 two seagull talks at the Martinese seagull, theaters in the Graduate Center CUNY, the great Graduate Center CUNY in Midtown Manhattan. And it's a nice warm day here after those long cold Mays. We now have almost tropical temperatures here in New York City. And it just shows how fast things do change. And also, there is some sense of optimism in this city, some sense of opening, some sense that a catastrophe has been, for many, at least, avoided and that things are clearing up. But still, everything is close when it comes to the performing arts, almost everything, even so things are happening in parks and some small spaces. But announcements are pouring in the long emails that we all of us get now every morning. And but we still think, what is going to happen? What should happen? We hear the Michael Jackson musical will come back on Broadway. But is that really what we need? Is that the lesson we learned? Is it the first thing? What is important and what is not? What gives us meaning? And what have we learned of that time? And all these people who died also in our city, what have they died for? If we do not create a better world, something that works, forms that are right for the moment we live in. And as Bertolt Brecht said, and that's our motto here, new times do need new forms of theater. And if this is not a new time, we are in now, whatever. Whatever would it be? And if art has something to say, it is actually now. So we have listened around the world from the Uwe Festspiele and Teatro de Welt in Germany from the Edinburgh Festival. We have heard from France and so many countries. And today we have a very special guest and of a very important scene we do not know enough about. And it is really our fault. I think we should know more about it. It is important. It's so innovative. It's new. It is full of energy. It's the Asian region where no forms have been emerging even before the times of Corona. But even now, I think a lot of things are happening there that we should know about. And with us we have an expert, someone who works in the field, who observes the field, who knows the field and will give us a little insight in that short time we have together. And it is Sassapin Sirivanij and welcome. Where are you? What time is it? Hello, Frank. I am in Bangkok and it's 11 p.m. and two minutes here in Thailand. Wow, 11 p.m. that sounds, it sounds late. It is. Yeah, it is usually Zoom time. It has become more usual, you know, after all this like Zoom era where you work across time zones all the time, it becomes all weird. Sometimes I end up feeling like I worked 24 hours in order to meet people from every corner of the world. So, yeah. Wow, that's something we all share now, as we always said, between somehow or for a moment our world got so small. It was just our apartments and the view out of the window, the view artists often do, actually, whether they are photographers or painters. And but we were globally connected at the same time. So we still have to find out what it all really means, what has changed in our minds. And certainly tectonic plates have been shifting. And there are cracks. And as someone said, if there are no earthquakes, there are no shifting of those plates. There are also no mountains. So we will see what mountains emerged and what islands disappeared. Let me tell you all a little bit more about Sassapin. And again, thank you really for joining us. It's a big honor to have you with us. She is a master in English. And she got her degree in the faculty of arts. Interestingly, right? Yeah. Of Ischada Langkorn. This is a very important place in Bangkok. And she's a core member of what is known as the B Floor Theater. And she's a performer, director, end producer. And for over a decade, she has worked in performance practices with a special interest in social critique, we would say, socially engaged art and personal and social empowerment. She has a very important role. She is the artistic director of the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting, BIPEM, since 2018. So she had a little bit of time before the crisis struck and she has co-founded a network of Thai performing arts producers. It's called PUTPEN. And at the site or at the center, we don't really know yet. Of course, she's an independent theater artist and she produces tours and brings people together. Wow, what an amazing, amazing job you have. What you already did in your live is so impressive. Thank you for being such a great worker in our field. And thanks to Jeanette Souyatmoko, who helped us to put together. He said, you really have to talk to her if you want to be taken serious in your single talks. I said, OK, why not anytime. I did not know that one. Yeah, so here we are. And tell us a little bit about your work. Well, so I think it's kind of like a two-phase development of my life up until this moment in terms of my work in performing arts. I started out being a performer and I belong to B-Float Theater. I still belong to B-Float Theater, but I was much more just a performer and more an artist doing the just kind of exclusively the creative work. But then more and more I start to take up the sense of or maybe the curiosity about development of the scene of the people that I love working with and like to kind of imagine and having questions about the future and the foundation and infrastructure and all this. So being in this small but really vibrant scene of independent theater community in Bangkok, like many others, we take up a lot of hats at the same time. So it's it's not like you can only be an artist. You always have to going to be, you know, you're going to be doing something else, you know, at the same time as well. So wearing many hats like this is common for a lot of people. And for people who kind of have a make for managing and administering, then you also take up like managerial tasks along the way. And I think that's how I step slowly into this kind of, you know, more production and producing and managing side of things in the theater world as well. So now I'm more the weight is more on the producing side now, but I still have my artistic side as well. So that's kind of how I become me, I guess, at the moment. Yeah, correct. And I think we are also discovering more and more he or being reconfirmed. That is a good thing that artists also theater workers who practice theater also I would administrate or often they are the ones also who created things here in the time of Corona. They felt the urgency to be there also for their colleagues because they are one of them. So they see differently in a way that is helpful for us like the Kaufman Center here in New York City and the Baruchnikov Art Center, you know, places that were really active also artists led. You've been the leader of Bipam in that time of crisis of Corona. Tell us a little bit. When did it start? What happened? The crisis. It's quite interesting because 2020 was supposed to be our gap year because at first we wanted to move from having our event at the end of the year to beginning of the year. So we did our 2019 version in November and we wanted to move to March. So we're like, OK, let's skip the next year and then we wait for the next March. So in 2020, we were trying to just plan for 2021, actually. And then Corona hit and then we found that it was getting absurd when we had a meeting trying to plan for 2021, not knowing what 2021 is going to mean or even the 2020 that we were experiencing at the moment. We didn't know what it meant. And so after I think I remember after four meetings, I think with our artistic board, we were thinking like, what are we doing? We don't really know where this is going. So maybe let's just drop the idea about future planning and let's see what we need in this moment. What are the actual questions that we wanted to ask at the moment? And then we found that our wish was so simple, it was really just wanting to know how our friends were doing. Because at that point, BiPEM has already become, according to some close colleagues in BiPEM and other Southeast Asian country, they have said that it feels like a home. Like we are this place where, you know, Southeast Asian colleagues and practitioners can come and they feel like, OK, they're home with their colleagues that they know really well and they're familiar with this feeling. So by that time in 2020, we were already having friends in the region. So we're not just reaching out to like, you know, speakers or artists, but it's really about friends. So this question came along that, what are our friends doing? How are they feeling in this crisis? Because of course, each country is going to be dealing with the crisis in very, very different ways. And unfortunately, you know, a region like Southeast Asia, a country like Thailand and many others in the region, we were already facing infrastructure problems and obstacles and whatnot in our country. So this crisis just kind of added on to all that. And we wonder how this played out in different countries in the region who are our friends. So actually, this became what I saw then was a very, very ambitious project. We decided then to organize under the C series, C with SEA in capital, which is Southeast Asia. Of course, we wanted to take that element of little mermaid under the sea a little bit to make it kind of catchy as a name. Anyway, under the C was a webinar series over 11 Saturdays. And we talked to each Southeast Asian country on each week. So it's 11 countries and 11 weeks total. Tell us all the countries, just for us to know. Let's see, let me tell so I don't miss anyone. So of course we have Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, Cambodia, and Laos and Myanmar. So all those. And it was pretty amazing for us because at first I didn't know that we could get a hold of all these countries together. It was an ambition that we set for ourselves. But I didn't really know whether we would be successful in contacting people from all these countries and managed to put them in the same schedule like that. But we did. And we were proud of it. And it was really a joy to reach out to friends and see, have this overview of the region, how everybody was doing, and even have access to some countries that we never got to know before. I think kind of like the same idea that we're talking now. We just wanted to kind of be connect to the place where we thought might not be possible if we only thought about physical meetings. But with this kind of coming of online platforms and disruption, then a lot of other things become possible. And that was an amazing webinar. We were dubbed as kind of the funnest COVID webinar because we talked a little less about serious things and we went into the personal and we had formats like games and, you know, we have drinks with you. And if you say this forbidden word, then you take a sip of the drink and, you know, we're trying to keep it casual and fun and friendly so that we can really feel the person who's talking, not just about the ideas and topics that are being discussed. Yeah, yeah, that is really great. You provided that platform that brought you together. And how did the community do in the time of Corona? How were they suffering? Well, there we hear so many different reports, of course, from Asian countries. No cases, that's more or less. So how did the arts community survive? What were the reports? I must say first that it's a little bit different now that we're in 2021. But back in 2020, at the end of Under the Sea, it was a good sense that we connected that then I could feel a sense of a little bit of loneliness, almost empty sometimes in some places because everything has to be shut down. We didn't know what to do. We didn't know how it would go on. And like I said, that we were already facing infrastructural problems of art supports and, you know, cultural and art policies in our country. So we would be the last to be considered, to be seen, to be thought of by the bigger structures of the country. Artists are not really, you know, officially recognized. So when you talk about art relief funds, that's something that's like pretty much it existed around here. So that's kind of the things we were dealing with and artists were trying to find their own ways. And a lot of people turn that energy into some more other creative projects in whatever little capacity that they could do. And and things like that. Yeah, so I could feel that everybody was trying hard to adapt to do whatever they could, but I really saw that we were working within very limited spaces. So you can put a lot of energy out there, but then somehow you might hit a wall and then there's only so much you could do within this type box, I think. And now into 2021. In Thailand, it's very confused at the moment. So and I don't know if it's as confused, you know, in other, our neighboring countries, but in Thailand is already so confused that it's hard to even absorb or, you know, receive information from other countries, confused in terms of how many cases do we actually have or how is the vaccines? How are the vaccines rolling out? Really, we don't really know what the government means, and they're ready to change their mind in a matter of minutes or half days and things like that. So it's been really like very, very confusing and not very hopeful in that sense. So that's kind of where I was it for you as a person, as an artist. How was it for you personally? It's frustrating. It's really frustrating to feel like it's already, it's already a struggle every time just to put on a show or put on a performance, a theater performance. If you want to go a little more socially conscious, a little less entertaining in that sense, you already questions by people, like people are already like, if it's not fun, why would I go see it? It's already a problem in that sense where we have this long term problems of, you know, like, again, like I said, infrastructural support for the arts. The coronavirus crisis just kind of again put this big weight on that. And it's frustrating because we in Thailand, I think we have a lot of artists who have so, so much great potentials, but there's no path for them to go. You know, it's like, again, it's like hitting a wall. You can have so much energy, but you're just going to hit the wall and you hit hard and then you get hurt too. And that's kind of been fighting and fighting, getting bounced back every time. And the covid just makes everything harder, like doubly, right. But the good thing is we're kind of get we're kind of used to that. Like we always struggle. So when another struggle comes, we're like, OK, that's another struggle. All right, we're going to deal with it. But then, yeah, it's so hard. But OK, I mean, we never had it so easy anyway. So whatever another problem to tackle. So let's handle it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, like under a microscope under covid, you know, you saw crystalline structure as you know, of all the pieces here, which you normally see with the eyes, but the structure often isn't visible. It came out everywhere in every country, every city, but also in our own personal lives. Maybe tell us like a plan for a theater production, which was one you feel, you know, stands for your work and share a little bit. But was that or maybe the last one you did? And so we get an idea of what your work is about. That's already kind of interesting because I'm not sure where to start. So I I'm also right now a producer. I'm really producing a show which is actually going to Vienna in in less than 10 days to the festival to to to Festwochen. And one of the great festivals in the world. Yeah, maybe talk about that. Yeah, OK, so this show that that I'm producing is by a great Thai director, a friend, a good friend of mine with Chaya Atamat. And this show is premiering at Vina Festwochen, and then we go on to Constant Festival Design in Brussels as well. And it's which Chaya's work is interesting because he always addresses social issues, but in very, very subtle manner, which may may be seen as self censorship at many at times. But then it's interesting because I think the kind of society that we live in breeds work like this. This is how the artists learn to express and keep themselves sane and alive pretty much. Is it a movement based a movement based project? A play which is his work is a play with a script. But then the the style of the acting that he likes the actors to do is not very conventional. He likes people to get random. He likes things to get random and incorporating a lot of what seems like nonsensical elements in the play a lot. But then you have this big jumble of things that somehow makes sense in the end, and it's also kind of fun. Yeah, and what's the play about since it's one of the first things that comes from Asia to Europe, one of the great festivals in the world like everybody wants to be in that festival. What is the play about? So actually, this is Wicheya's second show to both Feswachen and Kunsten Festival Dazaar. This is the second time that he's going to be there. This show is about disappearances in Thailand. Again, he addresses the society, the political situation in Thailand. But this imminent issue that has been in his mind is the disappearances that has been happening in various forms. And for so long in the Thai political, the Thai contemporary political history, disappearances of people, enforced disappearances of people, disappearances of places and names and themes and objects that represent something that the current power doesn't want. And I think he has this question of why the hell really that we could we let this happen all all this time? How come that we have so many disappearances? It's still happening on almost a daily basis. I think I can say and so many unresolved cases of disappearances and it keeps happening as if it has become something normal and how can we let this happen? Yeah, so he kind of turns that issue into into a play and a setting in a very normal scene of daily life, five friends, meeting in an apartment, celebrating nonsensical causes, talking about useless things, but somehow touching upon the outside world and also representing how we are connected to our politics and the society. But sometimes we're also really just letting it pass. And he wanted to ask as the history moves forward, as the history is writing itself and time always moves forward, where do we put ourselves in that? If the history is being written a hundred years from now, where do we see ourselves written? Do we write it or are we being written about and things like that? Yeah, no, that's quite a theme also for the time of Corona. Almost probably at that before, but the absence, the disappearing, you know, just on an ocean, just the foam you see sometimes of something that jumped away when nobody fished a boat. Who knows what, you know, you see some some leftovers and we think about it or appearances. I like that idea of the mermaid and famous poems, of course, you know, about about that and all you see is the white hair of lines of little bubbles and is the absence of what was what was present. So that's quite a subtle thing. I wish we could see it here. What else in your talks in your 11 with your 11 or 10, 11? Yeah, what did what came out? What are people working on? What do you feel? What emerged? What? Surprised you, I think. What surprised me? I think the level of energy in Southeast Asia is something that always surprises me. And sometimes we surprise ourselves that within these all these limitations, we still managed to have so much energy to do things in very limited spaces, very limited conditions and people keep doing things and nobody gives up. But I don't think this is unique to Southeast Asia. What are those things? Can you give us some ideas? We really would love to hear what happened? Like a rigorous dance for dance, a little, a little dance number, a rigorous one in a small room of a dancer in the Philippines, for example, or now a Myanmar artist who tries to. What is it like brings like daily photographs and trying to make sense of the, the cool that just happened by, you know, redoing the photography that she's, she's done before and reinterpreting them, you know, in, in whatever she has in her hands, because it's probably not very safe outside either. So dealing with the limited objects that we have, or even with bipam ourselves, we have been collaborating with Festival Tokyo, which is now called the Tokyo Festival Farm for two years already. And we were having all these like wonderful plans of like going to Japan and coming to Bangkok, but then Corona came and then we had to do everything online. And then we could see that the things that the artists exchanged online, online exclusively for three days, three months. And then they produce really great exhibitions which become physical exhibition, both in Tokyo and both in, in Bangkok. And they could talk about external society, you know, like visualizing, for example, what is it? There's one artist who is also an architecture. He built this like big blue pipe structure from, from this exclusively online research that happened for three months, for example. And then this collaboration is going to continue this year. And the concept is mapping from home. So me and the director in, in Tokyo thought that, okay, this is probably not the time to encourage artists to go outside. What can we do within our home? And how can we be creative and be all not just creative, but also learning deeper about ourselves and our community by just staying home. Let's think about how we can do that. So mapping from home is going to propose the idea that you look at your home like you look on a Google Earth app. So where you are is not just the, the box that surrounds you, but where you are means something. For example, if I live in this neighborhood, if I managed to live in this neighborhood, it means something. What about the people in the, the next door neighborhood? Are you and them, and they different? And why? What constitutes that difference? If any, for example, so really kind to like go deeper into these some, yeah, limited conditions. Yeah. Well, that's, that's fascinating. The idea of mapping the world, but also mapping the neighborhood, sharing it from your own space. We had to Anna from, from, from the land who created the project, the balconies, where they had artists in Kreuzbach, you know, hanging staff out performing on their balconies or sharing it with cameras. And they said that for the neighborhood, it was an important movement. And, and engagement also was the history of street names, you know, and, you know, they're also looking for collaborators. So, so well, and I think it has, it's been a trend to really rediscover where we are, you are, you are here. And reminds me of first of all, this is a famous book, a funny or famous essay, a funny thing I suppose you never do again when he goes on the cruise and everything is done and he didn't like it. He hated it was a essay he wrote one of the best things I ever read in my life. And he said the strange thing that the signs everywhere you are here. You are here where you are, you know, like if you want to show me it's nowhere to go, you're on an ocean. And he was thinking about what does that mean? Why does it mean to enforce you are here and where are we? And I think this is a really fundamental question, you know, that comes up and I think you are engaged. And do you feel you obviously follow the European scene, I don't know how much of the American scene, how much really reaches over there. There's so little exchange in one way. Asia society, I think it's doing great work with Cooper and so many others, but we don't we don't see enough and perhaps not say he doesn't pay enough attention as it should. Do you feel there is a scene emerging in the, you know, in the sea under the sea over the sea. That is different. Yeah, is it different that has its own identity, its own ideas on drama to do one possible. If you would put your finger on it, what do you think what is it about? This is a very interesting perspective because I think the scene is there. But when does it become the scene? Does it mean that it has to be discovered by someone in order to become the scene? Because if in that case, if that's the definition of something somewhere being a scene or becoming a scene, then maybe, maybe this region that I live in, it's starting to become a scene. But I think that the truth is the opposite. The scene, a scene is there and it doesn't need to be discovered to be eligible to become a scene. So this, I think this is true of Southeast Asia. It's vibrant, it's active, the culture is always here. The artistic, the critical thinking has always been here. But is it seen in the international world, whatever that means? That's another question. So, okay, that's like one question aside. However, what do I see as maybe characteristic of the region? I don't want to claim that I know or my saying it would be the verdict. I'm just one of the observers of my region. I think what we have is interestingly, the region is still very, very closely connected to our traditional culture. I am a fully contemporary artist. I only practice very little bit of traditional forms. But I do know, I acknowledge and I value that we have this close connection as a region to our traditional forms and practices and cultures. So it's very hard, I think, and sometimes doesn't make so much sense if we want to do something purely contemporary and leaving all the other things behind. But I think the idea of exploring art as a purely as an art form, it's great, it's wonderful, I like it personally. But I think Southeast Asia has this richness that it's like a bag that we carry with us, we can't leave it behind. It's like it's always with us and instead of trying to run away from this bag and leave it behind, we just maybe dig in the bag and see what you can do with it. I think this is one of the things that makes it very rich here in Southeast Asia, because these bags have a lot of things that we can dig from. I think that's one. And another thing that I super, super love about Southeast Asia, my home, my region, is that we are so, we're fun, we're fun seekers. So many things that we do are going to end up not being too serious somehow. And I think we can never be too serious because we are fun loving people in nature. So I think if there's anything that can be like a unique aesthetic, there is even such a thing. Maybe it is this, it is like this is this easygoing nature that we are. And I think this is prevalent in all the things that we do. And it probably makes that's why Southeast Asia is such a destination for you know that people would come for for joy for relaxing for entertaining for like hanging out for feeling good for discovering you know the the bright sides or whatever. I think there's this this in nature and it comes out not just in the lifestyle but also the arts that we do that we have these sites in us. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that makes sense. It makes complete sense and I think what you said to, you know, be able to respect and work with traditional forms, you know, which has been there for thousands of years. And developing a contemporary also practice which of course is connected and also in a, and so go globally connected people in Vienna, I interested what you guys are doing you interested what they are doing over there. But in as you say kind of that old saying a joyful participation in the sorrows of life that play what you talked about is very serious. It's as serious as it gets actually. It reminds of course of course of Bolano's, you know, his savage detectives of 666 you know the disappearing, you know, of women in Latin America, and which is so much at the center of it and also has been theatrical adaptations of the work so there are common scenes I know that in America also in Canada, there are works about the women, the indigenous women disappearing, you know, high numbers in Canada actually and also here. And so, so there is something that that is out there that is somehow, you know, very local but also in that sense, there is a big connections to hear how you see what what solutions one comes to as a comment on the situation. We are, we are in. You say it's fun come here join us where should one go, if you say it lets someone who listens now, you know, we cannot most probably travel all 1011 but what are some of the places where you say or festivals or cities where do you think you know there are things are happening. Maybe that's worth to check out. Wow, I am. For you, I'm. That's that's how you choose your own pie I think it's all it's all equally interesting. I'm here so I can, I can be the person in Bangkok if anyone wants to connect with Bangkok then I, I know where to direct you. It's a little. Okay, I think, because if you come as a tourist and you have no interest in arts for example if don't know me at all, you would never. It's not that you would never be able to find theater but it will be much harder. But if you know that one person, then that person is going to get you to all the theater shows and whatever art events exhibitions in Bangkok if you if you connect to the right this is just because again the mass media does not have a space so much space for for the arts, if they are not in an entertaining manner. So it's so if you know me now you you can you're not going to escape the arts ever. Okay, it's good to connect to the scene to work with the artists and find out what is their festival of those 1110 1110 where they come annually or buy and like in the analog form, where work is shown. Yeah, there are the major major festivals are of course SIFA the Singapore International Festival of the Arts in Singapore for sure. There's Georgetown Festival in Malaysia. There are also puppet theater festival Pesta Booneka in Indonesia by the the wonderful paper moon theater with us. Yeah. Yeah, yes that's wonderful and I, I knew that there used to be a performance art festival in Myanmar probably not happening right now but there was like a wonderful effort as well. I think the visual arts scene in Cambodia is very strong and interesting. And there's a very great dance school in Laos, where you have really young aspiring dancers teaching younger students to to work in Bangkok. Also, there's a lot of artists established mid career emerging, doing theater in weird spaces, whatever they can find so you know small galleries galleries are not that weird but like really small restaurants or cafes or whatever. So squeezing themselves into whatever they can to try to make something or online work as well. Malaysia is also quite strong. We're a bipam we're good friends with five art center, and they make really wonderful work. We've heard a lot of good thought pieces from them they're always joining us in like discussions, for example. We're working with the Indonesian dramatic reading festival IDRF in Indonesia as well so there's also this effort from other people not just bipam to connect. But in other, what is it, specifications, I guess, like the IDRF is focusing on text and collecting original texts from writers, contemporary writers in Southeast Asia and, you know, at least perform a reading of these selected texts and they try to keep this going which is a very wonderful effort. And Indonesia has so many artistic centers that even I myself haven't known all about and I really wish I could visit these centers one day too so yeah I think in short, there's just so much diversity in Southeast Asia and maybe what attracts you, I guess, and if you don't know where to start bipam would would be happy to help you get some general idea and maybe direct you to to the great friends are great friends. But of course there's not just bipam this is something that I would like to acknowledge that bipam is not like the all knower of Southeast Asia we are one of the many groups, many efforts in the region that are trying to connect and really what is it like strengthen our presence for the world. Yeah. So Asian theater mostly Japan or China comes on the mind of countries you are not part of the sea over above or under. What is the relation, how do you look at that I influence by that well how does. What are the relations to. Quickly off my mind, they are the. They are like the big brothers and sisters of us. So they are, they have much stronger foundations. Not in terms of not always in just just artistically but I mean more like this the structural support or you know the infrastructure the system that helps to maintain the arts and make sure that it stays strong. This is something that we probably don't have as much as they do. And they are great collaborators they are great supporters so they are the ones that we rely on many times for you know, insights, or opinions or support moral or financial sometimes and mental support, actually by Pam takes after the form of T PAM, which is a similar performing arts platform which is very very widely known, but within the festival directors community, I think, T PAM is a great platform that people really around the world would fly into and by Pam is like a little idea that we're like, it would be nice to have like a mini mini mini version of T PAM in Bangkok and offer this to the Southeast Asian folks. You know, because before we had by Pam, you would find, we would find Southeast Asian friends meeting in in in Japan and we're like why are we meeting here and we never meet in our countries when you know the fight is just an hour apart. For example, so that's, that's how this idea came about one of the initial ideas that by Pam came to be from. Yeah, so, so it's in that sense. And for, for example, like right now, by Pam is in a working group together with T PAM and Pam's of Korea so and also a PAM from Australia and we're creating this working group. It's kind of like, you know, where where it started from the coronavirus crisis that we have this working group in order to make sure that we can support each other and learn from each other as platforms. But of course, already out of this for performing arts platform by Pam is five years old, and other people are like 20 and 30 years old so we are like the baby that's eagerly learning from from our sisters and brothers. Yeah, in East Asia. Yeah. Well, that's great. Yeah, and I think Japan, you know, also, you know, has an interest to support the arts perhaps also as a counterweight to the strong influence and also, and ambitions I guess of China would might overshadow so many things so but I think it is important that as you said, you know, to be on your own but in a group together and with with your, with your colleagues and perhaps we can have that your group. In secret talks are individual members of them to hear you know what what is going on the also in Korea, Australia, maybe all together or by themselves. Do you feel corona has brought by PAM closer. It's a step forward or do you say, because of the existing problems we already had, you know, we facing them so much more severe. It is actually a step back in New York in America, many people say a third of nonprofits might disappear. A third of businesses small businesses might close the bigger got bigger and the smaller, got smaller the rich cut much richer in the ones who are poor or poorer. How is it for you how is it for by PAM do you think it's it's an optimistic view. It's not very optimistic to start with. However, I think the by PAM team is very strong. And with the current crisis, we are even more determined to stay on this path for as long as we can, although I think we can already foresee the reduction of resources that you know, there couldn't be less resources before you think. Yeah, it's not just the arts world but like, you know, everybody who has to rely on some kind of funding in the country is now facing the same problems because because nobody is willing to just give money anymore because they want to save for themselves as well. And something like the arts it's seen as super super non essential. So it's going to be the last. Again, by PAM, we're constantly like every year when we want to do our activities, where it can always think okay maybe next year we don't exist anymore, because the funding and the resources are quite arbitrary. And we work on almost like a voluntary basis. So, you know, we're always facing this question of like, maybe this is the last time that we do it, we let's plan for next year but let's probably it might not happen it might happen in a 50% kind of we don't know but whatever let's just let's just plan with what we have and what we can and then if we don't have the money in the end is like man maybe we take a break so I think we have this flexibility that's kind of built in in us since the since the start so in that sense. I don't know if it's a positive thing, but it's, it wants to, it keeps us wanting to go on. But it's going to be hard, and I'm a little bit afraid that the the thriving performing arts scene is going to falter in terms of energy because it was building up, you know, until we had the cool energy until everything changed in our society and all this hopeful rise of energy in the artistic world starts to decline. Yeah, with the society and also with the global situation so I'm. It's not just by hand but I think I fear, I fear that the energy of the artist is going to, you know, what is it, fate, if the struggle goes on for too long. I hear you at this you said you're still a young organization, anybody is listening who's close to a foundation or you know it's concerned with the region support them this is a great organization and they really great workers in the field of theater but for you personally. So, how, what was your journey of when did you discover that art and theater performances meaningful for you to make sense, you know, out of life and how was your journey, why do you. The very start, the very first enter to theater was that I was in the university and I love doing like different extracurricular activities and I didn't know what there was and then there was one day that. There was this club this drama club at my faculty open up an audition. And I'm like okay I never tried out an audition I don't know what there is like so I'm just going to try it out because I love doing things outside the classroom. I got in. And there was first day of rehearsal. And then when I was asked to think about to to say how I feel when I was asked about my feelings. I realized that my feelings matter. That's when it changed me. That was the question that nobody really asked me ever in my life before that. I didn't know that my feelings as a human being my personal feeling my personal experience of the moment could be important, could be taken seriously and could matter and could have space. And that's when I fell immediately in love with the theater process and artistic process that I think I love discovering about myself using this artistic process. And I like the feeling that we can empower individuals and human being in this way by simply by this small small thing by asking how they feel and letting them know that it is important how they feel is not to be brushed aside. Yeah. How incredible so it was a theater exercise in the class or. Yeah, it's, I think it's very common in theater that you start with this that you start with yourself awareness. And simple as it might sound. It's not a lot of it's not what people have too many times we don't have it. So this awareness, we just kind of, you know, go forward, keep running with life and hardly know what's actually happening inside and I think something like the other process really asked you to stop and explore and just sit with it and acknowledge it. So, yeah, and I think it's very, very empowering. What was the first play performance. The first play that I saw, it's, it's an adaptation of the 1001 nights, the Arabian nights I think at my, at my university, and it's done by the dramatic departments of two long gone university. And that was the first one that I saw. And I remember being very confused because we had to write reports about it and I didn't know what to write about I didn't quite understand it. Yeah. Yeah, show, which just goes to show the inadequate education of the arts that we have in our schools. Yeah, but also the importance of the drama department of a rehearsal class improvisation class that the arts are of significance, you know, on campus and we of course also at the university when it came to traditional arts what did you grow up with what did you see. I practiced tie dance, tie classical dance I think it is, it was compulsory then I don't know if it's compulsory now or how much is it but I think I know tie dance and I picked it up and I performed a lot in school so so that's what I see. Unfortunately, because I didn't live in Bangkok, I didn't get to see the full performances of like, you know tie traditional theater plays so much because it was just not accessible for me because I didn't live in Bangkok and my parents were not into this kind of art and culture. Like my dad would take me to a to a classical music concert, but not to a traditional theater play, for example. So that's that's what I grew up with but I saw traditional forms in terms of small performances in my province and things like that and what I see on TV and and and all that so there was a little bit of a disconnection I think that okay we learn the forms, but we don't know when when we're going to use this form or what are these forms for because you actually don't practice it in your daily life. Comparing for example to Japan, you do see people wearing traditional dresses on some days in Thailand. It's more like it's more like a dress code. When you have that dress code then you you dress for it but then you don't see it incorporated in your life so much. Yeah, as same goes for for the Thai classical dance. With this happening in the society, there are great dancers, for example, Pichet Planshun, which is a very, very prominent Thai contemporary dancer with strong classical background who wants to bridge this gap between the contemporary and the traditional in the Thai dancing, for example, so yeah. Kind of going around. It just goes to show that I didn't have a lot of experience of all this in my childhood and I'm only immersed in all this when I'm like in my 20s. It's stunning to hear what one simple question, you know, in a certain moment in life, you know, what effect it has and then it's connected to the arts and then what the arts do. Now, you were dancer, you were a dancer, you were a performer, you were a producer, a tour manager. Why do you do it? What's your belief? What difference does it make? And really why do you do that? It's a way of life. Wow, that's a, that's a big question. I think it's, it's going to sound a bit silly, but I really, I think I'm just in love with the art form. I love performing. I love seeing live performances. And I want to share this love to other people, I guess, and that's probably how I become now producers because I know that I can help make some things happen. Not just being in the creative process, but also kind of supporting with giving it shape and structure. Anything better. I would love to say yes, but I don't think I can actually claim, but it's, I think it's my hidden wish that it's a yes, because it changed me, because it changed some people that I know in my life. I don't know if it's going to change a million people, but I know that it has changed some someone in significant ways. And, and when a performing arts or a performance when it affects somebody, what it does, it does so so deeply that it can change you. So that's the power of performing arts. And that's the power that you have as an artist or a creator, because you already have this space that you can, you know, go so deep and penetrate so deep into somebody's mind and soul. And so, now that I'm kind of, you know, already in the performing arts world, I feel like it's a duty for us in the community to make sure that whenever we give something to the public, it's meaningful. But at least it's meaningful. Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be always political, social, but at least if you can answer yourself why, why you put it out there and how it's meaningful, and to whom it will be meaningful. I think that's an important question for us. Yeah, I'm not sure if I answer your question. It's a very, very significant answer to to move with this meaningful, you know, it's a, it's a very significant, you know, question and why and we are all wrestling, do you feel there's something changed in this last year, or it wasn't a reinforcement of what your practice what you already believed in what you feel? I, we, by Pam, something will be different. Already by Pam is moving from being justice space a platform for exchange to working more seriously on advocacy work, because I think after the crisis we realize that the actual problems lie in the system. If we want to fix it, if we want to develop things if we want to push things forward, it has to get to the system, we can just do things on the ground and hope that one day things are going to get better automatically by itself. We got to put our hands into the system. We're doing that gradually and in small steps, but we are engaging bigger conversations, trying to get to policymakers trying to involve now not just the artists and our practitioners but also policymakers and policymakers to be people who should be paying attention but are not. So, this is the step that that we're taking and I think the crisis of the virus came to highlight this. That's a big change away from, you know, just get a better website, do more training, have a better app, you know, that you will be successful with kind of neocapitalist, you know, idea of the best will win that is a structural systems in place that are against art and if they would be different art would be different and life would be better. This is our talk, I think, for that moment made our lives better, you know, and to listen to it. What are your future plans for you as a producer and maybe if you would get a lot of support, what would you love to do? I would love to be able to bring any show at any time to anywhere I want because that's really the difficult thing. Like, if I have one show that I think it's so, so important to show to the people in my community, it's so hard to just make that one thing happen, or even it's just an exchange series, a conversation series, it's so, so hard to make that one simple thing happen. So I hope that if I could wish for like, you know, a million hundred dollars, a hundred million dollar resource, then this would be one of the things that I would use it for. However, I don't think that's going to come true soon, or not even in my lifetime, I'm not sure. The plan, though, is to, the plan is to go with the flow. But keep pushing, the plan is to keep pushing, for example, the advocacy work, we're going to keep pushing deeper, involve more stakeholders, getting the attention to direct it to where it should go, and slowly see how that's what it's going to unfold. And I think as we go deeper, we're going to see the directions that we should be going towards or going deeper into. I don't think we can lay out exact plans right now. But it's kind of like, at least, you know, you put one step here, and then once you're there, you're going to see where you're going to put your next steps. So it's kind of like this. I love that Bipam can have more international presence, not just so that I can have the, you know, the bling and the flame and the flame and the spotlight. It's not about that, but I love that we can talk, I can talk about Thailand, I can talk about Southeast Asia, I can talk about our current situation and sharing that with the world because I have a feeling that many times people see us as really like tropical islands, like, you know, palm trees, coconuts and beaches, but there's so much more. And the arts are very, very, very, very, very interesting. And I want this to be felt in the world as well. It's already felt somewhere, but if I could be another force to kind of push this out, then I'd be happy to do this. I think that's also why I'm here tonight. No, and you're doing it so well. And I think, yes, it is something we should pay more attention also engage and travel. And as we ask artists, you know, to engage with themes that haven't been developed yet to discover something new and different. I think in our own lives we should go through places we haven't discovered, you know, that's the artist's work is on the, you know, representing imagination and and but it is also important for our lives and what you say, you know, is of significance and we will be more complete people that we have, you know, also visited your region and seen festivals in Bangkok or as you said Indonesia this incredible richness of that country. Maybe his last question in this time of of Corona I don't know of you how much confinement you guys had there. What did you listen to what did you read what inspired you what was important to you as a person. As creative people as artists. I think I share this with a lot of fellow artists here too, is that knowing that there are some creative things that we could do that that it's still possible to create. I think this sense is important. When we stop feeling like we can create something meaningful that's really, really bad really discouraging really disheartening for for going on day to day. But when you have a task, when you know that you can still contribute to something or someone creatively. That's that's what what kept us going much more important than finding things to watch, or, you know, yeah I don't know I mean I mean it's not wrong of course to find things to watch but more importantly, deep down. I think we want to feel that we can contribute to something to someone in some ways. And one of the things that the crisis revealed is that empowering people or contributing to your community can be as simple as calling someone writing a heartfelt messages message. And having a random zoom talk without having an agenda. I think the COVID times. Let us know that we don't always have to have an agenda to go on zoom or call someone it doesn't have to always be about work. It can be just about getting to know each other and hearing the voice, knowing that human being a little better without having a project in mind. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, that's a very very founded site and I think it's also very, very true. Well, listen, we that the hour flew by and we are already at our end of the of the talk and this was really an important signals we heard from you, you know, from that region. It's really important to fight so alive by but it also part of the future I think this planet and in not of its past so. So it's really going to say thank you for sharing and being with us and I hope we will see you one day here in New York we are thinking how we can. Yeah. Well one last thing that I just like to put a note here is that by Pam is having our annual meeting again in a hybrid form so wherever you are in the world you can join us and it will be in September from the first to the fifth. So if anyone happens to be in Bangkok you can join us physically, but if not then it's going to be available online all the performances all the discussions. And you can join us so cool it's under by Pam.com or what's the website. Or or or by Pam.org first week also on Facebook. September. Fantastic. Great so congratulations on everything and we got to know the world a little bit better today and that means we also learned a little bit more about us tomorrow we are continuing we're going to have American puppeteers in the important field I think perhaps much more. What would I say a prominent respected or part of the fabric in the sea countries and you know in in the Asian theater traditions and in here. Of course it is strong it is visual perhaps not as much in center stage so we're going to hear from Manuel Moran Claudia Ornstein and Paulette Richards. We're talking about the puppetry in the time to the corona and afterwards and what it means when it's significant if also as a socially engaged art form Claudia Ornstein is a great colleague at Hunter is one of the leading, if not the leading researchers or researchers or great book and Rutledge about the puppetry in the global world is I think a great great resource for anyone so we're going to hear what Manuel and Paulette are doing what they are planning. And who knows Monday they might come to buy power man with that was a show or they will know what you about them wonderful. Yeah, and Friday we hear from France on playwright. She's a view for she said African French playwright and Marine bashello new Jen and to her about their work she said director also also writer producer to hear what's going on in France at the moment. And, and what are they thinking about and what's of importance to them thanks again for you. Thank you Frank. Yeah, thank you for all for bringing us that you know sense of optimism also what you said you know what is important. And thanks to the listeners for taking time out I know how much digital content is out there when we started out there was very little and we did five days a week now of course is more but we as what we hear people to still follow it by the way it will be our 150 50 a session tomorrow so you're 140 knots we're going to celebrate a little milestone tomorrow 150 single talks that is a lot. If I look at that number I couldn't believe it but it's true it happened and so thanks for how well for being such a great house for supporting us for also seeing the world like we see it and thank you listeners of course to take the time out to listen for messages so far away on bank on but yet somehow so very very close to us thank you all have a good day stay safe and and let's hope things will get better day by day. Thank you so much. Goodbye. Bye bye.