Project name: Embodied Movement: Workshops and Performances
Funder/Sponsor: Self-funded
Collaborator: E-Lerng Artist Group and independent international artists
Year: 2017
Project type: Workshop; ART; Performance
Background
In late 2017, Openspace strengthened its link with the Wat Care Nang Lerng community in the old city of Bangkok through a series of movement workshops and dance performances.
Embodied Movement: Workshops and Performances
Embodied Movement: Workshops and Performances took place over several days in November 2017 at Wat Nang Lerng, the Buddhist temple at the heart of the community, which is also its most important landmark.
The workshops brought together the E-Lerng Artist Group, an artist collective within the Nang Lerng community, and five renowned artists from Asia and Australasia: Tony Yap (Australia/Malaysia), Agung Gunawan (Indonesia), Takashi Takiguchi (Japan), Benjamin Allen (Australia), and Mike Hornblow (Australia/New Zealand).
The two workshops – run by Tony and Mike – were open to the public, and drew a crowd from both within and outside the community. They focused on movement as a form of expression, and on enabling participants to express their sensory engagement with the local environment, becoming aware of themselves as embodied beings, and to each other as a community.
The artists chose embodied movement as a good fit for this community as:
it does not require any previous dance experience or any kind of aptitude; that means that it is open to all, irrespective of age, body type and athletic ability
it is very place-specific: the performances use and depend upon the environment, and therefore extremely respectful of both the physical place and the people who inhabit it
The workshops were followed by performances by the guest artists on two separate days. The performances drew from psychophysical traditions focusing on the space between the physical and the emotional. The artists engaged with several sites, some that the local community may even feel fearful about, like the dark corner near the columbarium from where Takashi emerged pulled on a cart. The performances invited the audience to experience their environment in a new way, and are a preamble to a future relationship between the artists and community members. This event is followed by the Buffalo Field event in 2018.
This is the third event organised by the E-Lerng Artist Group; these aim to bring attention to the community through collaboration with other artists, as well as engaging the local community and youth, who often feel disenfranchised.
To read more about Openspace’s collaborations with Nang Lerng, please view the following projects: The Dancing House 1, The Dancing House 2, The Dancing House 3, The Dancing House 4 and Re Tu De. To read more about this event, please visit our blog.
