August 11, 2010

Taxied to Aung Myint’s home to make an appointment for tomorrow.  He was very nice, had no idea who I was nor did he remember my face.  Oh well.  The guy has a lot on his mind.  So I headed back downtown to the British Council, where I heard they have a great collection of Southeast Asian history.  Not so.  But their collection of work on Burma was excellent.  Not exactly what I was looking for in terms performing and performance arts but I learned a lot about the Nats and other pre-Buddhist cult religions.  As follows:

Folk Elements in Burmese Buddhism

By Maung thin Aung

Oxford University Press, USA 1962

Anawrahta of Pagan unites Kingdom of Burma, 11^th Century, Theravada Buddhism there already existed a number of primitive religious cults including the worship of Nat spirits (purely native, animism, suzerainity if a Nat is territorial and personal), astrology (worship of the planets/Hindu gods originating in India) and alchemy (also from India, base metals to gold and “evolving an eternally youthful body”) – all with the veneer of Buddhism post-Anawrahta.  King originally decreed it was not legal but eventually, to appease the people, brought the Nats in as 36 deities, with the Buddha being the 37^th

Alchemy – Aggiya “the work with fire”

The ultimate goal is not gold, nor is it the Philosopher’s stone, it is eternal youth.  Burmese folklore is full of stories about the stone, which protects the human from harm. Burmese alchemy tries to solve the tragic problem of death:

They say, with Omar Khayyam “Alas that Spring should vanish with the rose, that youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!

True believers of Alchemy say that they seek eternal life and alchemy not for riches but in order to be alive with the next Buddha arrives on Earth so that he may worship him and obtain Nirvana

Myth on the history of the pagodas of Pagan is an alchemist monk who created the stone and the people became rich and built many temples

Jataka Stories

Translation by I.B. Horner, M.A.

Luzac and Company, London 1957

Meant to “inculcate good manners, good sense and good behavior”

Often the Buddha acts as the main character in disguise and illustrates the greediness of humankind

Burmese Drama: A Study, with Translations, of Burmese Plays

Maung Thin Aung

Oxford University Press, USA

First Printed 1937, then 1978

Pg. 1 “No Burmese drama is to be found before the 18^th century.  The origins of that drama are to be found in the remote past of Burma’s own national development, rather than in foreign importations of influence.”

“No doubt, Burmese music and dancing arose out of primitive religious rituals as in other countries.  Society developed, civilization expanded, and contact with the Hindus and the Chinese gave new ideas, but the native element always dominated, and the music and dancing remained, as indeed they still remain, essentially Burmese.”

Pg. 2 “The absence of Hindu influence on Burmese music and dancing explains why the Burmese are the only civilized nation in the Far East who do not possess the fighting dance – the dance

To me, it all fits together rather nicely.  It influences INTENTION and in some kind of subconscious way.  More about that later.  I then headed toward New Zero to speak more with Thwe and Zoncy.  Met some new gals too, 3 young girls under 20 – as is Thwe.  They were all working together on their works for Phyu Mon’s show on women artists in October.  One likes painting, the other likes installation and the other is all about performance, though she’s only attempted it once.  The others have tried but don’t like it.  They don’t like to use their body and they attribute it to fear more than anything (can’t say I blame them).  So even though they all categorized them as such, for Phyu Mon’s show, they are working on digital art via Photoshop – which Phyu Mon mentioned she teaches occasionally.  Here is the new generation.  They are excited, almost complete products of their education and their elders but they want to do something new and different.  They want to carry this torch into the future.

Thwe said she really wants to do something political but she is afraid.  Who taught her to be afraid?  Her teachers – the ones she considers inspirations – moved without fear, or perhaps they didn’t know what to fear.  They could not know the consequences until they had suffered them.  So now the young people are learning to work within a framework, within the system or institution.  Ask first.  Censorship board.  Regulations.  Time and places.  This group not that group.  But above all, emotion.

I asked one younger girl, Nora, why performance art was so easy for Myanmar artists.  I meant why was it so adaptable, so acceptable but she immediately replied “actually it’s very difficult for us.”  At first I thought she meant the proceedings (i.e. censors, etc) but I then realized she’s right, this is an incredibly difficult discipline, especially for them, because of what they have to go through to do it but they do it anyway.  So cool.

Street Performance Art

By Htein Lin & Chaw Ei Thein

Yangon, Myanmar 2005

Couldn’t watch the VCD but the cover showed pictures of Htein Lin and Chaw Ei walking together, looking straight off the farm, she carrying a basket and he carrying an old style bamboo carrier, but not with food, with his paintings.  The point was to sell things for the prices they were before inflation, using the old coins that were one or two kyat.  They had the faces of Aung San on them.  The idea was the keep moving, like a market – sit on a corner and sell their wares.  Aye Ko said people were very excited.  So cheap!  On the back cover it says, in poem-like form:

Myanmar and Nippon

Performance Art Exchange

Yangon, Myanmar 2009

July 18^th and 19^th

Seiji Shimoda guest stars as the host and representative of Japan.  Years before, in 96 or 97, Shimoda came to Mynamar to talk about the performance art and many artists were influenced by his arrival and his work.  Again, was not able to watch the entire thing but it was many artists including Aye Ko, Aung Myint, Phyu Mon and other who participated as well as 1 American, 1 French, 5 Japanese and 8 Myanmar artists.

Po Po said that people often mistake the performance for Quat Sate, ask them if that is what they are doing.  Aung Myint also said so and that Pwe Quat Sate means “to beg” and so was a form of appealing to the audience in order to get something in return.  I wonder if the very act of trying to be something different, to not be Quat Sate, their fighting it becomes some form of it.  That in denying this type of performing and claiming performance they are not becoming it, or at the very least driven by/derived from it.