Opening Talk

Maho Watanabe is a translator and dramaturg who works in and around art, media, and humanitarian work. In 2014, during her year abroad in the West Bank as an Arabic Studies student, she joined the director Yukari Sakata in Rashomon | Yabunonaka, a theatre co-production by Palestinian and Japanese artists. This marked her first involvement in performing arts, followed by numerous international collaboration projects, festivals, and workshops. Her translation of Lilac Duhaa (Death in the Era of IS) by Palestinian playwright Ghannam Ghannam won the 2019 Odashima Yushi Award for Drama Translation. She served as dramaturg for the original production of TERA (2018), and in May 2020, she was part of initiating TERASIA with Kop in Thailand and other artists. She is an Asian Cultural Council fellow for 2022.

Narumol Thammapruksa is a performing artist and Aikido self-defense artist with a particular interest in social issues. She developed a technique called autobiographical storytelling to portray the performer’s experiences by telling stories of the individual’s views on societies in parallel with the present world. At the same time, this also portrays how one was oppressed and how others are affected by oppression. In addition to plays, she explores non-verbal movement, including mime, modern dance, and using masks. As a director, she breaks the tradition of the imagined “wall” that separates the performers from the audience. In her performances, she occasionally urges the audience not to be taken by its stories, and uses symbolic language to deconstruct and reconstruct. At present, she is on the committee of the Peace Culture Foundation, whose aim is to build a culture of peace by promoting non-violence through social art activities and Aikido practice. It is her wish that these activities will help to foster love, compassion, empathy, and diversity, in striving for a more harmonious society. She is also a lecturer at the Theatre Program, Faculty of Mass Communication, Chiang Mai University.

Zun Ei is a medical doctor and multidisciplinary artist. Zun Ei’s primary interest concerns public participatory art works and community art projects. Main themes of her works are social and ecological issues related to children and elderly people. During the different crises in her country and around the world, her works become involved in peace, justice and psychosocial rebuilding toward resiliency. Her artworks are collected not only locally but also internationally.

She has been involved in many international art projects and worked with different communities across South East Asia and some European countries. She is currently a fellow of Mekong Cultural Hub.

Nguyen Hai Yen (Red) is a Lang Son (Vietnam) based video artist and independent art producer whose practice focuses on the multidisciplinary approaches which address the shifting boundaries between different forms of art, fiction and documentary, life and death, human and animal, living beings and spirits. Her practice focuses on reflecting one's landscape by questioning, what are the “gestures” of memory and belief?

Starting practicing at Hanoi Doclab, her video works were then featured at Seashort Film Festival (Malaysia), Fundacion PROA (Argentina), White Chapell Gallery (UK), ARKIPEL (Indonesia), and Fifth Wall Fest (Philippines), among many others. Before practicing as a producer, she had been involved in organizing activities involving experimental music, film, and performances with independent publishing house AJAR Press and Heritage Space in Hanoi. Her works as dance producer include various projects with H2Q Dance Company, Kinergie Studio, Mat Tran Ensembles, and choreographer Ngo Thanh Phuong. She also produces exhibitions for artist Giang Nguyen. In 2020, she co-founded MORUA—an artist-in-residency program based in Hoi An to support next-generation art practitioners. She was selected to join Asia Connection: Producers Camp 2021 & 2022, organized by Taiwan’s National Theater & Concert Hall.

Dindon W.S. (Director) is the Chairman and Director of Teater Kubur, Jakarta. His works include: Raong raong, Danga dango 1,2, Sirkus Anjing, Tombol 13 Topeng Monyet Bola Plastik, SandiwaraDol, Trilogi Besi, and many more. Teater Kubur employs the physical theater method as the foundation of their rehearsals. The searching process lives on always in the heart of this director, who has experience in giving workshops and engaging in cross-cultural collaborations overseas to find new meaning for his spirit. His care and awareness of social reality continuously drive him to open up space for new possibilities which may be seen as impossible by another. Dindon participated in the Asian Contemporary Theatre Collaboration Hotel Grand Asia (2005) and directed the Asian Contemporary Theatre Project On/Off (2008, Theatre Tram, Tokyo).