Project name: Buffalo Field Festival 2019
Funder/Sponsor: Self-funded / Arizona State University
Collaborator: E-Lerng artists group; Mike Hornblow; International artists
Year: 2019
Project type: Workshop; Art; Performance; Embodied Movement; Community Development; Community Festival
Background
Buffalo Field Festival is the joint effort of community leaders P’Dang and Nammon Welployngam, Ploy Yamtree and Mike Hornblow. Now in its third year, the Festival keeps growing and becoming increasingly rooted in the reality and life of Nang Lerng.
In 2019, the Festival included 17 artists from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the United States and Thailand, as well as artists from within the community. The Festival consisted of two workshops, a one-hour performance in different shophouses and two final performances in the Wat Care temple area.
The Buffalo Field Festival 2019 workshops
On the Festival weekend, we held two workshops: a Javanese Elemental Dance Workshop with Agung Gunawan on November 30th and a Contemplative Trance Workshop with Agus Riyanto and Tony Yap on December 1st.
Javanese Elemental Dance Workshop
Agung Gunawan is a classical trained court dancer from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with a wide array of experience in both traditional and contemporary dance. He has danced around the world and is widely recognised as a Master Javanese Dancer.
Agung took participants on an exploration of understanding their own body through the methodology he has established over many years: Breathing - wind giving breath; Listening - wind whispering to the ear; Sensing - wind touching your skin; Floating - wind rocking you like a cradle. Each of those elements are integrated with his understanding of Srimpi dance philosophy and historical contexts. Participants are guided to grasp and bodily experience the meaning of the 'four requirements to perfect the art of Javanese court dance' through this process; Sawiji - (concentration of mind), Greget - (enthusiasm and consciousness), Sengguh - (self-confidence), and Ora Mingkuh - (no surrender).
Contemplative Trance Workshop
Agus Riyanto revived the extinct traditional art of Bull-trance (Bantengan) 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. Mas Agus is a shaman and a proficient painter, and is highly respected in East Java for his deep understanding and work in trance performance, which he has also incorporated into contemporary experimentation.
Tony Yap 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. His PhD research at Melbourne University explored states of trance, informed by South-East Asian mediumship, devotional traditions and performance practices. Tony is the founding Creative Director of MAP Festival in Melacca, Malaysia.
Together, the pair run the Contemplative Trance Workshop which led participants to experience the sensitive relationship between internal and external states of bodily awareness. By shifting between different states of seeing, participants were led to explore how their perception of reality, their surroundings and their emotional state was altered by shifting their visual focus outwardly or inwardly. In groups of two, the participants then explored states of trance, with music and guidance from Mas Agus and Tony.
The shophouse performances
During Local Studio, the social fabric group found valuable local experts within the Nang Lerng community, on Paniang street and some of the backstreets. These included a butcher, a tailor, a bike repairer, a luggage repairman and a barber. These experts came into focus once again during the shophouse performances where select artists interacted both with the experts and their shophouses.
Tony Yap kickstarted the one-hour mobile performance by dancing at the front of the tailor’s shophouse. Kiki Ando then performed at the barber’s shophouse, giving him a haircut. The moving vegetable cart led by Annmanee Singhanart brought the crowd to the other side of the street, where Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit and Steve Loo performed with the butcher. Mike Hornblow crawled past them on the street, leading us to the luggage repair shophouse. And lastly, Kien Faye closed the performance at the bike repair shophouse.
These performances were rooted in the realities of Nang Lerng, not just for their location but also because they highlighted the centrality of shophouses and small, local businesses for people living in communities in the old town of Bangkok, and across Thailand.
The Buffalo Field Festival 2019 evening performances
The Festival culminated in two evening performances on the grounds of the Wat Care Nang Lerng temple.
On the first night, Kornkamol Welployngam and Kanya Tippayosot launched the evening with a Chatri performance, rooted in the artistic tradition of Nang Lerng. Adam Forbes succeeded them for a solo performance. Tony Yap and Brendan O Connor then followed for an emotional duet piece. Kien Faye danced next, after paying respect to the columbarium wall that surrounds the space. Agus Riyanto closed the day with a shamanistic performance, including day one artists.
On the second day, Saowakhon Muangkruan, Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit, and Annmanee Singhanart, opened the show with a cello, electronic music performance and experimental percussion. They were then joined by Ladda Phueng Kongdach, moving into her solo with an old table. Kiki Ando and Takashi Takiguchi then danced together, in a show with humorous links to Japanese culture. The Thai dance ensemble Spine Movement Party took the stage for an immersive dance, followed by a compelling solo with mask work by Agung Gunawan. The musicians returned in collaboration with Mike Horblow and local community participants, using old bottles from the local clinic as sound props. Agus Riyanto’s shamanistic performance closed the festival by ushering in a final group improvisation joined by artists from both the first and second day programs.
