatic political past of Cambodia, Bangsokol is a response to the spirit of mourning. It is about the potential of performance as a site of social bereavement and healing through a collective recollection and reflection for the living and the dead, the genocide survivors and what Marianne Hirsch terms the ‘postgeneration.’8 Phloeun Prim describes the work as of utmost importance for Cambodia and the Cambodian diaspora community today, who are now scattered across Australia, France, parts of Southeast Asia and the U.S., as he feels the dead need to be honoured and the living need healing. Art and ritual, and ritual through art, have the capacity to achieve that; Bangsokol was to be a testament to the curative power of the arts.9 Phloeun’s views echo the provocations of Hirsch who in The Generation of Postmemory (2012) posits how aesthetics (and writing) can and must engage with the memory of traumas such as genocides. As Hirsch asks, ‘How do we regard and recall what Susan Sontag has so powerfully described as the “pain of others?”10 What do we owe the victims? How can we best carry their stories forward, without appropriating them, without unduly calling attention to ourselves […].’11

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In that regard, this chapter considers how Bangsokol ‘carries the stories’ of Cambodia’s past, as an ‘act of memorialising,’12 and how social memory, a shared communal memory, as Connerton describes it, is engendered and advanced through performativity, or, specifically, performative ritual/ rite (ritual performance).13 It will examine how the performance’s ‘aesthetics of remembrance in the aftermath of catastrophe’14 engenders alternative engagements to historicised narrative through an interpellation of shared affective memory effected by its intermodal and polycultural dramaturgy that employs the structure of a Western requiem and yet contains a libretto of Buddhists texts accompanied by Western orchestral music, traditional Khmer music and vocal chants, choral singing, video and choreographed movement. In so doing, Bangsokol renegotiates history as legitimations of social and political power with social memory composed of ‘narratives of mourning.’15 Bangsokol also seeks to present alternatives to violence and suffering while recognising universal (albeit Buddhist) truths about the human condition; the chapter further evaluates the ways in which the distinctive dramaturgy facilitates those objectives.

Memory, Ritual and Performance Bangsokol ‘is a vital act of memory’ and ‘an attempt to give dignity to the dead; to reconcile with our own past; to give a face and a name to the victims, to give their souls peace,’16 as film-maker Rithy Panh asserts. The creators do not return to ‘history’ for an account of the past (though Rithy does incorporate, selectively, historical video footage of scenes from Cambodia’s cultural and political history) but appeal to ‘memory’ for memory is a form of counter-history that permits a community ‘to account for the power structures animating forgetting, oblivion, and erasure and thus to engage in acts of repair and redress.’17 Yet, when one speaks of or invokes memory and employs the verb ‘remember,’ essential questions arise: ‘of what are there memories? Whose memory is it?’18 Memory is, as Paul Ricoeur writes, fundamentally reflexive: ‘to remember (se souvenir de) something is to remember oneself (se souvenir de soi).’19 In a performance that seeks to interpellate the past to ‘remember,’ the questions of whose memories should be performed or enunciated (or sung) remain imperative in the creative process and selective dramaturgy—whose ‘oneself’ is performed? The performance of memory is achieved through Bangsokol’s intermodal, polyvocal and polycultural dramaturgy which involves a symbiotic

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interplay of various performance modes and (musical) styles; its polyvocality is heard in the distinct cultural voices that resonate with songs and chants sung both in Khmer and Pali. Structured as a five-movement liturgical narrative, invoking a rural Cambodian funerary rite, whose main feature is the libretto characteristic of a requiem in the Catholic tradition, Walker replaces the Latin texts with six Buddhist scriptural texts written in Pali. The Pali texts chosen are among the principal Pali chants recited in a bangsokol ceremony for the dead.20 This libretto, recited and sung by a Taiwanese chorus in an Indic pronunciation of Pali, is set to Him Sophy’s original musical composition that blends the classical sounds from a Western chamber orchestra with the sonicities of a traditional Cambodian musical ensemble (called pin peat, though this ensemble is supplemented with other instruments such as the pin, an ancient Khmer harp). The poignant polycultural soundscape is further adumbrated by melismatic Khmer smot chants, a traditional form of Buddhist chanting, performed by Him Savy and Chhorn Sam Ath.21 The Khmer texts used in the chants are independent compositions of a lullaby once performed at funerals in Siem Reap and Dharma songs (thor bot) performed for funerals or other Buddhist rituals.22 The modes of live music interplay with filmic sequences, screened above the performers on a triptych screen, artfully edited to create a narrative that traces, episodically, a brief history of Cambodia, which include the great Angkor temples, Robam Preah Reach Trop dances, life under the Pol Pot regime and the controversial U.S. bombings of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973. Rithy Panh intersperses archival footage with selective surreal and imagistic interpretations to not only capture the essence of Cambodia’s cultural and political history but to also ‘disrupt’ the coherence of official history via aesthetic interruption and non-­ linearity to effect a distancing. In so doing, the visual sequences, as mnemonics of personal memory, encourage subjective and associative meaning which in turn interacts with the libretto and the musical movements that appeal affectively but can also function as acoustic mnemonics. A third performance layer involves Cambodian dancer Chumvan ‘Belle’ Sodhachivy moving gracefully across the stage to rearrange the offerings placed during the procession to form Kbal Spean.23 As she places each block in position, the deliberate, almost meditative, movement signifies symbolically the slow yet steady process of healing: from mourning to confrontation and forgiveness, with this being Bangsokol’s affective arc. Remembering a traumatic past is itself a traumatic act; it involves confronting the ghosts that continue to haunt and the self-same ones that one

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wishes to escape from. The Cambodian genocide was a historical catastrophe, a large-scale event that posed ‘questions of identity’ that ‘call[ed] for ways of coming to terms with the losses [it] impose[d] and the legacy it [left].’24 The need to remember thus remains imperative to the Cambodian genocide survivors for, as Hirsch notes, we are entering a time in which those who embody the memory of these traumas are beginning to pass and a living connection to those memories is threatened25; the different generations may ‘remain mentally and emotionally insulated, the memories of one generation locked irretrievably, as it were, in the brains and bodies of that generation.’26 While Bangsokol was conceived and composed by Rithy Panh and Him Sophy, both of whom lived through the genocide years and experienced the traumas as personal memories,27 memories that are located in the personal past but also ‘encoded’ into the body and being, the performance was also co-created with those who are removed from that experience, as third persons, and remember the events as a form of ‘cognitive memory,’ an intentional recollection of learnt information28: Walker accesses these historical events as a scholar, and Phloeun comprehends, possibly embodies, these as postmemory, what Hirsch describes as the ‘relationship that [the] “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before—to experiences they “remember” only by means of the stories, images and behaviours among which they grew up.’29 The collective memory presented and performed is then one that is both subjective and ‘objective,’ personal and cognitive/informational. Personal subjective memories are elicited in the music performed and these transact with the carefully selected archival footage projected on the triptych screen. Such aesthetic transactionality results in a new shared memory, in the space of the performance, that invites the interventions of the audience’s own personal and cognitive memories, of those who have survived the Khmer Rouge regime, and those who have read, studied or learnt about this harrowing historical period. This is the ‘who’ of Riceour’s pertinent question—‘whose memory is it.’ It is not one, but many. For the creators of Bangsokol, the performance of ritual and a performance as ritual hold the promise of remembering, creating a social memory and transmitting that memory as embodied experiences—of affective memory that is heard and seen. Connerton posits that commemorative ceremonies are a means by which an intentional shaping of communal memory takes place—‘as means of transmitting social memory, which is claimed for them by their participants.’30 These rituals and rites feature

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re-enactments as cardinal points of shaping social memory: a ritual performance re-enacts ‘an image of the past, even in the form of a master narrative’31 and a community is reminded of its identity as represented in the ritual; it is a collective variant of personal memory, a ‘making sense of the past as a kind of collective autobiography […].’32 Through performance as ritual, more aptly ritual performance, the requiem enacts a collective, social memory by celebrating the organic and collaborative processes of Khmer rituals as they are lived and practised in Cambodia. Bangsokol, ‘like the rituals it takes inspiration from, draws on the artistic traditions and current sentiments of the participants, and aims to square the needs of the present with the prerogatives inherited from the past.’33 The performance ‘bears witness to the creative forces that shape even the most ordinary Khmer rituals by explicitly presenting a religious rite as art.’34 While the view that performance is (a form of) ritual and distinctly ‘ritualistic’ is not new, given the studies done by Richard Schechner and Victor Turner,35 the peculiarity of Bangsokol is its ‘double-rituality’ in which, as a performance, it is already ritual in the ways that Performance Theory advocates; but Bangsokol also re-presents aspects of mourning rituals, of funerary rituals both in the West and in Cambodia. Melding the Catholic requiem with songs performed at a Cambodian Buddhist funeral, Bangsokol accentuates its own performative rituality. This porosity between the boundaries of a performance ritual (where performance can be regarded as ritual) and a religious ritual, where one transmutes into the other indistinguishably, enables the show’s creators to enact their objectives of engendering new social memories with the scattered (international) audiences and underscore Buddhist ideas about the universality of death, suffering and forgiveness. Spectators are consequently dissuaded from experiencing Bangsokol simply as performance. The audience is incorporated into the ritual with the act of placing a white cloth over their shoulders. Doing so becomes a performative gesture of turning audiences into participants and brings them into the liminal space of the ritual performance where transitions occur. Even as their role remains physically passive, they can partake of the ritual by contributing their own memories, reshaping these as they listen (and watch) the performance, and being open to the experience of compassion and healing for which the requiem’s dramaturgy yields. The act of donning white cloths is also a common practice in Cambodian Buddhist funerary rituals and, in Khmer, the word bangsokol is derived from the Pali paṃ sukūla—it refers to pieces of cloth recovered from

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corpses by Buddhist monastics who then patch them to form a robe which they wear. At a Cambodian Buddhist funeral, a white cloth is placed over the deceased and it is then removed by a monk at the height of the ritual. Such an Indian Buddhist practice has persisted in Cambodia where the cloth has also become a metaphor for the skin of the dead and a womb from which new life is born. The audience’s ‘participation’ binds both performers and spectators in an act of creating social memory that incorporates notions of compassion and forgiveness for past atrocities for which the performance advances, in the performative present. In performing, remembering therefore evolves from a singular act to a collective memorialising and re-visioning of a traumatic history. Memory that is performed is at the heart of collective memory and, as Jay Winter proposes, performed memories galvanise bonds and add additional memory traces about the past which then become overlaid on existing memories to create new ones. The performance of memory becomes both a mnemonic device and a means by which personal, individual memories are relived, revived and refashioned. A social framework of remembrance is reinforced since performance facilitates a movement of memory from the individual to the group and to the individual.36 In remembering, the past is exorcised; performance becomes the medium by which narratives are excavated, memories renamed and confronted, then laid to rest. In Bangsokol, social memory is used to ‘re-scribe’ history through performative affect.

Between History and Memory In Memory, History, Forgetting (2006), Paul Ricoeur asks if there ‘exist[s] an intermediate level of reference between the poles of individual memory and collective memory, where concrete exchanges operate between the living memory of individual people and the public memory of the communities we belong to.’37 There are those who remain sceptical that memory can be collective (or social) as it can only remain singular, subjective and contained within an individual. Susan Sontag, for example, asserts that ‘all memory is individual, unreproducible—it dies with each person. What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, that this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.’38 A collective, shared or social memory is then ideologically determined; it is ‘not only what comes long after politics; it has also become the stuff and fuel of politics.’39 Likewise, Ricoeur recognises that history, as archived, as political, has

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ceased to be part of memory and asks if memory has simply become a province of (legitimate and legitimising) history. To that, he notes that the debate between a history of memory and the historicisation of memory (the archived ‘collective’ memory) need not lead to a paralysing aporia, but both can confront one another in an open dialectic.40 Bangsokol demonstrates how history and personal memory can be a productive dialectic, as an ‘intermediate level of reference,’41 where personal memories interweave with and interrogate history to engender a (re) new(ed) social memory. This is history born from mourning and one that is affective and not linguistic. As history is prescribed, determined and framed by language, Ricoeur explains that ‘(w)riting, in effect, is the threshold of language that historical knowing has already crossed, in distancing itself from memory to undertake the threefold adventure of archival research, explanation, and representation.’42 The strategy adopted in Bangsokol is one that renders language secondary; while the words in the libretto are meaningful (and even then not always so as evidenced in the celebratory epilogue in which the words are meaningless ‘nonsense’),43 they do not describe a historical narrative or turn memory into history by recounting the past; the chants and the Pali texts sung communicate as affective invocations and the triptych images become mnemonics of personal memory that are frequently interrupted by abstract and seemingly random images (such as an eclipsed sun or dancers hazed and blurred), as means to disrupt narrativity, linearity, logic and coherence—fundamental qualities of archived collective memory/history. In this liminal space of the ritual performance, potential (re)formations of social memory occur through a dialectic of the personal and the historical. The absent attempts at screening a translation of the songs and chants performed (though some of these are provided in the programme notes) reify the affective qualities of memory the performance seeks to interpellate. Consequent of this absence of linguistic understanding, the audience’s attention is conceivably drawn to the performativity of the requiem and its intermodal dramaturgy instead: the discrete yet symbiotic relationship between the music, the symbolic choreography and provocative visuals. With music being the predominant mode of ‘communication,’ the audience is also asked to ‘listen’ to the past and be affected by musicality. The only English words that are heard in the performance are from a recording of U.S. President Richard Nixon. This movement begins with the dark tonalities produced by both the Western chamber ensemble and the Cambodian ensemble, with these heard as modes on the minor

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­ entatonic scale and the use of half-diminished chords; the long, slow p pulls of the violins on a single note create an atmosphere of tension and suspense; Chhorn Sam Ath sings of a plea to all deities of all directions to come listen to the great teachings of the Buddha so as to comprehend the corrupt and contaminated minds of humans that are ‘the roots of wars.’44 He is then joined by the chorus that echoes this call as the mode transits to a major scale and the music crescendoes. There is a consonance in the musics of both ensembles even as one can hear the distinct timbres of individual instruments resounding in this harmony, such as the cascading ‘glitter’ of the pin (a traditional Cambodian harp) or the metallic ‘shimmers’ of the kong von thom (a gong chime set). Though playing the same tune, at the same time, Him Sophy’s composition highlights the sounds of the different ensembles in various sections of this movement as they provide ‘colour’ to the sung narrative. This is followed by a shift in tonality and mode, with the string instruments, the timpani, the Cambodian roneat (xylophone) and khloy (flute) heralding the coming of war. The singing stops and what replaces the mellifluous chant is the sound of exploding bombs, followed by Nixon’s voice echoing the infamous phrase, ‘Cambodia is the Nixon doctrine in its purest form.’ Accompanying this movement are images that transit from black-and-white footage of children learning the Cambodian classical dance form, temple dances, lotus flowers and villagers toiling in the fields. As the music resounds of war, the screens reveal the American war machinery of B-52 bombers, F4 phantom jet fighters, aerial views of falling shells and fields on fire. As the bombs fall from the sky, the chorus members collapse on the stage floor. While one can postulate that the judiciously selected collage of images that precede the archival recording of Nixon and his declaration, through collocation, implicitly advances the view that the U.S. was partly responsible for the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a view some historians advance, it is the intermodality of form and the images’ interaction with the soundscape that facilitates a dialectical interplay of personal memory and history for the audience. As a spectator, I accessed these archival images as cognitive memory, as events learnt and read: they are overlaid with my own memories of news footages I had witnessed, as a child, of the forced eviction of Cambodians from Phnom Penh, of images of Khmer Rouge soldiers and their distinctive red-chequered scarf and photographs of the Killing Fields. These recollections are further entwined with my own personal memories of having visited the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in 2002. These memories are embodied experiences for the accompanying

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feelings of immense sadness, nausea and revulsion (with this bodily experience being most evident in the later scenes when footage was screened of uncovered skulls and bones, and the photographs of prisoners in Security Prison 21) that were excavated without my conscious intention. My emotional response was further modulated by the poignant soundscape that was heard, even though I recall this event as someone who is distanced from this monumental tragedy by time and place. The visual collage that purposefully accompanies the music, active throughout the performance, can be understood as a kind of ‘documentary performance’ that plays with history and memory; it introduces documented historical events that, in their performative mode, become counterpointed with subjective interpretation and interjected memories by the viewer. Hirsch reminds us that archival images and photographs, and by extension video recordings, are one of the principal forms of mediating memory; they can be considered as ‘“points of memory”—points of intersection between past and present, memory and postmemory, personal remembrance and cultural recall.’45 This moment also underscores how memory itself, in its mediation, is performative, for memory is subject to creation, intervention and selection even though one may not, and cannot, always ‘remember’ with intention. The performance becomes the site of exchange and transformation between individual spectators’ and the creators’ memories in which the singular active acts of remembering by genocide survivors intersect with social-political memories represented as official Cambodian historical archive. Images, movement and music in Bangsokol function primarily as mnemonics, suggestions of a subjective remembrance of the past and in so doing permits an interrogation of legitimate and affirmative history by a permeation of personal affective memory. Bangsokol does not ask audiences to remember historical ‘truth’ as it is written and legitimised but truth as it is subjective and affective.

An Aesthetics of Remembrance As the subtitle of the performance connotes, music is the primary performance mode and that which, in form and content, carries the message of remembering and renewal both semiotically and phenomenologically. The timbres from the traditional Cambodian instruments resound uniquely in the polycultural soundscape even as these sounds find confluence with their Western counterparts to reflect the tonalities and tensions of the narrative. They become acoustic signifiers of tradition, and the past and its

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continuity in the contemporary period, and whose sonic qualities become mnemonics for those whose ears have been tuned to these sonicities, particularly in their encounter with such sounds (and texts) in a Buddhist funeral. This divergent harmony is also found in the fluid polyvocality of the Khmer chants and the Pali texts sung by the chorus; the smot chants resonate with tradition and remembrance and the Pali texts reverberate with contemporary relevance. In addition to the purpose of educing acts of remembrance, the intermodal music encourages listening to the performance’s supplementary objective of comprehending universal truths found in Buddhism. The music promotes ‘timeless’ universals advocated in Buddhism (and the libretto is unapologetically Buddhist)46 as ways of addressing conflict and suffering, as individuals and as a society. While I have, elsewhere, written about the soundscapes of intercultural performance and termed the mélange of culturally diverse (and distinct) musics and sounds employed as intercultural soundscapes (or acoustic interculturalism),47 what is heard in Bangsokol is more accurately described as polycultural. A concept first expounded on by historians Robin Kelley (1999) and Vijay Prashad (2001), polyculturalism is an alternative to political multiculturalism which inevitably advances the separateness and distinction of cultural grounds in the attempts at celebrating difference and acknowledging cultural relativism but then unwittingly subscribes to the prevailing attitudes in identitarian politics that reify difference and, in the extreme, discrimination. Polyculturalism, conversely, acknowledges the dynamism and flux of cultures which reveal connections and interactions of diverse influences. While multiculturalism encourages tolerance between differences, polyculturalism recognises that cultural identities are amorphous and are not fixed ‘entities,’ and are as such continually subject to intervention, interjection, (fluid) adaptation and change. As Prashad posits, a ‘polyculturalist sees the world constituted by the interchange of cultural forms, while multiculturalism (in most incarnations) sees the world as already constituted by different (and discrete) cultures that we can place into categories and study with respect (and thereby retain 1950s relativism and pluralism in a new guise).’48 While ‘interculturalism,’ as it is employed politically, recognises identity dynamism and emphasises cross-­ cultural interactivity, exchange and participation even as it attempts to modulate the cultural, ethnic or racial difference, this, as has been critiqued by some scholars, is little more than a distinction without difference.49 In the field of theatre and performance, interculturalism has come to signify a utopian ‘interchange’ of cultural styles and traditions in

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­ erformance, particularly between the West (European/Anglo-American) p and the (imagined) East. With the many critiques labelling Western intercultural theatre practice as a form of artistic neo-imperialism that fails to consider the deep imbrications of politics and aesthetics, the term ‘interculturalism’ is now tainted with suspicion and negativity (such as Daphne Lei’s censure of many intercultural theatres by Western directors as ‘hegemonic’).50 The label ‘intercultural theatre’ as it has evolved with contemporary performance has, as Fischer-Lichte argues, become entangled with issues of cultural (and national) claims to ownership and theatrical borrowing and exchange, particularly between Western and non-Western forms of theatre, and have become a ‘deeply political act fueled by hegemonic interests and aspirations.’51 For Fischer-Lichte, the discourse of intercultural theatre, both in its practice, criticism and scholarly study, is based on several problematic assumptions about cultural ownership and the politics of identity that need to be interrogated. ‘Interculturalism’ reifies the understanding of cultural staticity by emphasising their differential interactivity, that is, that there can be interchange because cultures have distinct, possibly immutable, signifiers. Polyculturalism, on the other hand, offers an alternative that better reflects and more accurately describes Bangsokol’s sonic dramaturgy, for the soundscape reveals the adaptation, evolution and fusion of cultural musical styles. Acoustemologically, Bangsokol introduces a new sound, a new sonicity which encourages an aurality and a politics of listening that reflects the universal experiences of death, suffering, forgiveness and renewal. The unique vocalities and vocalisms, as heard in the smot chants, and the distinct sonicities of Cambodian traditional instruments reify the performance’s very ‘local’ concerns about the persistence and preservation of art, culture and religious practice, the sufferings of a people and the demolition of a culture and nation. Yet, the ways in which these sounds commingle, blend and ‘flow’ in and out of the amplitudes, frequencies and modulations of a contemporary, and for many a more familiar, Western chamber ensemble in this polycultural soundscape evince the performance’s affirmation of movement, mutability and (ex)change—the quality of impermanence that is central to Buddhist belief. The production’s use of a Catholic requiem mass as a ‘frame’ for a Buddhist funerary ritual provides audiences unfamiliar with Khmer and Buddhist traditions a chance to see how another religious culture meets the crisis of death and mourning, and the hope for healing and peace […] By following the mould of the

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Western classical requiem in putting liturgical texts for the dead to music, it invites interfaith dialogue on how sacred music allows humans to confront and process death and grief.

Acoustemologically, the composition communicates a universal idea: regardless of culture or ethnicity, suffering and death is experienced by all of mankind. One of the most emotionally powerful moments of the musical ‘narrative’ that reflects this universal suffering is found in the movement ‘My dearest child / they’ve snatched you away.’52 Chronologically, this sequence occurs after the previous movement that introduced the Cambodian Civil War and life during Democratic Kampuchea53 seen on the triptych screens. Accompanied by the Tro, a traditional Cambodian bowed string instrument, and khloy, Him Savy sings of the protagonist’s ruminations about the separation from her child as she ‘shovel(ed) and haul(ed) earth in a faraway land.’ She searches for the child desperately thereafter but recognises that the child, ‘split from kin,’ has gone far away ‘to a peaceful place.’ Him Savy’s mellifluous soprano voice reverberates achingly with deep melancholy and sadness as the piece progresses; at points, her vocality shifts from a singing voice to a spoken plea that embodies the pain of loss. The chorus then accompanies in a common refrain that echoes the chant’s ‘cry in longing, split from your kin,’54 with the rest of the orchestra gradually joining in to create the distinct mood that reflects this pain of loss, this most evident with the sad ‘weeping’ glissandos of the violins. In visual interplay are a sequence of long shots of villagers toiling, medium shots of Cambodian children playing in the rain, a presumably dead child being carted away, undernourished children and close-ups of a metal spoon and a container, and a lotus flower, a recurring motif in the filmic sequences and an important symbol of enlightenment and purity.55 The sufferings of the parent (presumably the mother) in this Pali text are communicated not simply in the words that are sung, particularly since no translations of the sung text are provided and one has to refer to the programme notes to derive a sense of linguistic understanding, but in the ways that the sounds of various ‘culturally codified’ instruments find consonance in an affective composition. When listening deeply, one is able to hear the sonicities of the various instruments, yet these sounds ‘bleed’ into each other and coalesce to create the sounds of affect which sustain the message of universal suffering. While one may not necessarily have

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experienced or will experience the loss or separation of a child, loss is an ­inalienable experience of human existence, regardless of culture, ethnicity or any taxonomies of identity. In the same way that the sadness need not be communicated linguistically, loss need not be specific in form; loss of any kind is suffering. Music’s ‘universal’ quality of evoking emotion, of affectivity, is here used to advance a broader, universal truth of suffering. The polycultural politics is also reflected in the diverse ethnicities and cultures of the performers whose sounds, produced with either the voice or instruments played, interact and evolve as a single acoustic confluence. The intercultural musicology and resultant polycultural soundscape in this ritual performance underscore the universality of death and mourning, and the commonalities in rituals all cultures undertake to confront (and overcome) loss and grief. Ritual underlies funerary practices in all cultures; song (including chants) and music remain integral to the performance of ritual. Despite distinct differences in timbre, texture and tonality, music appeals to, and can direct, emotions regardless of difference in ways language (and translation) remains impotent by comparison. The soundscape engendered moments of pathos that spoke to both the Cambodian and international audiences in its tours,56 and, despite my lack of acquaintance with both Khmer and Pali, I was, at many points in the performance, deeply moved by the music. This advocacy of a shared humanity that experiences shared suffering is also evident in Him Sophy’s compositional intentions and musical background. Sophy remains one of the few Western classically trained musicians, in Cambodia, who is also proficient in ancient Cambodian musical modalities. In Bangsokol, Sophy sought to create both ‘something new and something old’57 and so employed Western musical techniques but brought together distinct Cambodian cultural sounds to create a new compositional style. In doing so, he recognised that cultures, as they are reflected sonically, are always already dynamic, changeable and collaborative. The intermodal, polycultural form becomes metonymic of the broader political possibilities that underlie the production’s process and becoming: Bangsokol’s multimodality and multiethnic/international cast (and creative team) exemplify the political possibilities where diversity, as composites, can find unitary whole through art and performance on egalitarian grounds. The soundscape also reflects and reifies the production’s own politics of polyculturalism that further reveals the necessary politics of societies in the global contemporary, even as the performance is concerned with a specific

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event (and period) in Cambodia’s history. The musicality and musical form encourage an understanding of contemporary society as ever-­ changing, fluid and also ‘compositional’; cultural composites interact, intersect and evolve to create something new, be it an artistic work, a new identity or society. This musical composite then represents, just as it reflects, the important humanistic qualities of a Khmer ritual. Khmer Buddhist rituals are ‘always composites’58 and the ritual becomes whole only because of the many threads that weave both its meaning and form— ‘texts, sounds, objects, and people.’59 Individuals in the ritual—monks, lay ritual specialists, laywomen—have a distinct role to play and the ritual becomes complete only if all, people and forms, that are present perform their roles. ‘Bangsokol builds on this idea in its thoroughly composite structure.’60 Furthermore, having performed in cities with a sizeable diaspora community of Cambodians who were formerly refugees, the production became a performative means of connecting and bringing a people fragmented and scattered by tragedy and suffering home again, and thereby ‘piecing’ together a new social consciousness and a new social memory. The incorporation of traditional Cambodian music, familiar Buddhist texts and smot chants is significant because it is the instruments and vocal techniques that assert identity, heritage and culture (this audial assertion of the persistence and importance of Cambodian art and cultural identity is supplemented with Panh’s filmic sequences in the first act, in which archival scenes of the Khmer classical dance, Robam Preah Reach Trop, are screened). Yet, in its intermodal form, Bangsokol encourages change and openness in the contemporary present through an inclusion of other cultural forms and styles to create opportunities for dialogue and new works of art. Significantly, it reflects the cultural condition of many diasporic Cambodians who have themselves found new societies to belong to, have interacted with other cultures and ‘evolved’ with their identities even as they remember their cultural past.

(Not) Forgetting and Forgiveness Through an aesthetic process of inhibiting a social amnesia that characterises much of modernity—the separation of social life from locality and from human dimensions caused by superhuman speed, megacities synonymous in form and function, consumerism disconnected from the labour process, the short lifespan of urban architecture61—Bangsokol keeps ‘the wounds open,’62 and in this manner addresses art’s ethical and political

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responsibility in the aftermath of catastrophe and conflict: to ‘warn against forgetting and oblivion, to underscore the injunction “Never again.”’63 The production resists what Ricoeur terms ‘manipulated memory’— memory that has been subjected to ideological operation often evidenced in identity formation and identity expression—and advances an obligated memory, a dutiful remembering that is ethico-political. As Ricoeur explains, ‘[t]o say: you will remember, is also to say: you will not forget’64 and ‘the duty of memory is the duty to do justice, through memories, to an other than the self.’65 Such an obligated memory finds resonance in Him Sophy’s call to remember: ‘I always tell people, “Remember, never forget. Protect the future from repeating the past.”’66 This performative means of not forgetting, of remembering, reflecting and confronting the past, and specifically of the Khmer Rouge yields the possibilities of forgiveness. The requiem reflects on the suffering faced by living beings—in this world and other worlds. For Buddhists, suffering is a truth to be seen, recognised, accepted, and transformed. We cannot transform suffering by turning away from it. Instead it must be faced directly. Bangsokol both symbolically and directly invokes the suffering of the period. We hear voices sing that invoke children separated from their parents, terrible states of hunger and craving, the collapse of economic life, and the blood-stained propaganda of the Khmer Rouge.67

The experience of trauma leads frequently to a refusal, intentional or otherwise, to confront the event, yet forgiveness can only happen when, according to Ricoeur, we confront those who are guilty.68 This performance becomes an occasion for confrontation that then opens a pathway to forgiveness. Such a confrontation with the traumatic past (and those that are guilty) is most evident in the visual images (and imagery) presented on the triptych screens. Apart from being a political narrative in its own right, the video collage functions as points of ‘traumatic fixation’69; the images encountered are ones frequently seen in documentaries about the Cambodian genocide, and these include, most memorably, unearthed bones and skulls among vegetation and photographs of Khmer Rouge soldiers. Some material that Rithy uses is also repeated sequentially throughout the performance. This repetition of images becomes, as Hirsch posits, a means of confronting trauma. Citing Hal Foster’s discussion of Andy Warhol’s use of repetitions, Hirsch notes that in repetition there is a

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‘warding away of traumatic significance and an opening out to it, a defending against traumatic affect and a producing of it.’70 It is in this contradictory logic that the realism of the trauma is exposed. Viewers of these repeated images can produce in themselves the effects of traumatic repetition experienced by the victims of trauma even as they are able to be ‘protected’ by the distance repetition creates. In recounting his own experiences while composing the score for the requiem, Him Sophy expressed how, as he wrote the music, he relived the feelings he had during the Khmer Rouge times: ‘It was hell on earth. It is important for the requiem to be shown around the world so that everyone can see that tragedy is a shared experience. There is hope in creation.’71 Bangsokol can be regarded then as an artistic exemplification of Ricoeur’s belief that forgiveness demands the extraordinary and it involves an interpellation of the past and of remembering, of a reliving and confrontation with what Him Sophy expresses as ‘hell on earth.’ As he describes, ‘it is in accord with the logic of remembering (as mourning) that forgiveness heals.’72 Forgiving does not entail forgetting and it is quite the opposite. At the political level, one has a duty to remember and to narrate the memory, and it is because of this duty to recall, invoke and explain the past that we ‘must keep traces, traces of events, because there is a general trend to destroy.’73 The traces of memory become expressed as narratives (re)told. Bangsokol is that performative trace, an act of remembering necessary to promote forgiveness and loving-kindness (Fig. 10.1). Healing and, consequentially, forgiveness come about through the process of mourning, for mourning is a narration of the struggle to remember and forgive; ‘To narrate otherwise what one has done, what one has suffered, what one has gained and what one has lost.’74 While much of the performance has been an act of remembering and reflecting, of ‘narrating’ loss, the epilogue provides a way forward as it advocates acceptance, continuity and a Buddhist notion of loving-­kindness. Singer Chhorn Sam Ath walks to the front of the stage and invites two young performers, who have already earlier come on stage to assist Chumvan ‘Belle’ Sodhachivy with laying out portrait prints of what are assumed to be Cambodians who have perished during the said period in front of the Buddha effigies. He is joined by Him Savy who then hands the pair a traditional Cambodian krap (clapper). Using the ching (cymbals), she teaches them how to play in time—from simple to more complex rhythms. Their tapping is joined by Sam Ath who now beats on the skor daey (a goblet-shaped drum) in synchrony; this is followed by other

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Fig. 10.1  The epilogue of Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia (2017). (Photo: Tey Tat Keng)

drummers from the Cambodian ensemble, who partake with the skor daey, to give rhythmicity to a lively song whose words are not intelligible or meaningful, and intentionally so for it is the expression of emotion that is the primary concern; the semantics are not at all important to the fundamental purpose of the song—to affect. This joyous and uplifting scene ­resembles the chhaiyam genre of Khmer dance-music where joyous, silly music of celebration is used in fundraising ceremonies for Buddhist temples and other temple fairs.75 Chumvan ‘Belle’ Sodhachivy then partakes of this act of cultural transmission by teaching the children hand gestures (mudras) of the Khmer classical dance. The attempt to teach the children aspects of the traditional dance is significant, for, as Connerton shows, memory is ‘encoded,’ conveyed and sustained in bodily practices; ‘culturally specific postural performances provide us with a mnemonics of the body.’76 The dance exemplifies how memory can be enacted performatively, with and through the body, in movement and in music-making that involves the deep rhythms which inspire internal and external movement. Ending the requiem with the suggestion of the endurance of Cambodian

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traditional art forms epitomises Connerton’s view that social memory can be sedimented or amassed in the habituation in bodily practices, in the bodily substrate of performance.77 As the dancing, singing and musicking happen on stage, colourful cloth banners are raised and the performers move to the established rhythms, accompanying in song. These banners are significant in Cambodian culture for they are a means of honouring ancestors. Made from cloth on bamboo rods adorned with decorative sequins and tassels, the colours signify the occasion and festivity, and the raising of such banners ‘is a ritual event in and of itself, one either signaling the ascension of the departed to a more fortunate realm or simply in celebration of an act of religious merit.’78 The concluding image in Bangsokol is of the two young children standing on the stage—the boy playing on the clappers and the girl performing the gestures of the Cambodian dance form—with all other performers having marched offstage to the front of the audience. The epilogue becomes an important performance of remembering for the generations to come—the postgeneration. For Cambodians, and others, who have not been told of the personal, collective or cultural trauma of the generation that experienced the genocide, Bangsokol becomes an aesthetic means of affirming the necessity of postmemory, ‘a structure of inter- and transgenerational return of traumatic knowledge and embodied experience.’79 Even though ‘[p]ostmemory’s connection to the past is […] mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection and creation,’80 Bangsokol exemplifies how the affective qualities residing in social memory are crucial in beginning a future that is not to repeat the past as witnessed in this final scene which encapsulates the performance’s act of forgiveness, renewal and continuity signified by the celebration in song and the act of letting the past (and the dead) depart; the children who continue with the performance become signifiers of a postgeneration that remembers the past but also celebrates the contemporary. Forgiveness is a complex process and itself, ontologically, an aporia. It cannot be effected institutionally because ‘forgiveness is a personal act, an act from person to person that does not concern juridical institutions.’81 Yet, forgiveness requires a request made by the transgressor, an acknowledgement by the victim of suffering and the consequent awarding (or withdrawal) of that gift of forgiveness to the transgressor. It is then that forgiveness, in its personal(ised) dimension, can take place. In the context of Cambodia’s past, the transgressor Pol Pot is no longer alive, and while the trials of other Khmer Rouge leaders continue today, many Cambodian

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victims are unable to confront their transgressors. The judicial and judiciary processes are, as Ricoeur distinguishes, issues of justice and should not be conflated with forgiveness for there is a distinction between ‘the private world of forgiveness and the public world of justice.’82 Justice primarily is a ‘relation of equivalence’83 and forgiveness, contrastingly, ‘rests on a relation of excess, of over-abundance.’84 Forgiveness can be present in the public world of justice only in symbolic action, that is, the action that Bangsokol undertakes: Rithy’s triptych interplay of historical footage of life under the Khmer Rouge provides a face to the now absent transgressor. It offers the victims of the regime, who now form part of the audience, an opportunity to effect a personal forgiveness so that healing, both at individual and collective levels, as a nation and people, can occur. While strategies used in post-apartheid South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Rwanda gacaca court have primarily addressed the question of justice, and returned to the hegemonic structures of the juridical as a means of reconciliation, Bangsokol focuses on forgiveness, one entrenched in a Buddhist ethos of loving-kindness (mettā in Khmer/Pali), to facilitate individual and societal restoration. As Walker explains, The question of how humans respond to genocide and other immense social wounds is often treated in theological terms. Themes of theodicy, justice, repentance, and atonement guide many of the conversations around the Nazi holocaust, South African apartheid, or American chattel slavery. For the Cambodian genocide, particularly in light on the ongoing tribunals, much of the focus has remained on justice, particularly with regards to surviving senior leaders. Alternative Buddhist perspectives on how to respond to violence and death receive scant attention. Bangsokol offers several Cambodian Buddhist ways of responding to the Khmer Rouge period.85

The production thus encourages a Buddhist approach to addressing violence and trauma. In addition to being a celebration of hope, the epilogue ends in prayers for goodwill and loving-kindness towards all beings. Bangsokol, following Cambodian Buddhist rituals, concludes with a dedication of the benefits to one’s loved ones and also to all beings, friends or enemies, without exception. This extension of kindness is not a replacement for justice and not simply forgiveness alone but a recognition that hatred ends through love alone, not through further hatred. It is consistent with the Buddhist understanding that individuals are responsible for

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the ethical consequences of their actions. In this sense, it provides a vital and alternative religious response to genocide.86 This perspective resonates with Ricoeur’s belief that forgiveness is a genuine gift broken from the economies of exchange and reciprocity, or what he terms the ‘sphere of exchange.’87 It is achieved only when ‘the enemy has not asked for forgiveness: he must be loved as he is.’88 Remembering, reflecting and confronting the past can result in transformation and change: Bangsokol attests to the power of performance to create social memory that includes yet moves beyond a rhetoric of victimisation, loss and suffering. As significantly, Bangsokol’s response to Cambodia’s tragedy yields an aesthetic of forgiveness and can be read as a political response that revises notions of power by re-visioning concepts of justice and truth as reconciliation and restoration as opposed to retribution and reprisal. An aesthetics of remembrance engenders a politics of hope.

Notes 1. This recount is based on a live recording of the performance in New York, on 15 December 2017, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Gilman Opera House. 2. The white cloths are given to the audiences and they are encouraged to wear them for the duration of the performance. 3. Trent Walker, ‘Email interview with Marcus Tan,’ 1 November 2018. 4. Bangsokol website, n.p. ‘Bangsokol’ is a Cambodian ceremony for the dead. In this chapter, the non-italicised term refers to the generic funerary ceremony while the italicised term indicates the performance. 5. Paul Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning: History, Memory and the Body (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1. 6. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 60. 7. Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning, 17. 8. See Marianne Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 9. Phloeun Prim, ‘Interview with Marcus Tan,’ 2 December 2018. 10. See Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). 11. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 2. 12. Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, ‘Performance Notes,’ Bangsokol website, 16 May 2018, http://bangsokol.cambodianlivingarts.org/pressmedia, accessed August 20, 2018, 3.

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13. See Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, 1996). 14. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 2. 15. Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning, 19. 16. ‘Artists’ Statements and Quotes,’ Bangsokol website, 1. 17. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 16. 18. Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 3. 19. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 3. 20. The six Pali texts include an opening invocation to the gods, an enumeration of the mental and physical phenomena, a description of the trials of hungry ghosts, an analysis of the dependent origination of ignorance and suffering, a reflection on the impermanence of the body and possibility of liberation and finally a closing prayer of goodwill towards all beings. These are ‘Lullaby for a Funeral,’ transcribed from a kong skor (a form of funeral music) performance, and ‘Stirring Teachings’ and the ‘The Three Marks of Life,’ both pieces found commonly in Cambodian smot performances; ‘Victorious April 17th’ and ‘Khmer Rouge Slogans’ are found in the work of Henri Locard. 21. Him Savy is a Cambodian singer and musician and Chhorn Sam Ath is a well-known singer and actor in Cambodia. 22. I thank Trent Walker for this detailed explanation of the libretto. 23. Chumvan ‘Belle’ Sodhachivy is a dancer and choreographer of Amrita Performing Arts, a contemporary dance company based in Cambodia. She is trained both in classical and contemporary dance forms. 24. Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning, 17. 25. See Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 1–2. 26. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 3. 27. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 22. 28. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 22. 29. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 5. Original emphasis. 30. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 52. 31. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 70. 32. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 70. My own emphasis. 33. Walker, ‘Email Interview with Marcus Tan,’ 1 November 2018. 34. Walker, ‘Email Interview with Marcus Tan,’ 1 November 2018. 35. See, for example, Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), The Anthropology of Performance (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1986); Richard Schechner, The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance (London, New  York: Routledge, 1993).

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36. Jay Winter, ‘The Performance of the Past: Memory, History, Identity,’ in Performing the Past: Memory, History, and Identity in Modern Europe, eds. Karin Tilmans, Frank van Vree and Jay Winter (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), 11. 37. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 131. 38. Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 85–86. 39. Aleida Assman, ‘Transformations between Memory and History,’ Social Research 75, no. 1 (2008): 57. 40. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 392. 41. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 131. 42. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 138. 43. See section ‘(Not) Forgetting and Forgiveness’ for more on the music presented in the epilogue. 44. This particular chant is entitled ‘The Roots of War’ in the programme notes. 45. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 61. 46. See Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 47. See Marcus Cheng Chye Tan, Acoustic Interculturalism: Listening to Performance (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 48. Vijay Prashad, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 67. 49. See Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood, ‘How does Interculturalism Contrast with Multiculturalism?’ Journal of Intercultural Studies 33, no. 2 (2012): 175–196, and Geoffrey Brahm Levey, ‘Interculturalism vs. Multiculturalism: A Distinction without a Difference?’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 33, no. 2 (2012): 217–224. 50. See Daphne Lei, ‘Interruption, Intervention, Interculturalism: Robert Wilson’s HIT productions in Taiwan,’ Theatre Journal 63, no. 4 (2011): 571–586. 51. Erika Fischer-Lichte, ‘Introduction: Interweaving Performance Cultures— Rethinking “Intercultural Theatre”: Toward an Experience and Theory of Performance Beyond Postcolonialism,’ in The Politics of Interweaving Performance Cultures: Beyond Postcolonialism, eds. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Torsten Jost, and Saskya Iris Jain (New York: Routledge, 2014), 8. 52. See the translations of the Pali texts found in the programme notes. 53. The Cambodian Civil War (1968–1975) was the conflict between the Khmer Rouge (also known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea), along with their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Viet Cong, and the Khmer Republic which was supported primarily by the U.S. from 1970. After five years of fighting, the Republican government was defeated

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and Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, became de facto Prime Minister of the new Democratic Kampuchea, an agrarian socialist society. 54. These are translations of the Pali text found in the programme notes. 55. The archival images of a metal spoon and container are what look like military-issued utensils to Khmer Rouge soldiers and Rithy Panh could have included them here to symbolise the bare necessities of existence and living and of survival. 56. These are Phloeun Prim’s observations recounted in his interview with Marcus Tan, 2 December 2018. 57. Him Sophy, ‘Interview with Marcus Tan,’ 4 December 2018. 58. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 59. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 60. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 61. Paul Connerton, How Modernity Forgets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 5. 62. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 19. 63. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 19. 64. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 87. 65. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 89. 66. Him Sophy, Interview with Marcus Tan, 2 December 2018. 67. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 2. My own emphasis. 68. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 460. 69. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 121. 70. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 121. 71. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 72. Maria Duffy, Paul Ricoeur’s Pedagogy of Pardon: A Narrative Theory of Memory and Forgetting (London: Continuum, 2009), 26. 73. Paul Ricoeur, ‘Memory and Forgetting,’ in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, eds. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 10. 74. Paul Ricoeur and Sorin Antohi, ‘Memory, History, Forgiveness: A Dialogue Between Paul Ricoeur and Sorin Antohi,’ Janus Head 8, no. 10 (2005): 23. 75. I am grateful to Trent Walker for this clarification. 76. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 74. 77. Connerton, How Societies Remember, 71–72. 78. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 1. 79. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 6. 80. Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory, 5. 81. Ricoeur and Antohi, ‘Memory, History, Forgiveness,’ 9. 82. Ricoeur and Antohi, ‘Memory, History, Forgiveness,’ 10. 83. Ricoeur and Antohi, ‘Memory, History, Forgiveness,’ 9. 84. Ricoeur and Antohi, ‘Memory, History, Forgiveness,’ 9.

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85. Walker, ‘Email interview with Marcus Tan,’ 1 November 2018. 86. Bangsokol, ‘Performance Notes,’ 2. 87. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 478. 88. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 481.

Bibliography Assman, Aleida. 2008. Transformations Between Memory and History. Social Research 75 (1): 49–72. Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia. Accessed September 20, 2018. http://bangsokol.cambodianlivingarts.org. Connerton, Paul. (1989) 1996. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2009. How Modernity Forgets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011. The Spirit of Mourning: History, Memory and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duffy, Maria. 2009. Paul Ricoeur’s Pedagogy of Pardon: A Narrative Theory of Memory and Forgetting. London: Continuum. Fischer-Lichte, Erika. 2014. Introduction: Interweaving Performance Cultures— Rethinking “Intercultural Theatre”: Toward an Experience and Theory of Performance Beyond Postcolonialism. In The Politics of Interweaving Performance Cultures: Beyond Postcolonialism, ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Torsten Jost, and Saskya Iris Jain, 1–21. New York: Routledge. Him Sophy. Interview with Marcus Tan, 4 December 2018. Hirsch, Marianne. 2012. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. Kelley, Robin G. 1999. The People in Me. Utne Reader (September– October): 79–81. Lei, Daphne. 2011. Interruption, Intervention, Interculturalism: Robert Wilson’s HIT Productions in Taiwan. Theatre Journal 63 (4): 571–586. Levey, Geoffrey Brahm. 2012. Interculturalism vs. Multiculturalism: A Distinction Without a Difference? Journal of Intercultural Studies 33 (2): 217–224. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Meer, Nasar, and Tariq Modood. 2012. How Does Interculturalism Contrast with Multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural Studies 33 (2): 175–196. Phloeun Prim. Interview with Marcus Tan, 2 December 2018. Ricoeur, Paul. 1999. Memory and Forgetting. In Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley, 5–11. London and New York: Routledge. ———. 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting. Edited by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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Ricoeur, Paul, and Sorin Antohi. 2005. Memory, History, Forgiveness: A Dialogue Between Paul Ricoeur and Sorin Antohi. Janus Head 8 (10): 14–25. Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New  York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Tan, Marcus Cheng Chye. 2012. Acoustic Interculturalism: Listening to Performance. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Walker, Trent. Email Interview with Marcus Tan, 1 November 2018. Winter, Jay. 2010. The Performance of the Past: Memory, History, Identity. In Performing the Past: Memory, History and Identity in Modern Europe, ed. Karin Tilmans, Frank van Vree, and Jay Winter, 11–31. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

CHAPTER 11

The Wheres and Whys of Southeast Asia: Art and Performance in the Locating of Southeast Asia Today Farish A. Noor

That Discursive Construct Called Southeast Asia: Here and Not-Entirely-Here at the Same Time That Southeast Asia exists—as both a region, however, loosely defined geographically and an idea—is a notion that is rarely contested today. We talk about Southeast Asian identity, Southeast Asian culture, Southeast Asian food, Southeast Asian design and so on in a glib and casual manner, but in the course of doing so, the signifier ‘Southeast Asia’ is used in such a way as to imply that there is already a thing—Southeast Asia—that is ontologically set and given, ready-made and fully constituted, and available to be talked about and presented as a totalised object. But how true is this assumption, and can it be said that Southeast Asia is so easily and readily identifiable that it can simply be ostensibly defined by pointing at

F. A. Noor (*) S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 M. C. C. Tan, C. Rajendran (eds.), Performing Southeast Asia, Contemporary Performance InterActions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34686-7_11

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it? Is Southeast Asia so obvious a thing that it is immediately recognisable, and if so, what would be its distinguishing features? A cursory reading of the official histories of the countries of Southeast Asia written in the postcolonial period would reveal some similarities: More often than not in these postcolonial histories written by national historians, there has been the tendency to privilege the nation-state as the primary actor in both domestic and international politics, to assume that the history of the nation-state—as presently constituted—can be back-­ dated to the premodern/precolonial era and that events in the past have necessarily led to the formation of these nation-states as they exist today. It is also interesting to note that Southeast Asia, as we know it today, is made up of nation-states whose borders were basically set and fixed at the height of Western colonial power and that there have been few attempts by any of the states of Southeast Asia to reconnect nations and communities that were divided by (sometimes arbitrary) borders that were introduced by the various colonial powers that divided the region into what we know today. As a result of this, Southeast Asians today may have little knowledge of the connectivity that once brought together the worlds of South and Southeast Asia, and how the Indian Ocean was less a frontier and more a corridor that connected these two parts of Asia. Though scholars of Indian Ocean history have written at length about how Buddhism was spread from Sri Lanka to Burma, Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia in the precolonial era and how material evidence can still be found in Sri Lanka that points to large numbers of Southeast Asian Buddhists scholars residing and studying at centres of Buddhist teaching like Polonnaruwa, such stories are seldom found in the history textbooks of Southeast Asia today. The same can be said about the histories of migration, movement, settlement, commerce and cultural cross-fertilisation that once characterised the world of the Indian Ocean as documented in the work of the historian K. N. Chaudhuri.

Re-membering the Broken Body of Asia Chaudhuri’s (1990) work on the Indian Ocean was perhaps one of the first deconstructive enterprises that located the Indian Ocean at the heart of Asia, as a seascape that connected—rather than divided—South, Central and Southeast Asia together. In the first two chapters of the book (pp. 10–41, 42–70), he outlines the theoretical problems and difficulties

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of writing a history of Asia from a postcolonial perspective where our notions and understandings of time, temporality, geography and history have already been determined by the order of knowledge and power that was installed and impressed upon Asia by the arrival of Europe and the consolidation of colonial rule with its attendant epistemic regimes. The author does not challenge the fundamental proposition of history that it is a sequential process ordered by time, but rather argues that in the case of Asia—in the widest geographical and epistemic sense—‘Time’ was not singular but rather multiple. This critique of the unity of time and space is intended to ‘deconstruct the Western image of Asia as a distinct unit of space,’1 and in the process, it also opens the way for the deconstruction of the idea of Asia in order to demonstrate the constructiveness of Asia itself.2 The Indian Ocean, for Chaudhuri, was more than simply a body of water/space as it is understood today and certainly did not limit itself to the present-day Indian Ocean as it is presently mapped out, but it is rather presented as a spatial-temporal continuum that begins from the Red Sea and ends at Japan. Trans-oceanic trade across the Indian Ocean, he argues, created a sense of a common shared space where identities were created, overlapped, interpenetrated and mutually informed, enforced and determined one another. Here, he posits the theory of multiple, overlapping and parallel continuities where the development of South, Central, East and Southeast Asian cultures were taking place contemporaneous of each other and where a common pan-Asian civilisation had developed as a result of this trans-oceanic movement of ideas in an age before nation-­ states and national political boundaries. Asia, for Chaudhuri, was therefore a project-in-making and a space with multiple political, cultural and economic centres. By comparing the geographies of the Arabs, Indians and Southeast and East Asians, he argues that Asia was a multipolar region with different overlapping geographic, economic and political systems that sometimes coexisted simultaneously. It is said, for instance, that during the precolonial era, the mercantile port city of Malacca was one that was not only cosmopolitan in terms of its population’s make-up but also one where multiple calendars were in use. Evidence of this hybridity that was the result of the productive ambiguities of the time can be found in some of the earliest accounts of socio-­ economic-­political life in precolonial Southeast Asia. In de Bry’s (1601)3 account of life in the port city of Banten (north-western coast of Java), for instance, we can see how Banten’s society was complex at so many levels, and this complexity was captured in the woodcut images that are ­contained

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in the book—they being among the very first realistic depictions of Southeast Asia by Europeans then.4 The coastal city of Banten sits along the north-western coastline of Java, close to the Sunda Straits. Long before the creation of the present-day Republic of Indonesia, and before the coming of the Dutch colonial powers and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Banten enjoyed the privileged status of being one of the most important entrepôts of Southeast Asia that was connected to the rest of the archipelago and beyond through trade links that extended from China to India, Africa, the Arab lands and Europe. Visitors to Banten today may note that it is a relatively sedate town when compared to other major commercial cities such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan or Balikpapan. In contrast to other cities such as Jogjakarta and Surakarta—both of which claim to be the home of Javanese culture—Banten strikes the visitor as a more quiet locality with little to boast about, save for the famous Masjid Agung mosque, which has been listed as a protected national monument. Banten’s Masjid Agung, built during the reign of Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin (1552–1570), gives us some indication of the power that was once possessed by this kingdom, whose first ruler claimed descent from Sunan Gunung Jati, one of the nine saints of Islam revered in Java. A closer look at the roof and minaret of the mosque, which are multi-tiered, also suggests a distant connection with Chinese architecture, and it has been noted by scholars that the design of the mosque resembles that of a Chinese pagoda in some respects. This is one of the first indicators of Banten’s interesting and complex past that points to the history of the kingdom as a cosmopolitan commercial centre where merchants, travellers, priests and mercenaries from across Asia once visited and settled in. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Banten was already a truly complex, plural and diverse polity where different ethnic and religious communities came together to settle and trade among themselves. That such diversity was present then is of vital importance to us today, living as we do at a time when some quarters in Indonesia and Southeast Asia have expressed their distaste and rejection of pluralism and diversity on the basis of their own sectarian, myopic and exclusive interests. Yet in de Bry’s work, we see Banten society at its economic and political height, precisely when it was such a complex, hybrid and plural polity where inter-­ ethnic and inter-religious pluralism was accommodated within a mercantilist culture that was open and fluid. Banten’s prosperity—which ironically was also the reason why it was seen as a competitor of Western colonial interests—was the result of this long history of inter-communal ­interaction

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and exchange that took place on the levels of commerce and culture. The worth of de Bry’s work lies in the fact that it provides us with one of the earliest accounts of what such a plural past could have looked like, and it underscores the important point that pluralism and diversity are and were not ‘new’ or ‘alien’ ideas that have been imported into Indonesian society from outside. Banten’s plural society was the result of agency and choice among the people of Banten, and this shows that pluralism is as normal to Bantenese and Javanese society as gamelan and batik: Pluralism was not an alien concept in Banten—it was local.

Remembering, Forgetting and Erasure: Southeast Asia’s Lost Others The recounting of Southeast Asia’s history in today’s postcolonial present has been a difficult and challenging project. And across the region, we can see how histories have become national histories, and in the course of doing so, they have also become the histories of the majority communities of the countries concerned. Khursheed Kamal Aziz, in his landmark work The Murder of History (1985), highlights the manner in which national histories have often taken off from the premise of the pre-existing nation-­ state and then constructed a national narrative that often is the result of selective appropriation of the past, the denial of uncomfortable truths and facts, and the deliberate foregrounding of particular agendas often for the sake of presenting the nation’s history as a determinate process that necessarily leads to the rise of majoritarianism and the dominance of the largest ethno-religious group. His work on Pakistan is equally relevant to other countries in Asia today, from India to China and the states of Southeast Asia as well. In the case of present-day Burma/Myanmar, we can see how Burmese history is and has been rewritten as the history of the Burman people, at the expense of other minority groups. The same tendency towards majority bias can be seen in other parts of Southeast Asia as well. Herein lies the dilemma of the historian for every work of history has to have a focus and every historical narrative must end somewhere, at one point. Yet the earnest historian has to do battle with the limitations of the text and his/her discipline, to guard against essentialism and reductivism, and against the tendency of giving voice to some, while relegating others to silence. This is easier said than done, for every work of history—no matter how detailed and scrupulous it aims to be—is necessarily a subjective

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endeavour where the historian has to decide what goes into the story and what gets left out. It is in the basket of discarded histories and narratives that we find the lost Others of national historiography, and the ranks of the lost and forgotten are many: ranging from the voices of women to the poor and disenfranchised, those who resist fixed territoriality and national identity and so on. Here, I would offer a (tentative and admittedly feeble) defence for some of the bias that we encounter in historiography. In many cases, the omissions and acts of silencing/marginalisation are not necessarily the result of malice on the part of the historian: A political-economic history of early industrialisation in Southeast Asia, for instance, would necessarily consider the roles of capital, technology and industrial workers first and foremost, and it would focus less on non-industrial modes of economic production, without bearing any malice towards those from other sectors of the economy. A study of the development of a particular form of religious praxis among one particular confessional community would necessarily look more at that community and less at others, without implying that other belief systems are less valid or true. Bias will always be there, for one can only look at a particular object of enquiry from one perspective at a time. But to pine for a multi-perspectival approach to our study of Southeast Asia is not a pie in the sky or some whimsical fancy of dilettantes: The yearning is academic in nature, and humanist as well; it aims to get at an understanding of a thing that is complex, shifting, dynamic and alive as best we can. Historians would admit to this too, I am sure, for historians are likewise among those who seek as comprehensive and exhaustive an understanding of the world around them. I am certainly not suggesting that the historical endeavour be abandoned simply because historiography is found wanting, but I am saying that history can be supplemented, aided and accompanied by other approaches and techniques that are to be found beyond the confines of the ivory tower. And by this I am referring to art and the power of performance.

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Asking The Question: What Performance and Art Can Do A painting or a photograph cannot capture movement, but it can capture the impression of movement—and in some instances can do that very well, indeed. We cannot read the minds of others, but a novelist can give us a literary insight into the interior lives of others, fictional though they may be. Therein lies the power of art and performance and what they can do. Writing as a historian of Southeast Asia, I would freely admit to the limits of historical enquiry and writing, and the communicative poverty of data. In my own work, I have tried to account for the impact of colonialism and Western hegemony over and across nineteenth-century Southeast Asia, but I have thus far been able to muster to my cause only maps, lithographs, photos, surveys and statistics. It could be said that the data speak for itself and that bare historical facts do not distort or lie: We have the precise dates when parts of Southeast Asia were invaded, bombed by gunboats, stormed by colonial armies and so on. We can count the number of victims, both those killed and those dispossessed. We can map out the advance of Empire as the region known as Southeast Asia was carved up by the colonial forces of Western Europe. But no historian, notwithstanding the amount of information that she or he may possess in store, can evoke the feelings of despair, dread, hope and confusion among those whose lives were shaped by history. That is the work of the novelist and the artist, and it is to art that I turn in order to catch a glimpse of this human drama. In recounting the history of this discursive construct—the idea of a Southeast Asia that can never be hermetically sealed, closed and totalised— the political economist and scholarly technocrat would need to avoid the pitfalls of reductionism, reification and essentialism that we have alluded to earlier. This is particularly important in disciplines such as International Relations (IR) and IR theory, which have always tended to reduce the complexity of human interaction to a contest between singular, atomistic nation-states and, in so doing, presented these states as autonomous, totalised and sui generis. Owing to the need of such disciplines to render the complex world knowable and intelligible, there has always been the tendency towards simplification and reductionism, and to introduce neat boundaries and dichotomies that fit with the oppositional logic that characterises International Relations theory until today.

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But surely such an approach can only give us a partial view of a moving, mutating and ever-evolving phenomenon, and surely it cannot possibly tell us the story of Southeast Asia in toto? Which, in turn, begs the following question: Can the story of Southeast Asia ever be told in its totality and should we even attempt a final, exhaustive accounting of this thing that we call Southeast Asia? The advantage of art and performance lies in their honesty—despite the Socratic critique of all art as mimesis and counterfeit representation. The very fact that art is subjective and admits to its subjectivity and the human agency that goes into it, reminds us—the artist and viewer/reader alike— that its object is a constructed one, the product of human agency. Having abandoned any claim to ‘objective’ truth or totalised accounts, it is the subjectivity of art, and the fact that it admits to human intervention/ input/artistry that for me counts as its strengths. Here, I would echo the sentiments expressed by Hayden White, who argued that historians too ought to appreciate and accept that their scholarly enterprise is intimately intertwined with the workings of narrative and writing, for: […] it may be observed that if historians were to recognise the fictive element in their narratives, this would not mean the degradation of historiography to the status of ideology or propaganda. In fact, this recognition would serve as a potent antidote to the tendency of historians to become captive of ideological preconceptions which they do not recognise as such but honor as the “correct” perception of “the way things really are”. By drawing historiography nearer to its origins in literary sensibility, we should be able to identify the ideological, because it is the fictive element in our own discourse.5

This awareness of the role of human agency in understanding the world and understanding the past is vital, for it serves as a corrective against the oft-repeated error of post-rationalisation and the tendency to view societal development in neat and sequential terms. Historians must know—and be able to admit—that history is never simple and linear, and that contingency is always present in all forms of human activity, as Joseph Ellis has argued, for: […] If hindsight enhances our appreciation for the solidity and stability of the (historical) legacy, it also blinds us to the stunning improbability of the achievement itself.6

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Now accidents and contingency rarely make an appearance in political theory or history, for the simple reason that the disciplines do not know how to accommodate them properly. Contingency and accidents appear in the house of political economy and theory like uninvited guests, lingering about but with nobody to talk to, and not knowing where to stand for fear of offending the other guests. But in art and literature, they can and often do make an appearance for that is what art can accommodate and communicate rather effectively. One can think of the work of Amitav Ghosh, for instance, whose novel The Glass Palace (2000) captures the painful ironies of colonialism and displacement so well and far better than any historical account of the colonisation of Burma/Myanmar has ever done. Some scholars may express disdain for works of art and fiction on the grounds that they are invented constructs, and I am not neglecting the possibility that there may also be some bad art around at times. Nor do I think that art is always entirely blameless, for there have also been some howlers of late, including some works of postcolonial art and fiction that have carelessly (or deliberately) appropriated and regurgitated the tropes and metaphors of Empire, contributing to the nauseating stable of ‘colonial chic’ or ‘imperial nostalgia’ that appeals to some. However, the power of art and performance remains, and that power lies in the ability to disrupt and challenge our settled assumptions about who and what we are and where we are (in time and space) in the immediate present. If we accept that the story of Southeast Asia is still being written, and the question ‘what is Southeast Asia’ cannot be simply answered by a casual pointing to a map or a simple static definition of the term—no matter how long or precise that definition may be—then we can appreciate what art and performance have to offer. For it is in the domain of art and performance that the myriad of stories and histories that have been sidelined or relegated to silence by the official histories of states can be brought to life and invited to speak to us once more. Because I—as a historian—fully accept the fact that Southeast Asia is an ongoing project-in-making and that the history of Southeast Asia is not, and can never be, a narrative with a full stop at the end (for it has not ended yet), I place even more value in art and performance as sites of agency and invention that help us interrogate the idea of Southeast Asia even further and deeper. Luhmann (1976) was correct to note that the future cannot begin, but we can also add that the past has never entirely passed us either. Through art and literature, the past can be revisited time and again, via avenues and pathways that are different every time (again,

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the work of Amitav Ghosh comes to mind). And in the course of this ceaseless revisiting we also re-member the broken body of Southeast Asia that was dissected and disembodied by the colonial epistemologies and geographies from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. History may furnish us with the broad structures and outlines of human development—an accounting of states, structures, institutions and the like. But history cannot possibly capture or convey the plethora of human stories and the shades of those stories—with all their complexity, nuance and emotionality—for that is not the job of the historian. To do that, to get into the cracks and fissures of these great structures and power differentials that have awed us so, we need something else that is more fluid, creative and human, and that, I would argue, is the role of art and performance.

Notes 1. K. N. Chaudhuri, Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 23. 2. Chaudhuri, Asia Before Europe, 24–37. 3. Johann Theodore and Johann Israel De Bry, Icones Sive Expressae Et Artifitiosae Delineationes Quarundam Mapparum, Locorum Maritimorum, Insularum, Urbium, & Popularum: Quibus & Horundem Vitae, Naturae, Morum, Habituumque Descriptio Adiuncta est: Veluti Haec Omnia, In India Navigatione Versus Orientem Sucepta, diligenter Obseruata, Adeoque Tribus Hisce Indiae Orientalis Descriptae libris inserta funt. Johann Theodore de Bry and Johann Israel de Bry, Frankfurt, 1601. 4. The developed political system in Banten is depicted in some of the plates that appear in de Bry’s work, notably plate XX: Milites In Bantam, plate XXV: Qvo Ritv Bantani Concilia Militaria Agant and plate XXVI: Rusticorvm, Qvi Pridemivxta Civitatem Bantam. The first offers a description of the armed forces of Banten and a brief description of the soldiery there. The second offers a glimpse of a political council, where the Sultan presides over his court. The meeting is held outdoors, with the ruler, his court, nobles, generals and admirals, all sitting on the ground as they discuss matters of military and strategic concern. Interestingly, the text that accompanies the illustration notes that also present at this political assembly were Malays (from the Malay Peninsula), Arabs and Turks (Malayos, Turca, Arabes). The fact that Malays, Turks and Arabs were present at the political council suggests that Bantenese society was one where foreigners were allowed to take part in matters of governance and that affairs of state were

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handled via consultation with all the communities that were residing in Banten then. This theme is further developed in the plates that depict the various communities that were present in Banten, such as plate XXI: Extraneorvm Mercatorvm In Bantam, plate XXII: Mercantorvm Extraneorvm In Bantam, plate XXIII: Mercantorvm Ex China In Bantam and plate XXIV: Chinensivm In Bantam Svperstitio Et Idolatria. De Bry’s plates present us with a visual depiction of the different communities that resided in Banten then, and he notes that apart from the Bantenese, there were also Malays, Burmese, Persians, Arabs, Turks and Chinese living in the cosmopolitan port-city. 5. Hayden White, ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,’ in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, ed. Hayden White (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1978), 99. Emphasis is in the original. 6. Joseph J.  Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 4–5.

Bibliography Aziz, Khursheed Kamal. 1985. The Murder of History: A Critique of History Textbooks Used in Pakistan. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Chaudhuri, K.N. 1990. Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Bry, Johann Theodore, and Johann Israel. 1601. Icones Sive Expressae Et Artifitiosae Delineationes Quarundam Mapparum, Locorum Maritimorum, Insularum, Urbium, & Popularum: Quibus & Horundem Vitae, Naturae, Morum, Habituumque Descriptio Adiuncta est: Veluti Haec Omnia, In India Navigatione Versus Orientem Sucepta, diligenter Obseruata, Adeoque Tribus Hisce Indiae Orientalis Descriptae libris inserta funt. Johann Theodore de Bry and Johann Israel de Bry, Frankfurt. Ellis, Joseph J. 2002. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Vintage Books. Ghosh, Amitav. 2000. The Glass Palace. Delhi: Ravi Dayal, Penguin India. Luhmann, Niklas. 1976. The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society. Social Research 43 (1): 130–152. White, Hayden. 1978. The Historical Text as Literary Artifact. In Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, ed. Hayden White, 81–100. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Index1

A Adaptation, 10, 18, 113–119, 122, 126, 133, 151, 153, 163, 201, 202, 227, 231–233, 258, 259 Aesthetics aesthetic thinking, 22 and politics, 2, 22 of remembrance, 13, 247–268 of traditional Thai Theatre, 230, 231 Affect, 20, 24, 85, 89, 185, 186, 235, 236, 254, 260, 264, 265 Agamben, Giorgio, 15, 26, 64, 73, 74, 77 Anderson, Benedict, 6, 37, 179 Apter, David, 3, 16, 37, 39, 50 Archipelagic consciousness, 7 identity, 16, 35–54 Archipelago, 6, 10, 16, 31n71, 37, 38, 41, 44, 53, 54, 117, 125, 127, 278

Archipelagraphy, 38, 54 Arendt, Hannah, 18, 92, 114, 122, 129–132, 136n13 ASEAN anthem, 52 motto, 52 Spirit, 45–48 Summit 2017, 16, 37, 52–54 Asia, 3, 66, 149, 185–188, 276–279 and its relation to Southeast Asia, 8 Asian Dramaturgs’ Network (ADN), 19, 173, 177, 186–188, 190n13, 190n14 Asian values, 17, 62, 63, 66, 67, 69, 74 Aung San Suu Kyi, 5, 46, 51 Authenticity definitions, 222, 224 in Thai theatre, 11, 12, 221–241 Authoritarianism, 1, 147 Autocracy, 19 Aziz, Kursheed Kamal, 279

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

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288 

INDEX

B Baling, 17, 18, 85–105, 105n1, 105n5, 106n12, 107n41, 108n45 Baling Talks, 17, 18, 86–88, 93, 95, 97, 99–101, 107n33, 107n42 Banality of evil, 114, 115 Banten, Java, 277–279, 284–285n4 Bare life, 74, 78 Barisan Nasional (BN), 4, 90, 92, 100, 107n32 Bauman, Zygmunt, 103–104 Bersih, 4, 17, 18, 85–105, 109n70 Bharucha, Rustom, 91 Biopolitics, 16, 61–78 Biopower, 17, 63–69, 74, 75, 77 Bios, 73–75, 78 Blood Throne, The, 19, 145–147, 151–153, 155, 156, 159–161, 165, 166 Boal, Augusto, 153, 154, 157, 168n28 Body bare/d, 16, 17, 61–78 bureaucratic, 64–69, 72 phenomenological, 64 politic, 63 Broadway musical, 231, 235 Buddhist principles in Bangsokol, 13, 253 In Thai theatre, 224, 239 Bumiputera, 25, 31n71 C Cambodia, 36, 45, 47, 49, 57n39, 247–251, 253, 254, 256, 261, 262, 266, 268 Cambodian Living Arts, 13, 248 Censorship, 1, 6, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 61, 62, 64, 69, 73, 147, 152, 172, 177, 180–184 Chaudhuri, K.N., 8, 276, 277

Chin Peng, 18, 85, 86, 88–91, 94–97, 101–104, 105n8, 108n45 Chong, Terence, 69 Citizenship, 71, 87, 92, 94, 101, 199 Cohen, Matthew, 10, 14, 196 Collini, Stefan, 2 Colonialism/colonisation, 9, 10, 25, 37, 38, 42, 48, 281, 283 Communism, 88, 105–106n11 in Malaya, 95 Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), 85, 88, 99, 102, 103 Community theatre, 149, 150 Connerton, Paul, 249, 250, 252, 265, 266 Contemporary definition, 164 Thai musical theatre, 11, 13, 166, 221–241 theatre in Thailand, Thai theatre, 12, 19, 148, 150, 152, 164–166, 221–231 Wayang in Indonesia (see Wayang, kontemporer) Contemporary Wayang Archive (CWA), 200, 212 Cultural practice, 1, 70, 240 D Dalang, 12, 195, 196, 198, 200, 201, 203–206, 209, 211, 212, 213n1 De Bry, Johann Theodore, 277–279, 285n4 Decolonisation, 10 DeLoughery, Elizabeth, 38 Democracy, 3, 17, 45, 92, 119, 146, 153–155, 163–166, 232 Derrida, Jacques, 3 Dialogue Theatre, 19, 147, 148, 152–155, 157–159, 161, 162, 164–166

 INDEX 

Diamond, Catherine, 10 Diaspora, 49, 52, 247, 249, 262 Dissensus, 2, 22, 87 Distribution of the sensible, 2, 3, 87, 89 Drama Sunjon, 19, 155–160, 165 Dramaturg, 10, 11, 178, 180, 183, 186–188, 190n14 Duterte, Rodrigo, 3, 4, 16, 18, 36, 39–41, 43–46, 49, 51, 52, 57n39, 115, 118–121, 125–129, 131, 132, 134, 135, 140n45 E Edkins, Jenny, 22 Eichmann, Adolf, 114 Eko Nugroho, 204, 209 Emancipation for the spectator, 87 Estrella, José, 18, 114, 116, 117, 122, 124, 125, 130–135 Ethnic/ethnicity, 1, 6, 9, 10, 19, 25, 46, 50, 52, 63, 64, 70, 71, 77, 107n32, 123, 155, 156, 159, 163, 168n31, 215n13, 222, 223, 258, 260, 261, 278 Event, 1, 3, 16, 17, 19, 22, 36–41, 43–45, 48, 49, 51, 53, 55n13, 62, 63, 73, 75, 77, 85–88, 90, 92–97, 100, 105n3, 115–118, 145–147, 149, 151, 152, 154, 161, 168n24, 171–177, 179, 184, 190n13, 190n14, 190n15, 190n17, 196, 202, 206, 212, 227, 252, 256, 257, 262–264, 266, 276 F Faust, 18, 113–135, 135n1 Fernandez, Doreen G., 10 Festival

289

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, 17, 61 Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), 6, 20, 171, 173, 175, 176, 183, 186, 187, 190n15, 190n17 Feudal values, 11, 12, 196, 197, 202–207, 212 Fischer-Lichte, Erika, 186, 259 Fitz-James, Thea, 17, 62, 64 Fluid/fluidity, 7, 8, 38, 65, 87, 104, 157, 172, 184, 223, 258, 262, 278, 284 Foley, Kathy, 9 Forgetting, 250, 262–268, 279–280 Forgiveness aesthetics of, 268 and forgetting, 262–268 Foucault, Michel, 63, 65, 68 Fragkou, Marissia, 24 Freire, Paulo, 167n9 G Garapan, in wayang kontemporer, 200, 201 Geertz, Clifford, 146 Genocide, 5, 132, 249, 252, 257, 266–268 Cambodian, 13, 248, 252, 263, 267 Geopolitics, 8, 23, 36–38, 45, 53, 54 of Southeast Asia, 6, 8, 13 Globalisation, 1, 15, 72, 196, 197, 213 Gunatilaka, Kamron, 11 H Hall, D.G.E., 6 Hatley, Barbara, 197 Haze, Southeast Asian transboundary, 5

290 

INDEX

Healing, 123, 248, 249, 251, 253, 259, 264, 267 Hegemony, 15, 25, 146, 147, 281 state, 1, 17 Hirsch, Marianne, 13, 249, 252, 257, 263 Historiography, 38, 54, 280, 282 History, 1, 7, 8, 10–14, 17, 20, 28n22, 37, 38, 44, 47, 48, 54, 56n24, 62, 70, 85–88, 91, 93–97, 99–105, 118, 132, 135, 146–148, 153, 165, 174, 195–201, 210, 213, 214n10, 222, 227, 237, 240, 241, 248–251, 254–257, 262, 276–284 as political revisioning, 99–105 Holding Time, 19, 155, 156, 159–162, 165 Homo sacer, 64 Hom Rong, 226–228 Hun Sen, 45–46, 57n39 Hunter, Lynette, 24 Hybridity, 70, 148, 150, 151, 153, 277 I Identity of ASEAN, 16, 25, 36, 52 of Southeast Asia, 7, 9, 11, 16, 53, 275 Ideological state apparatus, 66 Ideology, 20, 25, 69, 70, 73, 89, 104, 105n11, 118, 147, 148, 160, 162, 163, 166, 224, 229, 230, 232, 282 Imagined communities, 6, 37–38, 179 Indian Ocean ASEAN, 38 Cultural, 276

Innovation, 10, 11, 51, 189n12, 195–213, 227, 240 Inter-Asian, 14, 187 Intercultural/interculturalism, 19, 172, 182, 258, 259, 261 Intermodal/intermodality, 13, 248, 250, 255, 256, 258, 261, 262 Intervention in Singapore, 27n19 Intra-Asian, 188 Intraculturalism, 46 Islands, 5–7, 28n25, 28n28, 38, 41, 53, 54, 57n44, 106n13, 125, 127, 128, 138n40, 139n45 J Jit, Krishen, 11, 99 Jungwiwattanaporn, Parichat, 147, 148, 150, 166n3, 231 K Kear, Adrian, 22 Kelleher, Joe, 2 Kelley, Robin, 258 Khmer Rouge, 13, 248, 249, 252, 256, 263, 264, 266, 267, 269n20, 270–271n53, 271n55 Khon, 231, 238 Ki Aneng Kiswantoro, 209, 211 Ki Enthus Susmono, 195 Ki Gendon, 201, 208 Ki Jlitheng Suparman, 204 Ki Slamet Gundono, 204 Kirby, Michael, 2 Komedya, 48 Kongkirati, Prajak, 163 Kulturlos, 77 Kuo, Pao Kun, 11, 14

 INDEX 

L Lakhon Dukdamban, 227 Language, 6, 12, 19, 21, 22, 42, 52, 75, 180, 188, 200, 202, 203, 207, 210, 212, 230, 255, 261 in classical wayang, 200, 202 Lavender, Andy, 89, 96 Lee Hsien Loong, 51, 66 Lee Kuan Yew, 66–68, 73 Lehmann, Hans-Thies, 25 Liberalism, 1, 17, 62, 76 Libretto, 13, 250, 251, 255, 258, 269n22 Likay state, 145 theatre, 19, 145, 238 Liquid modernity, 103 Luerd Kattiya, 226 M Mae Nak Phra Khanhong, 226, 232 Mahatir, Mohamad, 4, 90, 93 Makhampom theatre, 26n2, 145–166 Malayan Emergency, 18, 97 Mangkukulam, 114, 115, 123–128, 133, 135 Marcos, Imelda, 40, 44, 46, 56n24, 121, 127, 138n28 Martial law, 14, 20, 42, 116, 118, 119, 127–129, 131, 151, 159 Memory affective, 13, 250, 252, 257 cognitive, 252, 256 communal, 250, 252 manipulated, 263 politics of, 13, 247–268 social, 13, 250, 252–255, 262, 266, 268 Memory, History, Forgetting, 254

291

Merdeka, 104 Ming, Poon, 17, 62, 64, 65, 75–77 Modernisation, 15, 149, 213, 227, 229 Modernity, 9, 10, 119, 137n22, 150, 166, 224, 227, 230, 262 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, 17, 61 Mrázek, Jan, 201 Multiculturalism in Singapore, 61–78 and Tolerance, 16, 61–78 Music, 3, 12, 13, 42–44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 56n37, 171, 180, 200, 201, 211, 227, 230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 248–252, 255–258, 260–262, 264, 265, 269n20 traditional and contemporary, 239 Musical theatre, 11–13, 47–49, 56n37, 150, 221–241, 242n10 N Najib Razak, 4, 17, 93, 107n32, 109n69 Naked Ladies, 17, 62, 64, 74 Nationalism, 9, 44, 115, 131, 132, 147, 159, 166n3, 229 Nation state, 1, 7, 14, 37, 38, 276, 277, 279, 281 Natyasastra, 224, 233–235 Neoliberal/neoliberalism, 4, 15, 16, 24, 25, 28n22, 37, 53 New Order, 11, 196–199, 204, 209, 213 in Indonesia, 196, 197, 213 Nithan Hing Hoi, 227, 233, 236 Noer, Arifin C., 11 Noszlopy, Laura, 10 Nudity (in performance), 61, 62, 64, 74 Nur Nina Zuhra, 10

292 

INDEX

O October Event/uprising in Thailand, 146 Ombudsman, 20, 177, 178, 180, 186 Ong Keng Sen, 6, 19, 27n19, 171–188 Other/otherness, 4, 14, 21, 24, 25, 63, 67, 68, 71–75, 77, 91, 158, 161, 181, 200, 280 Ownership, dramaturgies of, 183 P Pakatan Rakyat, 100 Pali, 13, 251, 253, 255, 258, 260, 261, 267, 269n20, 270n52, 271n54 Pan-ASEAN, 16, 35–54 Pan-Asian, 277 Pepinsky, Thomas, 3 Performance art, 3, 8, 261, 275–284 Peterson, William, 16, 44 Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), 14, 20, 56n37, 114 Piscator, Erwim, 2 Political agency, 18, 20, 24, 26, 74, 75 efficacy, 18 revisioning, 99–105 theatre/performance, 2, 14–16, 20, 22–24, 44, 50, 52, 149, 152 Politics & art, 23, 173 definition, 2, 7, 16 of representation, 20–26 as theatre, 16, 37, 39 Polyculturalism, 258, 259, 261 Polyvocal/polyvocality, 203, 250, 251, 258 Pornography and art, 17, 61–78

Postcolonial, 7, 9, 11, 16, 21, 37, 276, 277, 279, 283 nation state, 7, 37, 38 Postgeneration, 249, 266 Postmemory, 252, 257, 266 Post-Reformasi, 196, 213 wayang kontemporer, 196, 199, 212 Prabowo Subianto, 3 Prashad, Vijay, 258 Praxis, 19, 153, 154, 165–166, 167n9, 168n19, 280 community-oriented, 19 Prayuth Chan-ocha, 46, 57n39, 147, 148, 162 Precarity, 7, 15, 24, 116 Private vs. Public, 73, 74, 77 Purnama, Basuki Tjahaja, 4 R Rai, Shirin, 23, 25 Rakhine state, 4 Rakyat, 92, 93, 101 Ramayana, 47, 56n37 Ranciere, Jacques, 2, 22, 87, 116 Rasa, 223, 224, 233–241 Reconciliation, 13, 159, 160, 164, 249, 267, 268 Redistribution of the sensible, 89 Reformasi, 90, 196 Reid, Anthony, 8 Reinelt, Janelle, 23, 25, 96 Remembering, 13, 20, 152, 248, 251, 252, 254, 257, 263, 264, 266, 268, 279–280 the politics of, 20, 254 Resistance, 11, 17, 18, 64, 85–105, 172, 213, 240 political, 92, 116, 161, 168n25, 240 Revisioning, 97 political, 99–105

 INDEX 

Rhizomatic, 38 Ricoeur, Paul, 250, 254, 255, 263, 264, 267, 268 Right-wing, 4, 15, 62, 68 Ritual, 3, 13, 64, 72, 75, 117, 123, 124, 135, 206, 248–255, 259, 261, 262, 266, 267 in/and performance, 3, 13, 64, 75, 248, 250–255, 261 Roberts, Christopher, 9 S Sea, the, 6, 7, 138n40, 139n45 Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family (SDMF), 17, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 72–74 Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), 6, 20, 171 Si Phaendin, 226, 232, 233, 236, 237 Society Must Be Defended, 65, 68 Soundscape, 251, 256–259, 261 South China Sea disputes, 5, 53, 138n40, 139n45 Southeast Asia as idea, 275, 277, 281, 283 regional identity, 9 Spect-actor, 154, 155 Spivak, Gayatri, 21 Spoken drama (in Thailand), 227, 229, 230, 236, 238 Sponsorship, financial, 1 Strongman politics, 3, 16 Subaltern, 21, 147, 148, 150, 151, 164, 166, 167n5 Suharto, 11, 196–199, 204, 207, 214n4, 215n13 Sukarno, 216n39 Super-diversity, 6, 28n22 Suwarso, Mirwan, 208

293

T Takonkiat Viravan, 225, 226, 232, 233, 236, 242n11 Tawipob, 226 Teater Garasi, 203, 204, 209 Teater Koma, 204, 209 Teh, Mark, 17, 18, 86–88, 93, 94, 96, 99–101, 105n2, 107n33, 108n60 Thaksin Shinawatra, 3, 146, 151 Theatre of virility, 16, 39, 40 Theatre State, 145–166 Tinio, Rolando, 11 Traditional theatre, 9, 10, 222, 223, 232, 236, 237, 241 values, 12, 211 Transformative theatre, 145–166 Trump, Donald, 6, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, 56n28, 57n39, 63, 132, 174, 187 Tunku Abdul Rahman, 18, 88, 94, 104, 106n14, 107n41 Turnbull, Malcolm, 45 U Undressing Room, 17, 62, 64, 67, 74–77 Universals/universalism, 13, 66, 74–78, 211, 250, 258–261 V Van Erven, Eugene, 149 Vertovec, Steven, 6, 27n22 Violence, 68 Voice, The, 19, 155, 156, 162–165 W Wayang Kampung Sebelah (WKS), 204–207, 216n32

294 

INDEX

Wayang Hip Hop, 12, 206, 207, 213 kontemporer, 11, 12, 195–213, 213n1, 214n12 kulit, 11, 12, 198, 200, 211 sinema, 211 wong, 208 Winet, Evan Darwin, 9, 10 Wolf Bride, The, 152

Y Yingluck Shinawatra, 146, 147, 151 Z Zarzuela, 48 Žižek, Slavoj, 68, 72–74, 76, 77 Zoē, 73, 74, 78