Onstage Dream

THE WELL | culture |

On-stage Dream

This month the curtains are all set to go up once again on Thailand’s biggest performing arts festival now in its 14th edition. Gavin Nazareth profiles the acts that will take to the stage at the Thailand Cultural Centre It all started as one man’s dream. A vision of filling “a serious gap in Bangkok’s cultural calendar,” making Thailand’s mark on the global cultural map, and educating a young Thai generation by making available to them performing arts they had long been deprived of.

In its 14th avatar this year, Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music is the largest annual performing arts festival in Thailand, introducing audiences to the arabesque and cabriole, the zapateado, the cadenza and coloratura, fado and flamenco, and everything in between.

It also brought opera to the Kingdom for the first time with the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera’s performance of La Bohème. And in the last 13 years, it has kept audiences spellbound with acts like Sydney Dance Company’s Ellitse, the Ramayana by Kalakshetra, Swan Lake by the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet, Sara Baras Ballet Flamenco, Portuguese fado singer Mariza, acclaimed maestro Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zurich Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Says festival founder and director, JS Uberoi, “I love classical ballets and operas, but one had to travel abroad to see one. I had also come to a realisation that most major cities in Europe had an annual arts festival. Even Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Macau had them. In Bangkok there was no such cultural initiative.”

Blaming the youth for not being interested in classical music, ballets and operas is all very well he says, but adds, “Have we given them the opportunities? When we launched this festival, one of our aims was to encourage the youth to attend it. Our endeavour was to influence them to explore beyond pop culture. Also when you bring the best shows to town, the local talent gets the opportunity to absorb, assimilate, innovate and even improve.”

This year the festival celebrates Her Majesty the Queen’s 80th birthday, and promises a variety of acts and performances that reflect the diversity that underpins the world of culture, from classic operas and ballets, to folk dances and illusionists.

278 – Prestige – september 2012

Staatsballett performs Swan Lake

september 2012 – Prestige – 279

THE WELL | culture |

Over the last two decades, the company has performed in the world’s greatest contemporary arts centres, especially in Europe, the United States and South America winning accolades and awards. In Bangkok, they will perform their latest production, and Rodovalho’s 22nd Up In The Mouth, an atmospheric piece that contrasts our ideals of paradise with the mundane realities of life symbolised by mouths accompanied by pulsating Brazilian rhythms; and So Close which questions the distance that exists between people.

Chappell, Kenny Wormald, Tommy Franzén, Lyle Beniga and Mike Song. Vibrant, energetic and innovative, it fuses all styles of hip-hop into one truly amazing show, or as the Financial Times called it, “the most blissfully energetic, sassy, to hell-with-everything-except-street-dance show.”

Virsky National Dance Company

Dance critic Rene Servin once wrote in La Figaro: “If there is a performance that you must see by all means, it is the national ballet of Ukraine, a prominent team which combines beauty, virtuosity and the joy of life….”

Famed for their brightly coloured costumes, unity of content and form, and the flamboyant embodiment of the stage concept, all 60 members of the troupe use the exquisite charm of their national folk dances to offer audiences a glimpse into the country’s history, customs, myths, songs, magic, costumes and the hardscrabble lives of its rural peasantry.

Started in 1937 by well-known ballet masters, Pavlo Virsky and Mykola Bolotov, the company came into its own under Virsky’s guidance from 1955 to 1975, maturing into a professional ensemble and wowing audiences worldwide with his exciting choreography. In 1980, his protégé Myroslav Vantukh, an expert in folk traditions and ethnography, took over and continued the creative genius along with the preservation and development of the folk choreographic art form.

Romantic, elevated and passionate, their diverse programme includes Ukraine, My Ukraine, a piece that unites all the different regions’ local colours, dances and customs into one amazing travel story; Povzunets, which celebrates the ingenuity, joy, courage and freedom of Zaporozhian Cossacks and their masterful dancing skills; and Podolyanochka, a sprightly dance of two young lovers imbued with graceful lyricism.

The Seven Kings

Few people will not remember the husky appeal and plaintive verse of The Gipsy Kings who introduced the world to rumba catalana or progressive pop-oriented flamenco with chart-toppers like Volare, Bamboleo or Baila Me. The group was made up of two bands of brothers: the Reyes (Nicolas, Canut, Paul, Patchai, Andre) and the Baliardos (Tonino, Paco, Diego), the offspring of Spanish gypsy families that had fled into France to escape the Spanish Civil War, working harvests and making music in the south of the country.

Jose, the father of the Reyes brothers and a famed flamenco singer, sang alongside guitarist Manitas de Plata, and the two did much to popularise the art form, counting the likes of John Steinbeck, Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Picasso, Miles Davis and Salvador Dali as fans. In the 1970s, the 280 – Prestige – september 2012

Orissa Dance Academy

two split up and Jose formed Los Reyes with his teenage sons. His death lead to the Reyes meeting their cousins the Baliardos at the St Marie de la Mer Gitan pilgrimage, where over the guitar, they shared songs and wine history was shaped. Initially they busked on the streets of Cannes and played at weddings and parties. The change in name came after an American tourist asked their name and origin, and exclaimed, “Oh, you are Gypsy Kings!” Their self-titled debut album in 1989 introduced the world to ‘rumba Gitano – the sound of South America’s rumba rhythm married to flamenco guitars, and spent 40 weeks on the charts; the track Bamboleo became a huge international hit.

The new reincarnation of The Seven Kings, comprising two of the original members along with plenty of new talent, continues to captivate audiences with their brand of ‘Spanish flamenco and Romani rhapsody meets salsa funk’.

Ramayana, or Ramakien as it is known in Thailand, is an ancient Indian epic that explores human values, and the concept of dharma has had a lasting impact culturally across Southeast Asia. For over 2,000 years, this timeless tale of good versus evil has been reinterpreted in Javanese shadow plays, Thai masked dramas and in Khmer dances. The Orissa Dance Company is a rare chance to see the original – dancers use all nine moods or rasas intrinsic in Indian classical dance to narrate an episode from Ramayana to live singing in Sanskrit. Founded in 1975 by Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, it is now led by Aruna Mohanty, one of the finest Odissi dancers on the sub-continent. Their enthralling performances in Canada, the UK, South America, Japan, China and the US received glowing reviews with the New York Times saying, “For a moment time stood still. The dancers of Orissa Dance Academy and the audience converged and came together in an ecstatic culmination of dance and music.”

Baltic National Dance Theatre

Young in comparison to some of the other companies at the festival, The Baltic National Dance Theatre has already been hailed as one to watch for contemporary European dance. For Bangkok, Artistic Director and Choreographer Izadora Weiss chose to perform their most shocking and spectacular success story, a modern-day rendition of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (focusing on violence against women) set to Stravinsky’s music as interpreted by the legendary Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel Orchestra, and a new work inspired by Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot, which combines philosophy in motion with cutting-edge music.

Blaze from the Netherlands

With a team that has worked with names like Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Missy Elliot, The Black Eyed Peas, Take That, Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson, you can expect a big night out with this dance troupe. Sixteen of the best street dancers from around the world, pop, lock, B-boy, robot and liquid in a multimedia spectacle, a non-stop dance show directed by Anthony Van Laast, who has worked on productions as diverse as Batman Live, Sister Act and Mamma Mia, and choreographed by the hottest names in streetdance today: Chris Baldock, Ryan

Quasar Dance Company

In a bid to break free from the academic straitjacket and develop their own style and rules, Vera Bicalho and Henrique Rodovalho founded this dance company in the Brazilian state of Goiás at the end of the ’80s. Leaping over the purely aesthetic relations of dance, they created their own language to explore contemporary issues and social problems. september 2012 – Prestige – 281

THE WELL | culture |

Spellbound Dance Company

As the leading interpreter of contemporary Italian dance language, Spellbound is constantly experimenting and evolving, using poetic, emotive and dynamic movements to show off their stylistic innovations. Founded in 1994 by choreographer Mauro Astolfi, a testament to their popularity is their winning over festival-sized crowds from Croatia and the United States, to North Korea and at the highly touted Venice Bienalle.

Performing their new interpretation of Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the Four Seasons, this Rome-based dance company combines multimedia effects with original music tracks for a riveting production guaranteed to astound.

LimÓn Dance Company

The first dance group to perform at the Lincoln Center, twice at The White House and the winner of the National Medal of Arts (USA), they are recognised as one of the world’s greatest dance companies and have been at the vanguard of American dance. Co-founder José Limón, sought to realise the vision he saw making it his life’s work: “I saw the dance as a vision of ineffable power. A man could, with dignity and towering majesty, dance… dance as Michelangelo’s visions dance and as the music of Bach dances.” Along with cofounder and choreographer Doris Humphrey, one of the pioneers of American modern dance, they electrified the dance world. To celebrate their 65th anniversary, they bring a programme that spans over six decades of their history and evolution as a dance company.

Staatsballett

Chelyabinsk State Opera Theatre and State Symphony Orchestra

Started in 1956 by Mikhail Glinka, the opera troupe is renowned for its mastery of Western operas and ballets, such as Cinderella, Peer Gynt and Romeo and Juliet. In 2007 and 2011, it was nominated for Russia’s most prestigious theatre awards, the Golden Mask, for such works as Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky and Lohengrin by Wagner. Its ranks, past and present, boast many distinguished performers who have been named ‘Honoured Artists’ and ‘People’s Artists of Russia’, including the Chief Conductor Antonin Grishanin, who has directed various orchestras in Russia as well as Deutsche Oper Berlin, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow.

The troupe will perform two much loved operas, Carmen and a version of Madame Butterfly, never before seen in Thailand and sure to delight fans with its unique perspective. The orchestra will take on three titans of classical music: Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet on Shakespeare by P. Tchaikovsky; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninov; Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 From the New World.

282 – Prestige – september 2012

Revered as the top classical ballet company of Germany, the Staatsballett Berlin or the State Ballet of Berlin was formed when the former ballet companies of the country’s three state-run opera houses were merged into a single entity. Vladimir Malakhov, one of the ballet world’s most famous personalities, was appointed as the artistic director and entrusted with preserving a tradition dating back to 1794 when the country’s first ballet company was founded, one that the likes of Étienne Lauchery, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, Tatiana Gsovsky and Tom Schillinf were part of.

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Germany and Thailand, the 120-member dance troupe, consisting of many award-winning and gold medallist dancers and accompanied by 72 musicians, will perform their take on the classic Swan Lake.

BBC’s The Planet Earth Live in Concert

This production juxtaposes multi-award-winning conductor and composer George Fenton’s remarkable score with a stunning high-definition documentary on the Earth’s battle for survival shown on a screen behind the musicians.

Filmed for BBC’s The Planet Earth series, it took five years in production, over 2,000 days in the field, using 40 cameramen filming across 200 locations. This is the ultimate portrait of our planet, from the towering peaks of Nepal, to the lush green of the Amazon, interspersed with African deserts and polar icecaps. It premiered in London last year and this is their first performance in Asia.

Tango Legends by Mariela Maldonado & Pablo Sosa

Peter Marvey

In one memorable performance witnessed by 40,000 people, this Swiss illusionist conjured up a ‘phantom wedding coach’ pulled by seven white horses and escorted by a retinue of fairies, all attired in white with enormous wings.

On par with contemporaries like David Copperfield and Siegfried & Roy, Peter Marvey has twice won the Merlin Award from the International Magicians Society, as well as the Golden Magic Wand, which was presented to him by Prince Albert of Monaco for the best magic show at the 1996 Grand Prix of Monaco. He promises Vegas-style razzmatazz with sleight-of-hand and over-the-top illusions.

With its birth in the working-class heart of Buenos Aires, tango has conquered the whole world with it sensuality, beauty and soul-moving body language. It has transcended cultural boundaries, rising from local phenomenon to global fixture, a fact underlined when UNESCO declared it Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.

Two of the dance form’s leading lights, Mariela Maldonado and Pablo Sosa have performed in some of the best tango shows, undertaken extensive world tours and received rave reviews from international media.

Their show Tango Legends puts on stage the grand legends and history of this dramatic dance form with a group of 12 awardwinning dancers, a remarkable quintet ViceVersa (piano, contrabass, bandoneon, violin and electric guitar) and a skilful singer.

Tickets for the shows are available from ThaiTicketMajor at thaiticketmajor.com; Hotline: 02 262 3191 september 2012 – Prestige – 283