Project C 2019:

Collaborative Happening Art for Creative Society

 

Background of Project C

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Project C emerged in 2017 through a collective of artists from a wide range of performance mediums including dance, theatre, puppetry, and mime. We are interested in sharing with a Bangkok public multidisciplinary “embodied movement” practices and artistic process that connect to creativity, self-learning, active participation, collaboration and diversity. Until the present, sharing has taken place through both OPEN WORKSHOPS (where artists and amateurs engage in a class process) and PERFORMANCE EVENTS (showcases most commonly involving participatory elements). 

Blocks of workshops with a showcase have previously used the themes of “collaboration” (2017) and “community” (2018). They both explored collaborative non-hierarchical way of creation and exchanges of practices, accumulating tools to bind together a growing community of artists and art enthusiasts in Bangkok. In the year 2019, we hope to expand our community through increased involvement of and support for young and upcoming makers.

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The aims of Project C are:

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• To offer a platform for continued exchange between different types of performance, where artists can learn new skills and expand their creative horizons. By doing so, we hope to counter a compartmentalization of artistic forms within the Bangkok Arts scene, and act as a source of learning and inspiration.

• To introduce experimental forms of performance to a Bangkok audience, and create a direct line of dialogue with the public. In this way, work produced is ascribed a social function that can contribute to well-being in the city, and challenge viewers to think about their lives, their surroundings, and their relationship with art.

 

Project Description

Project C conducts regular OPEN WORKSHOPS that draw upon the various skills of group members and invited teachers, and shares them with both professional performers, makers, and amateur participants. Once or twice a year, the aim is to hold periods of intensive creation resulting in a series of pieces to be shown together as a performance event. While acting as an opportunity for makers to try-out new ideas, and develop their conceptual and compositional skills, the events also aim to engage directly with a Bangkok audience to discuss the process of viewership, and what performance can offer the social well-being of the city. OPEN WORKSHOPS provide ways for artists to communicate with their public, develop teaching and facilitation skills, and/or receive feedback on their own work.  

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Until now, two PERFORMANCE EVENTS have been compiled and presented at Roundabout co-working space Ekamai (November 2017), and Yelo House Siam (July 2018). Project C aims to follow a line of site-specific work that engages and brings to life interesting spaces around the city. We considered our PERFORMANCE EVENTS (which we term “Project C Performance Art Party”) as a gathering of diverse minds where the community can present their work to the public. Further, we provide a forum for discussion and mingling between makers and audience.

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PERFORMANCE ART PARTY

For the next performance event, Project C aims to create a series of works that have two binding features:

• Conceptually, each work will look at the theme of “encounters in the age of compression”. This engages how both time and space are decreasing due to factors such as increased populations in urbanised areas, the onslaught of ICT, and even how the rise of populism intensifies political voices. Where does human autonomy cope with increasingly limited space to express? Makers will be encouraged to develop their work following this theme, whether in conceptual or physical terms.

• In terms of artistic form, each performance maker will be paired up with an artist from a different medium in order to challenge them to think outside their normal habits, and create more varied work. Therefore, Project C will potentially engage with visual artists, musicians, sound artists, costumes designers, and others.

The work that will be developed remains experimental, with an element of educational artistic development. However, certain group members will take on the role of providing a close overseeing eye, to produce a clear consistent artistic vision through the whole event. The programme will be shown over three evenings (either once or twice per night), with each performance followed by an audience discussion.

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Organizers' profile

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(CURATOR) Nitipat Ong Pholchai/Spine Party Movement is a physics lecturer/educator, and dancer/choreographer with an interest in community-based learning, and tailoring somatic practices for different groups. As a curator/organizer of Project C, he is looking forward to supporting new creators with his collaborative tools, somatic movement knowledge and providing production resources as well as learning together with the people he works with.

He has been actively promoting somatic education and contact improvisation to the public of Thailand since 2014. He has locally shared his knowledge and creative projects with groups ranging from alternative schools, social activist groups, The Blind theatre Thailand and university dance departments. He has also developed artistic collaboration internationally with communities in Malaysia, Iran, India and the Netherlands. Project C came together as he tries to use his artistic and creative network to bridge the gap between different communities in Thailand and to vitalize local experimental art scene.   

link: www.suiragno.wixsite.com/spineparty, www.facebook.com/spineparty

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(CURATOR) Ladda Kongdach is an actress and performer at Crescent Moon Theatre since 2010. Crescent Moon Theatre is one of highly active contemporary theatre in Thailand. We focus on creating theatre performances as a way of communication and reflects on society and people. We approach our work by using the process of devising theatre as a base and also using group dynamic, Bertolt Brecht's technique, Jerzy Grotowsky's Poor Theatre and etc. One of our mission is Puppet theatre and theatre for young people, Grandma Puppet Theatre, that I am a director, puppet maker, and puppeteer. I am also a core member of the Spine Party Movement, since 2015. We are enduring practice in movement research and improvisation. We interested in collaboration with artists of other disciplines. We approach our work by contemporary, post-modern dance, contact improvisation, martial arts and etc. Mainly, I was training body movement by Crescent Moon Theatre and I took a class or workshop as well, such as a butoh dance, contact improvisation, martial arts, puppet making and manipulate, voice and soundscape and etc.

Currently, Ladda is developing a process towards performance for newborn to a toddler, sometimes called by the name “baby theatre”. It starts from about 7 years ago when I worked at Foundation for Children and I learn about how baby's brain works. When I studied more about it I found out theatre has the potential to develop it and I want to do it but at that time I have no idea how to do it. But in this few years, I met artists who worked on this topic and I learn from them a lot. I am not exactly ready because it's very new for me and in Thailand but I am ready to get started.

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(CURATOR) VIDURA AMRANAND is a contemporary dance artist and teacher based in Bangkok, Thailand. She has performed extensively with B-floor Theatre and has worked with director Thanapol Virulhakul since 2010. Vidura studied dance at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, USA and was a recipient of the danceWEB scholarship award at Vienna's International Dance Festival in 2011. In 2018, Vidura participated in the Southeast Asia Choreolab in Kuala Lumpur. She continues to teach and develop her movement practice in trance, visualization, and awareness. Since 2015, she’s been teaching creative movement to the elderly at Chulalongkorn Hospital’s Cognitive Fitness Center. In Project C, Vidura is involved in collaborating with and facilitating creative collaborations among people of diverse backgrounds.

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(CURATOR) Daniel Hayward (UK, 1975) trained as a dancer at the Rotterdam Dance Academy and worked around Europe over a 15-year period as performer, choreographer and dance writer. He is also founding member and artistic director of Dansgroep Mida. His relationship with Southeast Asia began in 2007 with a six-month residency at the Dance Centre School of Performing Arts, Bangkok. In 2015 he moved permanently to Thailand, combining work in the Arts with research and activism in land rights around the region, based at Chiang Mai University. While retaining a burning desire to create, Daniel hopes to support Project C through assisting new makers to find their voice and learn the craft of creation.

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(COORDINATOR) Filip Kijowski is an aspiring performance maker. He has completed a BA Dance Studies degree at Roehampton University, London 2018. Filip has a passion for community building. He sees dance as opportunity for people from all walks of life to share space. In order to nurture their need for self-expression and belonging. Filip’s contributions to community work involve, volunteering to facilitate creative movement based workshops at Rajaviti Home for girls in Bangkok. As well as volunteering at the “Ballet with Parkinson’s” programme at Ballet Boyz studios, Kingston London. Filip hopes to continue his studies at a Masters degree level in September 2019. MFA Choreography.

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PAST PROJECT C Workshop Topics in previous season 2018

held in Bangkok Thailand from Feb 2018-June 2018

curated by Spine Party Movement

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Vision board by Aure Lie
Grotowski physical theater by Aleksandar Isailovich
Body functionality by Yort Maireang
Puppet and Object theater by Ladda Kongdach
Dance improvisation and Visualization by Vidura Amranand and Ong Pholchai
Movement Play by Benjamin Joon (GER)
Stretching and ballet technique by Ingon Rinyapas
Hip-hop to Contemporary dance by Krid Prarom
African dance and theatre improvisation by Nitipat Ong Pholchai and Ideh Aboutalebi (IRAN)
Contact improvisation and Body Politics by Daniel Mang (NORWAY)
Mime by Champ Chatchawat,
Articulation and dynamics by Daniel Hayward
Soundscape by Ming Yu

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#projectcbkk

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