life Culture Bangkok Post• | Thursday, November 2, 2017 | 11

Story: Amitha Amranand Director Jitti Chompee about what performance art to look out for at this year’s festival Gender identity, animals and Kafka Photo © O ren Lavie

Red Peter. Jitti Chompee.

very two years, Jitti Chompee familiar with contemporary dance or puts on his festival director’s hat. performance? The dancer-choreographer and I recommend Holistic Strata by Hiroaki founder of 18 Monkeys Dance Umeda. He’s a digital media and sound Theatre founded Unfolding designer, but his work is very much like EKafka Festival in 2015. In its first year, the dance, except he’s not a dancer. Children festival featured four performances, one will enjoy it. It’s beautiful, but I like it for its installation and a workshop. This year, the minimalism and musicality. It’s also charm- performing arts portion of the festival has ing because he’s not a dancer, but the way he doubled in number. moves is very natural. Jitti tells us how he chose this year’s pro- Another one I recommend is NO-Body by ductions and gives recommendations to con- Roni Chadash, which will be performed at I chose these works so temporary performance novices. The Rose Hotel. It’s super creative. You don’t see the performer’s head at all, and she per- they can inspire people How is this year’s performance pro- forms in a tiny space. The way she designs the gramme different from last year? body in relation to the space is very beautiful. The first year was about the folding and I also want to recommend Satoshi Kudo’s unfolding of the body and objects. I got Bio-Erosion for those who do physical thea- the idea for the theme when I saw Isabelle tre. This is their world premier. Kudo’s back- want the festival to be bigger? I think its cur- Photo © Yamaguchi Schad and Laurent Goldring’s piece Der Bau ground is in gymnastics and martial arts. He rent size is perfect. It’s already a lot of work and Yoko Seyama’s origami installation The sees beauty in the way people move when because our team is still small. I want the fes- Silence Of Insects. This year, we included they’re struggling, like when someone’s trying tival to eventually start collecting information the themes of gender identity and animals to help a person who’s falling. He uses those about the artworks that are inspired by Kafka. to our original theme. I wasn’t looking for moments to create his work, and it’s really I got all these applications from countries productions that directly translate Franz Kaf- beautiful. It’s also very simple and minimal — I had never heard of. I want to know how C enter for ka’s works onto the stage. I also chose small just an empty space and the twin sisters Anna artists in different countries are interpreting productions. They are more suitable for Thai- and Berit Einemo Froysland who are dancers. Kafka’s works. land at the moment because there’s a lack of A

rts and venues and subsidies for Thai artists. I chose In which direction do you want the festi- “Unfolding Kafka Festival” runs from these works so they can inspire people here. val to take in the future? Friday to Nov 22 in Bangkok and I want to eventually be able to invite pro- from Nov 24–25 in Chiang Mai at M

edia Could you recommend a few shows ducers to meet the artists in our festival and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum. in the festival for those who are not maybe take their work somewhere else. Do I Visit unfoldingkafkafestival.com. Holistic Strata by S20 Hiroaki Umeda.

T he dark world of Franz

story: Benjamin Tardif

ranz Kafka’s world was one that was crushed The exhibition has been curated by David Zane What is the aim of the exhibition? by a meaningless bureaucratic society and lost Mairowitz and Malgorzata Zerwe, and centres on the The exhibition aims to unite the three Fwithout a sense of identity, and this malaise in work of three graphic artists who interpreted the dark illustrators with whom I created these modern society remains nightmarishly relevant. As imagination of Kafka. Over the past several decades, three books: Robert Crumb, Chantal part of the “Unfolding Kafka Festival”, the exhibition Kafka’s work has inspired numerous artistic crea- Montellier and Jaromir 99. And to “K: KafKa In KomiKs” is taking place Goethe Institute tions, but it has always been a challenge to succeed show that Kafka can be appreciated running from Nov 7 until Dec 17. by remaining faithful to the original work while being on this simple level, and not only in Bangkok is the latest stop on the exhibition’s trav- able to translate into a new creation the essence of a the universities. els having visited Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Kafkaesque world, which is as imaginative as much Poland and the UK, proving that the Czech author’s as it is grotesque. There seems to be three main work is borderless and still relevant even after almost The exhibition unites three graphic novels, the themes from the artwork at a century. result of different artistic collaborations between Mai- the exhibition: animals and rowitz and three illustrators: Das Schloss illustrated by crossbreeding, sex and women, the French illustrator Chantal Montellier, Der Proz- death and tragedy. What exactly ess illustrated by the Czech Jaromir 99, and excerpts interested you in the graphic novel to represent from Introducing Kafka by the American comic pio- Kafka’s work? neer Robert Crumb. The three artists’ visions come All of the themes you mention are Kafka’s. He fits together with enlarged images, reminding us of the perfectly into the comic form because of his fantasy graffiti aesthetic, which treat recurring Kafka’s themes world, which in large part, has to do with animals. Just like animalism and crossbreeding, sex and women, consider: a man wakes up from disturbing dreams to

death and tragedy. find he has been transformed into an insect. This is Photos courtes Mairowitz, one of the curators, talks to us about already comic book material. the exhibition. The chosen graphic novels are all in black and How is Kafka’s work still relevant today, and while white. Is there any purpose or reason? y

doing the exhibition, what did you learn about the Money. Colour is just too expensive. But Kafka’s world of

man or his work? is anyway more or less black and white. U nfo Kafka is still relevant today because he is essentially l writing about bureaucracy. Many of the world’s prob- From the three artists that you selected for the ding Kaf lems come from that. What I continue to learn about exhibition, who best captures the essence of

Kafka, even before the exhibition, is his humour. This Kafka’s work? k a F

is something most people don’t understand, in part They all have some relation to Kafka, but Robert estiva because the translations are so bad. Humour, of a Crumb is in many ways Kafka. He feels very close

self-denigrating kind, is the mark of Kafka. personally to the author. l