Now in its third year, Buffalo Field Festival is growing
Artists from around the world are joined by Thai artists for two days of dance and performance art in Nang Lerng – a vibrant community in the old town of Bangkok.
Openspace’s long standing collaboration with the Nang Lerng culminated in the creation of the Buffalo Field Festival where artists from around the world perform in the community. The festival is organised in association with Mike Hornblow (New Zealand) and the E-Lerng Artists Collective from within the community.
This year, we are joined by 17 artists – Thai, international and even from within the community – for two days of workshops and performances.
The workshops will be run by Agung Gunawan (Indonesia) on Saturday 30 November 2019 and Tony Yap (Malaysia-Australia) with Agus Rianto (Indonesia) on Sunday 1 December 2019. They are open to people of all ages and abilities and require no previous movement or dance training. The artists will lead you to explore your body and surroundings in a guided and engaging way. The workshops cost 400 THB per person each (free for community members), and can be paid on the day.
The performances will take place on those two evenings in different locations around Nang Lerng. For the first time, some of the performances will take place in traditional shophouses – giving you an inside look into the life of the community. Both performances are free. For more information, please visit our Facebook event.
To learn more about the artists, explore their profiles below:
Kiki Ando (Japan)
Kiki Ando was born in Shizuoka in central Japan. Having grow up in the area of Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan, and Suruga bay, the deepest bay in Japan between 7000m, naturally affects her unique character and her eye for creativity. She studied fashion design while live in an art gallery, experimenting in both fashion and art and she agrees that art and fashion are really not that different. She started practicing Butoh dance and contemporary dance in Jawa, Indonesia - after working as a costume designer, now she is dancing herself. She lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Adam Forbes (Australia)
Adam Forbes is a Melbourne based dancer and performer. He is interested in structures and contexts that allow authenticity to arise within, and between, performer and audience. Adam has worked with Melbourne based Malaysian dancer/director Tony Yap since 1994 on theatre-based and site specific work. Adam has created several site-specific solo dance works for MAPing projects in Malaysia and Australia and Indonesia’s Arts Island Festival. Adam’s creative philosophy and aesthetics are informed by his work as a counsellor and therapist, musicality, and activist spirit. are He also collaborates with musicians and performs with socially engaged theatres including Makhampom and Free Theatre.
Saowakhon Muangkruan (Thailand)
Yui-Saowakhon Muangkruan is a cellist based in Nakhonpathom, Thailand. She is known as someone who tells her story through her instrument. The Yui Cello phenomenon, as she explains, takes inspiration from society matters, other’s life experiences and her life. The text she composes unfolds like poetry while she cajoles her instrument with decisive strikes and loops, bringing out the multi-layered lyricis Yui was invited to present her ideas at TEDx in Chiang Mai and participated in the Y2K14 International Looping Festival in Bangkok, Asian Meeting Festival 2015 in Japan, FEN 2015 in Singapore,migration music festival 2017 in Taiwan.collaboration with Koichi Shimizu for Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's latest film "Samui Song".
Tony Yap (Malaysia-Australia)
Tony Yap, Malaysian born, is an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and visual artist. He has been a leading figure in inter-cultural discourse and received Asialink residential grants in 2005, and 2008 and a Dance fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts. He was also the winner for the Best Male Dancer with the Green Roon Awards. , Tony is the founding Creative Director of MAP Fest.
Agung Gunawan (Indonesia)
Agung Gunawan studied the classical court dance of Yogyakarta in Surya Kencana under Ibu Kada. He explored other traditional dance styles such as Sumatranese, Betawian and Kalimantan with Bagong Kusudiharjo and contemporary dance with the broad range of multi-disciplinary artists.
After having started working as a solo and independent dancer, he worked in many projects nationally and internationally, and has performed in Australia, the United States, Europe and across Asia. He is recognised internationally as a Master Javanese dancer. Along with his solo artistic career, he started teaching dance and art education to school aged children with his life and artistic partner, Deasylina da Ary in Pelem, Pacitan, East Java since 2008. Currently, he is a co-director of the art education school, Sampang Agung Centre for Performing Arts (the SACPA) with Deasylina.
Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit (Thailand)
Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit has been a professional actor, music composer, and sound designer since 1997. He graduated from Chulalongkorn University in the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Department of Music with a major in music composition. He has been working with Artists in The Theatre field and founded a group named Noisetheatre to create his own work.
Brendan O’Connor (Ireland)
Brendan O’Connor, Irish born, received his accreditation as a professional performer in The Netherlands, and has since settled in Melbourne. He graduated in dance at the College of Dance, Monkstown, was accepted to the Laban Centre London and the Fontys Dance Academy in the Netherlands. A trip to Ghana found his interest in strong and psycho-physical direction in his consequent connection his work in the slums of New Delhi.
Spine Party Movement (Thailand)
Spine Party Movement exists primarily for its members to develop an enduring/endearing practice in movement research and improvisation. As a group and in collaboration with artists of other disciplines, Spine Party creates scores and patterns that make juicy, resonant dances. The vocabulary is informed by contemporary and post-modern dance approaches, contact improvisation, martial arts, and deep sea creatures.
Spine Party is committed to sharing movement with Thailand’s dance community where the group hopes to work, eat and play with others.
Cast:
เจได ธีระพงศ์ ปานเด Jedi Teerapong Panday
วัชราพร สุขสมวงศ์ Watcharaporn Suksomwong
แมน ศุภธัช บุตรครุฑ Man Suppatuch Budkrut
มีมี่ย์ วรารมย์ ทวิวรดิลก Mimie Tav
พชรกฤษณ์ โตอิ้ม Podcharakrit To-Im
ฟ้าใส ทรัพย์นิรันดร์ Fasai Sapnirund
ปรานต์ ลิ้มชื่นใจ Pran Limchuenjai
Agus Rianto (Indonesia)
In 2007 Agus Riyanto revived the traditional art of Bull-trance (Bantengan) that had been extinct in the city of Batu, East Java. He is the founding director of the supreme Bantengan Trance Carnival, Nuswantara Joyo in collaboration with the Arts Island Festival 2008-2014. He achived Awards for bull-trances and bull whips in Batu since 1985. Mas Agus is a sharman and a proficient painter. Agus is highly respected in East Java for his deep understanding and work in trance performances and have lately incorporate it in contemporary experimentations with great success working with Agung Gunawan and Tony Yap in Melaka and Melbourne in ‘8 Men’ with performers from varied international backgrounds. Recently performed in Buffalo Field Festival, Bangkok and in Shadow’s Light as part of the Mapping Melbourne program December, 2018.
Takashi Takaguchi (Japan)
Takashi Takiguchi is a Japanese born, Australian dancer and producer based in Melbourne, Australia. Takashi has worked with diverse groups of socially disadvantaged people as a qualified social worker over the decade, and currently he is actively involved with community engagement projects in the arts within Australia and abroad. His unique background, having no formal arts degree or industry experience until the age of 38, has contributed bold and refreshing ideas for the creation of new art projects for non-artist communities with the wisdom and experience of acclaimed art practitioners in the era of 'everyone can be an artist'. Recent projects include: ButohOUT! Festival (Melbourne: 2017, 2018 and 2019) co-produced with YumiUmiumare; Pelem Festival as an operation manager (Indonesia: 2016, 2018 & 2020) with Agung Gunanwan; Melaka Art & Performance Festival as an artistic collaborator (2016, 2017 and 2018) with Tony Yap.
Nammon Welployngam (Thailand)
Narawat Welployngam (Nammon) is a Thai artist, project director, community developer and networker, cook and collector. She is the owner and artist in residence of Baan NangLerng Community Space and . She is the founder of E-Lerng Artist Collective, a non-profit organisation in Nang Lerng, and of Community Lab. She has a Masters of Arts in Life and Death Studies and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Chulalongkom University. She was born and raised in Nang Lerng.
Mike Hornblow (New Zealand)
Mike Hornblow is an interdisciplinary artist and arts manager, and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Design at the University of Tasmania. Before UTAS, he spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Concordia University (Montreal), after completing his PhD at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Mike has a broad background across videomaking, public art, performance, and design, including presentations at Melbourne Festival and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (Sydney, Vancouver, and Hong Kong). He has a long history of creative work in South East Asia, including performing and co-curating at Melaka Festival (Malaysia), festivals and art residencies across Indonesia (with Asialink and the Australia Indonesia Institute), training with dance choreographers in Japan (Min Tanaka, Kazuo Ohno, Ko Murobushi), as well as co-founding Buffalo Field with Openspace and the E-Lerng Artist Group in Bangkok.
Kanya Thipyosot (Thailand)
Kanya Tippayosot (Kru Ja) is the most experienced Chatri Performer in Bangkok. She was born in Nang Lerng. She has been a Chatri Performer Phoon Ruangoon since she was 7 years and will continue to perform until she draws her last breath.
Kien Faye (Malaysia)
Lee Kien Fei (FAYE) is an independent performing artist and a fruit crops grower. Faye completed his Bachelor of Creative Arts (Drama) in Deakin University Melbourne. He is working closely and collaborating with artists and mentors Tony Yap, Agung Gunawan, Agus Riyanto & Takashi Takiguchi, exploring and creating works that are informed by psycho-physical, Javanese Skilled Improvisation, Asian Shamanistic Trance Dance, Butoh, Voice & Visual.
Kornkamol Welployngam (Thailand)
Kornkamol Welployngam is the Chatri Performance Heir. She was born in Nang Lerng. She had no basic skill of Ram (Thai Dancing) when she started learning from Auntie Kanya when she was 10 years old. She hopes to be the heir of the Chatri Performance and inspire the next generation, just like Auntie Kanya did with her.
Maneerut Singhanart
Maneerut Singhanart is a sound designer for live performances, working both in Thailand and overseas. She focuses on the intersection of the story, atmosphere and the feelings of the actors as it occurs at every moment.
Maneerut is the founder of the Ting A Tong Group, a performance group that tells stories through sound and music, using toys and children’s musical instruments as tools to communicate and convey stories.
Her hands are always using percussions, often using rhythmic instruments from different tribes and countries around the world to accompany their music.
Ladda Kongdach
Ladda Kongdach is an actress, performer, puppeteer and director at Crescent Moon Theatre since 2010. Crescent Moon Theatre is one of the highly active contemporary theatres in Thailand for more than 40 years.She has also been a core member of Spine Party Movement since 2015. Ladda is trained in body movement, theatre and puppeteering by Sineenadh Keitprapai, the artistic director of Crescent Moon Theatre. A few years ago, she started training in Butoh with Yuko Kawamoto through the Asia Butoh Tree Project. Ladda has also been an artist in residence and has collaborated with artists from all around South East Asia and Germany.
Festival Program
Saturday 30 November
14.00-16.00 Javanese Elemental Dance Workshop with Agung Gunawan
Location: Wat Soonthorn Thammathan (Wat Care Nang Lerng), Phaniang road
17.00-18.00 Shophouse Performances
Location: Gathering point Wat Soonthorn Thammathan (Wat Care Nang Lerng), Phaniang road
19.00-20.45 Buffalo Field Festival Performances Day 1
Location: Wat Soonthorn Thammathan (Wat Care Nang Lerng), Phaniang road
Sunday 1 December
14.00-16.00 Contemplative Trance Workshop with Agus Riyanto and Tony Yap
Location: Wat Soonthorn Thammathan (Wat Care Nang Lerng), Phaniang road
19.00-20.45 Buffalo Field Festival Performances Day 2
Location: Wat Soonthorn Thammathan (Wat Care Nang Lerng), Phaniang road
