Creating a community for everyone
Audience’s Question: Can you talk about the Queer Art Theatre Festival?
The first Bangkok Queer Theatre Festival was held two years ago. It was produced by SUN Dance Theatre and hosted a variety of Queer theatres and dances to celebrate the diversity of contemporary Thai and LGBT societies. The next one will be held around May 2017 and Thong Lor Art Space will get attached to the project as a co-producer.
We can also support the production of projects for 2017 and can offer our space and a percentage of ticket sales for artists. We are keen to work with overseas artists. I am trying to bring East Asian artists over to collaborate with European and American artists in Bangkok. I believe in making collaborations and building a network.
If you want to bring your performance to our country and need support for grant documentation, we can provide assistance. We want to create a community that you can come and be a part of.
The art scene in Bangkok is really active, we have the physical theater troupe called B-Floor travels around the world. We have Democrazy Theatre that will come to perform here at STORE HOUSE Collection Thailand-Week, the next festival after TPAM. We have Crescent Moon Theatre, which is the last long historic contemporary theater troop in Thailand.
Lots of people want to work with the foreign community. We like to be the gateway to Bangkok and I will be really glad to introduce you to the Bangkok art scene.
About the censorship in Thailand
Audience’s Question: Can you talk about performance and censorship in Thailand – what can you put on stage?
The censorship in Thailand is quite strict but artists still have their own way to express or communicate to the society.
We try to work around it and produce a piece that talks about censorship but doesn’t get in trouble. There is only really censorship when talking about politics. If there is nudity or something else, we just make the performance for over 18s and there are no problems. We still have some freedom and in the case of foreigners, I don’t think that the government is going to take it seriously.
Finally, last year I attended TPAM with the support of the Japan Foundation Asia Center and I’d like to say thank you to TPAM for encouraging me to do Low Fat Art Festival. Thank you very much.
