Fragile City: The Lament for a Metropolis
26 June 2009
Bangkok, Thailand 

By Pawit Mahasarinand

Three disparate productions find a common link in 'Fragile City'.

Director Pannatat Po-dhivejakul's "Fragile City: The Lament for a Metropolis" comprises three dance-theatre pieces that deal with the past, the present and utopia.

The first, "Namat Sattha", traces the legend behind Wao Sai, more commonly known as Kom Yee Peng, the Lanna tradition of launching floating lanterns into the night sky on the eve of Loy Krathong.

The second, "Pluak", was adapted from Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Sirindhorn's translation of Gunter Eich's radio play, and makes use of butoh dance.

"I feel that the movements of butoh [nicknamed dance of death] ably represents the many vices described in the German play," Pannatat says, "especially in contrast to the characters' creative movements. Finally, unfortunately, we yield to these dark forces."

The final piece is "Rai Iyara", inspired by a poem Pannatat came across by chance at Pantip.com.

"I was looking for the story of the White Elephant. I couldn't find one that was stage-worthy and almost gave up until I found this poem, written in 2002, called 'The Legend of White Elephant (Abridged)'."

The story is about the elephant travelling to the Himmapan forest, believed to be the land of ultimate happiness.

"On the way, though, because it's a white elephant, it was captured and turned into a royal elephant, used in wars. The poet wrote from the elephant's point of view and questioned why they had to kill each other."

All three works are quite different from one another, in terms of both content and style, the director says.

"When I put them all together, I realised they all deal with death. Then I saw a photo of the red-shirt riot, and immediately thought of another photo of His Majesty the King waving to hundreds of thousands of people in yellow shirts at the Royal Plaza.” 

"I wondered, 'What has happened to our country?' Then the connection between the three pieces made more sense." 

There are many dance and theatre troupes in Bangkok; and Arts Hub Group, the producer of “Fragile City”, is where some of them present their works under a different name. “Fragile City” are the works by two groups, Bangkok Troupers and Theatre of the East, yet artists from Butoh Co-Op Thailand, 8X8 Theatre, Bangplay Theatre, New City Collective, and Bangkok Artists Society also join in.

Some parts of 70-minute performance will be accompanied by video images as well as traditional Thai singing, performed live, although the main language of communication is physical movements and no Thai dialogues—a chance for foreign audiences to experience contemporary Thai dance theatre.