Creating an international arts festival as a bridge between Bangkok and the world

TLAS – An art space in Bangkok

I’m Wasurat Unaprom (Leon) from Bangkok. My space is called Thong Lor Art Space and it is located in the heart of Bangkok near the Thong Lor Station for the Skytrain.

I will talk about three topics: how Thong Lor Art Space functions and our goals; Low Fat Art Festival; and finally, the artist-in-residence program that we manage.

I will now give a short presentation about Thong Lor Art Space. Our space is 5th floor building, quite secret and can’t easily be seen from the street. You enter the space from behind a building. It is a private space that is supported by sponsorship.

The first floor is Thong Lor Playhouse. It is an 8m x 8m space with very high ceilings and can fit an audience of around 80 seats. This is a teaser (short video) from Cocktails the Musical, a recent performance by a soloist and a pianist. The art library cafe is on the second floor and is the main entrance to the building.

Teaser: Cocktails The Musical - I'm ready by Pchy

The third floor is a small studio room with a low ceiling – we call it a Performance Laboratory for new performing art. There is a white space that is quite small and can be used as a gallery or for site-specific performances. The rooftop is where we invite people who like raw and abandoned spaces to do something experimental.

Seeking artists for Low Fat Art Festival 2016

We mainly focus on collaboration. Each year we do at least twelve productions, so there is one show per month. We normally have one festival a year, but we plan to hold the 2nd Bangkok Queer Festival in 2017 too. The other festival is Low Fat Art Festival, which I mentioned earlier.

For last year’s festival we invited two productions from Japan, one from Korea, one from Myanmar and one from the Philippines. We then introduced them to Thai artists to develop works together.

Low Fat Art Festival is a one-month festival that focuses on theater, performing art, visual art and short films. The festival started with the idea of creating a platform for artists from different countries and cultures to collaborate on original performance pieces. It focuses on compact productions rather than huge ones, and believes that proximity will benefit in efficient communication, not limited to artists, but artists to audiences, culture to culture.

This year the festival will happen in November. We still have an open call for anyone interested in joining us for the festival. Please send us your proposal and we will consider which Thai artists you may be able to collaborate with. We also invite artists to make full productions that help make the Bangkok art scene more active. We are a small space with not much money, so we can only provide accommodation and production space for your stay. However, everything in Bangkok is quite cheap and so it’s not expensive to stay there.

The last part is our residency program. We began hosting artists last year for the Low Fat Art Festival.

For the residency we have three large bedrooms, a large living room for rehearsals and a garden for smoking. Last year we hosted Caesar’s Strategic Loneliness from Mikuni Yanaihara Project. Also, the Daloy Dance Company from the Philippines also stayed with us. Daloy Dance Company is an independent contemporary dance company led by choreographer Ea Torrado. They push the boundaries of dance, theater, performance and improvisation.

Audience’s Question: How many artists will you select for the 2016 festival?

It closes on May 31 and we will select 7 groups for the festival. Last year the Japanese director Yasuhito Yano came with about 7 people and another group came with 5 people. We can also provide technical support so you don't need to bring a technician.

Providing a program for children and families

Audience’s Question: What is the discipline of the annual program that you manage outside the festival?

We have two mainstream productions each year: for example, comedy or classical ones. This year we are doing Fly with me, Free breakfast! which is an adaption of the French comedy Boeing Boeing. Besides that we do experimental productions in the small space like An epilogue to the malady of death that was adapted from the Marguerite Duras piece.

We also do children's theater. In August last year we did The Little Prince with human puppets and actors – it was very successful. We would like to bring it to TPAM Showcase next year. This year we will do Tik Tok of Oz, the recital prose. We have a month of family programs and workshops. Last year we did a shadow puppet workshop for the whole family. The children made their own puppet to take to the show.

We also do short film projection of experimental or inspirational films. We are grateful if anyone would like to show a film in our space.

We also do some gigs and music. The next gig will be held from 24 March to 4 April. It is called Suk Ka Sak Ka Raj and will feature Yui Cello, who is quite popular in Thailand. She selected ten songs and has invited different artists such as an illustrator, dancer and playwright to join her for each one. She will talk also about her story and music.