Updates from Myanmar

Greetings from Yangon, Myanmar, where Bond Street Theatre has just wrapped the second week of rehearsals for Volpone, our show in collaboration with Burmese theatre group Thukhuma Khayeethe.

Those of you who have followed Bond Street's adventures over the years might remember that we frequently rehearse at the very cool Gitameit Music School in Yangon. This time we were lucky to be the first group to rehearse in the "new" Gitameit studios. Well, lucky might be a little strong, since they are still actively constructing the building, which meant dust, nails, sparks and concrete everywhere. Concrete steps newly poured..."hmm, any steel reinforcing in there?" we wondered as we made our way to the third floor. 

The best thing was the group of workmen who traipsed around during our warm-ups and rehearsals, watching us with great curiosity. One of them was heard to say, "What are they doing? They're just playing!"  Yup. That's why they call it a play.  

After one week, they started some serious welding in our space and we had to move. For our second week, we rehearsed in a small Buddhist Monastery located near the home of director Thila Min. Note: monasteries make great rehearsal spaces!

Our rehearsals so far have included practice in traditional Burmese dance, learning a traditional Nat dance, a spirit dance that (interestingly enough) is about the joys of drinking. We have spent our meetings with TK over the years sharing physical performance techniques, so we speak the same language theatrically and can jump right into the work. Our latest addition to the mix was introducing the style of the Italian commedia dell'arte. Now, in the third stage of working on Volpone, we are easily blending our mix of physical vocabularies.  

We are working all day -- 10am to 5pm!  What a luxury!  Morning and afternoon sessions are separated by lunch at one of the street side stalls. Yes, I know they say don't eat street food... but this is what they have! And it's great food, freshly made from fresh produce from local farmers! 

Next week is tech week and the cast and crew will be assembling set pieces and costumes for our debut public performances in the following week!  It's been a whirlwind process, and the next week is sure to be no different. If there's one thing we've learned about street performances, it's that they are always full of surprises! Stay tuned!

Rehearsing at the New Gitameit Studios

Yangon News #1

Michael's update from Yangon on the current situation on the ground, the effects of history, progress, and the Water Festival.

Greetings from Yangon...
...where the weather is hot and the atmosphere is peaceful.  It's the calm before the storm, the storm being the New Year Celebration and the infamous Water Festival which starts today, Saturday April 13.   I'm getting the impression it's like being in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and Times Square for New Years.  We have an expectation of getting continually soaked by water cannons and blasters, and assured that my sins or bad karma or both are being washed away.  Another reason not to drink the water.

Joanna and I are here to flesh out the plans for a US - Burmese production of Ben Jonson's Elizabethan-era comedy, Volpone, which we plan to produce with our friends in Thukhuma Khayethe (Art Travelers Theatre Co.) with whom we've been training and performing since 2009.

Our first visit four years ago was under the watchful eyes of the military dictatorship, which kept the beloved lady Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.  Our last visit a year ago had seen Suu Kyi released and elected to Parliament, and a new "open" era coming in (hopefully).   Now a year later, we are getting the skinny from our friends on how things have been going.

If you have been following the news, you may be aware that there have been recent clashes and bloodshed between the Buddhists and the Muslims. To understand where this comes from, we have to take a step back and remember our cultural history.

First, the name Myanmar vs Burma.  In the Burmese language, and we are talking history here, the name of the country when written in official King's court documents is Myanmar.  When the commoners speak it, they say Burma. This notion of having special words for the King and other words for commoners is not rare in world languages.  The British, having had colonies all over the place including here, referred to this territory as Burma, partly to stick-it to the former royal rulers.  But there are a lot of ethnicities and religions:  the majority are Buddhist and ethnic Burmese, but there are also Muslims, Christians and Hindus who are Shan, Karin, Mon etc etc.  When the military took over somewhat after the Brits left, they changed the name to the more "inclusive" Myanmar (inclusive sounding, though the military was primarily Burmese, paranoid and brutal to anyone remotely dissenting).

There is a good primer and political update on this Burma - Myanmar - US relations issue at the Washington Post.

With that background and even a vague understanding of world politics, its pretty easy to guess what happens when a formerly oppressed people gets a taste of freedom and democracy. They use their new-found voices to yell at each other. Every under-educated charismatic bullet-head now figures their opinion is better than the next guy, and they get on the radio and say "ya know, these [insert ethnic group here] people are dirty and smelly and taking over our way of life. They should leave."  So yeah, there are ethnic tensions, these days particularly between the Buddhists and the Muslims. Myanmar shares a border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and the politics are akin to the immigrant situation between the US and Mexico.   Arizona, anyone?

More to the point, our friend Thila Min (director of TK) reports that people are happy to take their rights, but not the responsibility.  Freedom of speech can be used for good or for evil, but nobody wants to be responsible for the evil their speech might unleash.  Sound familiar? 

Thila's English is very good,  but I wouldn't have thought he knew a word like "crony", which he uses a lot to describe another problem: rampant crony-ism.  There is a great deal of deal-making, land grabbing and back scratching between politicians, connected merchants, and foreign interests, all to the detriment of the poor and middle class that the new openness was supposed to help. 

But, by and large, there are "onward and upward" kinds of changes going on. We've been staying in the same neighborhood through these years, and just in the last year we have seen many new and modern homes spring up, gigantic hotels, new car dealerships, all in formerly vacant lots. I don't know if they are getting any business, but the construction companies must be making a killing. The members of  Thukhuma Khayethe also hear the siren call of business opportunities outside of theatre work.  One of the finest clown-actors I know, Soe Myat Thu, is getting a lot of work instead as an English-French-Burmese translator for all the foreign business people descending on Yangon.

But the theatre work does go on. We have had some great meetings with Thukhuma Khayethe about our co-production of Volpone, and we're learning more about the culture and seeing how it might manifest in the play, which is exciting. 

Next: swimming in the Water Festival.

Moving Forward, the Role of the Artist: Myanmar Update 5

A semi-final update from Michael and Joanna in Yangon.

We're in the final days here in Yangon, and it's been pretty packed with excitement --  if you consider immersing yourself in Myanmar performing arts culture to be exciting (which I do).  This will likely be my last missive from these parts, as we’ll be swamped with preparing a "work-in-progress" performance of the work on Sunday before heading Stateside on Monday. 

The work with Thukhuma Khayeethe has good days and great days; there is still much work to be done if this show is to hit the stage, but we are off to a good start and look forward to continuing over the next year or so.

Last Friday Feb 3 was the opening of the 3rd International Festival of Contemporary Theatre and Performance at the French Institute.  When we made our plans to be here we actually didn't know until later that the festival was taking place, but we attended the Friday and Saturday panels, lectures and videos, and Joanna was invited to talk about our work along with Thila Min, the director of Thukhuma Khayeethe.   We've been making new friends and contacts, and joining in some spirited discussions.

Of the many topics (not just at the festival but also with our collaborators): 

¨      Now that there may be a new openness and permissiveness for contemporary productions, what will become of the traditional performing arts? (Since the military has been in charge there have been no new plays written and many of the old were banned, even burned.)  

¨      What will be preserved, or should be preserved, or not? 

¨      Should the public be given what it wants, or what the artist thinks it needs?  

¨      How much effort should be put into contemporary arts:  what if the current "freedom” doesn't last-- not only might censorship fall into place again, but might artists be exposing themselves to new harassment and imprisonment?  

¨      And who will support new work?   Many of the young people attending stated that the biggest obstacle to a life in the theater is the family: parents want their kids to get "real jobs"; an old story most keenly felt in struggling economies.

One of the local artists who asked many traditional vs. modern questions is Moore Minn, the impresario, director, and star of one of the few remaining large Zat Pwe performance troupes.  The Zat Pwe is a traditional form of performing arts that manifests at the larger festivals around the country.  It's a nine-hour marathon, beginning at around 9 pm and ending at 6 am. Depending on the company, the production may (or may not) start with dances and rituals to Buddha as well as the local deities called "Nat.”  This is generally followed with the singers in the troupe coming out individually and covering local pop songs.  Next, a stylized dance-theatre piece from the life of Buddha; a pop concert covering western hits; traditional high energy dancing by the male Minthar(s) and/or female Minthamee(s) possibly combined with the antics of the Lu-Byet comedians ("Mr. Not-at-all Serious"). There may also be short dramatic or comic scenes, depending on the aesthetics of the company director.

Joanna and I were invited to see Moore Minn's show that Saturday evening.  A strikingly handsome and serious looking man of about 40, he was introduced as one of Myanmar's preeminent traditional singers and dancers.  Thus, we had a certain expectation of a "traditional" performance, and indeed much of the standard menu as outlined above was there.  What we did NOT expect was his intense, spot-on, full hour Michael Jackson impersonation, complete with Thriller production value (break-dancing zombies), moonwalks, mime and crazy limbs akimbo. Especially fantastic from a you-gotta-be-kidding-me perspective was Michael Jackson singing The Macarena.

You could have lit the city of Yangon with Moore Minn's energy, which was most remarkable because he attended the conference all day Friday and Saturday, AND did all night shows Friday night and Saturday night (which he also drove to and from, about an hour outside of Yangon). When and where he got sleep I don't know.

Another big surprise was the total lack of applause from the 1000 or so spectators.   Not that they didn't like it, they know this guy and his work and they paid their not inconsiderable admission of $3 or so, they just don't express it.   And many stayed, as we did, for all 9 hours; though many of the younger set left after the pop stuff and the older crowd arrived for the comediennes and the dancing Minthars.

Okay, that's it for now.  Thanks for listening.  We'll post the pix and videos as soon as possible and send you the links when available.  Until then, stay warm, healthy and safe wherever you are.

Much love from Yangon,

Michael and Joanna