Report

Eko Supriyanto was born into a family of artists on the island of Java. His grandfather, a highly accomplished dancer and martial artist, required that all the boys in his family study Javanese classical (court) dance on Saturdays, and pencat silat (an Indonesian martial art) on Sundays. Eko began his training in both traditions at age six. He took an instant dislike to the study of dance, and has ended up devoting his life to it.

When Sophiline Cheam Shapiro was four or five years old, her brother-in-law used to take her to the Conservatory of Arts in Phnom Penh, where he was a professional dancer. The memories of those visits – walking through the doors into a kind of magical space with people practicing a range of traditional arts – remained with her. After surviving the horrific Khmer Rouge regime, which came to power when she was almost eight, she enrolled in Cambodia’s School of Fine Arts.

Perhaps it was divine intervention that brought Pichet Klunchun to study dance, or brought the art of dance to him. As he tells the story, “It could only have been the spirits.” Born in the countryside to a family with no connections to court or the classical arts, by the time he reached high school Pichet had his sights set on a future in science. But, at the age of sixteen, he met the man who would become his “master,” and Pichet’s intimate relationship to khon (Thai classical masked dance) began.

Exploring differences and similarities

Through presentations about the trajectory of their choreographic work, technique classes, and intense discussions, which often spilled over into mealtimes, about innovation and connecting with cultural legacies and traditions, the artists explored the remarkable similarities and vast differences between them. As part of this exchange programme, Eko and Pichet each travelled to Cambodia with two dancers from their respective companies. The members of Sophiline’s Khmer Arts Ensemble were already in residence, and participated throughout. On the final day, each group performed two short pieces – one from the traditional repertoire and one new work – in a public concert at the Khmer Arts Theatre.

This exchange of perspectives on the concepts, histories, techniques and the critique of individual dances was particularly illuminating and opened a window onto respective their creative processes. While each acknowledges respect for and pride in the classical dance within which he or she has been steeped for decades, each also makes work in response to contemporary realities, whether of a personal, national or universal/human nature, in unique ways.

“I’m not worried about the future of court dance back home.” (EkoSupriyanto)

Eko shared footage of his 2007 piece, Tutu. In it, he dances solo in a pink tutu, on top of a platform measuring four square feet, as if he were a ballet dancer in a music box. “There is classical vocabulary; there is innovative vocabulary. Tutu is a good example of my contemporary work: I can use any vocabulary I want. In this piece, I use some African vocabulary, some Javanese, jazz and ballet, and so on. I’ve trained in all these techniques and enjoy the freedom to connect to the human side of a story through choices of which to use and how to combine them.” At one point in the dance, he strips the tutu off to dance in flesh-coloured shorts. “I was imagining that she [the ballerina he portrays] was alive and tired of this music and movement. She was able, for a short time, to be free in her physical expression, before reality set in again.” As the piece ends, he puts the tutu back on and the dancer knows her place.

Finding a common human element

“I found that training in this classical art gave me the potential to connect to other dance forms. Because of that training, I’ve met and have continued working with artists from all over the world.” While all of the members of his dance troupe have extensive training in classical technique, they don’t practice it as part of their work with Eko. “I’m not worried about the future of court dance back home. There are many artists devoted to its maintenance.”

In a warm-up developed by Eko, his dancers repeat a series of yoga-based stretches, pushing classical gestural and movement language towards new possibilities, often interlacing or juxtaposing them with other movement traditions. “My work is mainly based on Javanese court dance and pencak silat. Inspiration might come from the Mahabarata and Ramayana epics, but my new choreography is not about the classical narratives. It’s about present-day societal issues -- finding a common human element within the story and making a new story connected to the contemporary situation.”

Issues of leadership, gender, political responsibility, and identity

Sophiline first choreographed a dance in 1985, as part of an exam in her final year at middle school. “Every student had to create a piece using the traditional vocabulary. There was a lot of encouragement to create new work about the then-current political situation – admiration of Marxism/Leninism; the relationship between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. That idea, of responding to the current situation, stayed with me. My first big piece was in 1999. I got funding to adapt Shakespeare’s play, Othello. Samritechak was the first time that a Western story was adapted for Cambodian classical dance.”

Sophiline has continued to develop new work since then, including evening-length dances, forging new paths in her classical dance tradition, not only in terms of the storylines, but also in the staging and movement vocabularies of her works. “I love the tradition, and cherish it, and when I’m trying to make my own work about leadership, gender, political responsibility and identity (all concerns of importance to me), I realize that Cambodian classical dance can also address issues of contemporary times. When I was working on this first major choreography, I was aware of not wanting to be like the Khmer Rouge and rushing into something. They wanted to change society drastically, and in less than four years destroyed so much. I wanted to move slowly so as not to destroy anything.”

“Right now I call my work neo-classical.” (Sophiline Cheam Shapiro)

Sophiline spoke of her latest work – The Lives of Giants – from which her ensemble performed an excerpt for the visitors. Based on the first part of the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Ramayana, the story focuses on the damaging nature of cycles of abuse and revenge, and the impact that weak or destructive leaders bestow upon their communities. “Victims of abuse who later find themselves with power, will abuse others. As for leadership, there are three models in this drama: Preah Eyso (Shiva), the boss of the “giant” Akaeng Khameaso, gives Akaeng Khameaso a magic finger and then later on can’t control what the giant does with that power, so he runs away. Preah Visnu (Vishnu) has the power to control the giant, but, instead, uses violence and kills him, adding to the cycle of abuse. Uma, as a mother, uses compassion to try to solve the magic finger crisis. She fails, because Preah Visnu, as a male character, is more dominant in this case.”

The Lives of Giants features innovative costuming and set design, along with unique gestures and movements. “Right now, I call my work neo-classical. I want to expand the frame, push the envelope. I’ve taken many classes in different dance styles. I understood them, but never adapted those movements into my work. So I expand certain movements within the same traditional aesthetic framework.”

“When you change the way you move, you don’t immediately know what you’re doing.” (Pitchet Klunchun)

Pichet’s work, Chui Chai, is one that has been evolving since 2001. “At University of California in L.A. in 2001, I created the first version of this, which was 12 minutes long. I expanded it in 2002 and again in 2008. By 2010 it was one hour in length. At first it was a solo. The second time it was performed by 25 dancers. I took an excerpt from the Ramayana in which Ravana orders Benyakai to transform into Sita. ‘Chui chai’ means transformation. You change yourself from one character to another. Or you change the costume from an old one to a new one. When artists at the College of Dramatic Arts or National Theater do this piece, they do it beautifully, and portray Benyakai as a very happy character. In my version she’s sad, and tells her mother she thinks she’ll die, because she has to go to the war zone. She doesn’t want to transform herself into Sita.”

Pichet developed an uncanny empathy with Benyakai while working on the choreography. “I felt sad just as she did. I say this, because I moved to contemporary dance in 2001, and I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to shift from khon to contemporary dance. It was very painful. When you change the way you move, you don’t immediately know what you’re doing. People look at you, and they may like what they see, but it’s not you. Like Benyakai. When she transformed herself to look like Sita and went back to see Ravana, he liked her, but it wasn’t really her.”

Representing 200 years of societal transformation

“In my latest version of the piece, I talk about the transformation of Thailand over the last 200 years. How has Thai society changed?” Towards the end of the piece, 200 years of societal transformation are represented through the positions and movements of eight dancers lined up across the stage.

“Each time we perform Chui Chai, the production itself changes. We performed one version in the U.S. One month later the Red Shirts started to fight again in Thailand; so still using the same music, I changed the set and placed a huge Thai flag in the background. In the version on the Thai stage, people are destroying the country, throwing things at the flag. All the different groups, represented by different coloured shirts, claim that they are doing the right thing – closing the airport, protesting, killing people. I say they are all wrong. Later in the piece they are fighting each other. This is a warning to the Thai people to be careful.”

“As far as the training of my company goes, my job is to feed the ideas to my dancers and check their positions. They’ve all graduated from school, and they remember the classical positions. There are no other teachers in my company. We use classical movements, but we don’t create pure classical productions. Once dancers have been with me for more than a couple of years, they learn to improvise on my suggestions, and I choose what to keep. Because they understand how to create, I can let them be free. I tell my dancers, I’m not your teacher. We’re working together.”

“Let’s concentrate on an exchange among dancers within the region.” (Franz Xaver Augustin)

At the close of the question and answer session which followed the public performance on the final day of the exchange, Franz Xavier of the Goethe Institute thanked the artists. “Usually it is the Goethe Institut’s task to bring together people from Europe with people in Southeast Asia. This workshop is the first one where we said, “Let’s concentrate on an exchange among dancers within the region.” What we have seen this afternoon proves its value. I was deeply impressed by these attempts to transform tradition. With your global perspectives on dance, all three of you are playing a leading role in the development of the new forms that are emerging in Southeast Asia.”

For Pichet, the programme was an opportunity to work with fellow Asian choreographers for the first time in a decade. Throughout that time he had been engaged with collaborations and exchanges with choreographers in Europe and North America, and was isolated from his fellow dancers in Thailand, where there are few artists with a background in the classical arts who are developing pioneering dance. Sophiline, too, is in a unique position in her country. She is the only artist making ground-breaking “neo-classical” dance in Cambodia, and was noticeably delighted to be able to spend days asking her Thai and Indonesian colleagues about the specifics of their creative practice, and sharing hers. Eko, on the other hand, has colleagues in Indonesia who are accomplished classical dancers and are now choreographing in original ways. They provide a supportive group, giving feedback and sometimes performing in each other’s projects. Although he had worked alongside Sophiline and Pichet in educational and performance programmes in the past, he had never before engaged in a focused exchange with them.

The dancers potentially belong to the next generation of choreographers

The creative exchange programme in Cambodia was a first step in affording these three high-calibre artists the time and space to explore each other’s choreographies and creative processes. It also provided their dancers with the opportunity to learn about and from one another. Comparing some of their stretching exercises, basic gestures and body postures, the Thai and Cambodian dancers, for example, were surprised at the dramatic differences (in weight placement, depth of the arch in the back, and so on) they found below the surface particularly with regard to the origins of the narratives, and aspects of costuming and gestural movement.

The questions that the dancers put to the other choreographers were particularly remarkable: they were intrigued by the range of choices these artistic directors made in their adaptation of traditional dance motifs – and the incorporation of elements of other movement forms and styles, or of unique gestural and staging elements. They were also curious about the development of each choreographer’s relationship to his or her classical dance teachers as their artistic interests and explorations diverged from the traditional path.

The dancers accompanying Eko and Pichet, and those in Sophiline’s company, potentially belong to the next generation of choreographers in these traditions. This kind of exposure is invaluable in developing their inquisitiveness and the critical thinking necessary to address the complex questions choreographers must grapple with in their creative endeavours.

To examine creative dance-making together with other artists

The exchange programme was a resounding success and deserves to be repeated. Artists today are under constant pressure to train performers and develop new work. Opportunities to step back and examine creative dance-making together with other artists are all too rare, and it is an experience which can be immensely beneficial to choreographers and dancers alike. Eko, Pichet, and Sophiline tossed around ideas for follow-up projects, and suggested that future exchanges might include choreographers from more Southeast Asian countries. Perhaps they should separately set pieces for each other’s dancers.

Pichet described the opportunity to focus exclusively on contemporary Southeast Asian expressive culture for a few days as a veritable “homecoming”. That ‘home’ forms a dynamic and varied context. It will be exciting to see what develops in the months and years to come.

Toni Shapiro-Phim
is a dance ethnographer who received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University (USA). Her fields of specialization include Southeast Asian dance (especially Cambodia), and social justice, human rights and gender concerns.