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The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion

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A chance to learn about Theatre du Soleil's production ideas through improvisational exercises.

THE IMAGINATION is a muscle, and Shaghayegh Beheshti has been exercising hers on a regular basis for most of her life.

When the Iranian-born Parisian wasn't doing theatre, she was dreaming of it. Both her parents studied it in one form or another, which deeply influenced her – aged eight, Beheshti was writing and illustrating her own version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and by 12 she was reading Ionosco, a foremost figure of the Absurdist Theatre movement.

It is perhaps ironic then, that her first real taste of acting only came in her 20s. Though she'd always wanted to be an actress, a traumatic experience in primary school held her back: "You'll never be an actor," someone had screamed at her introverted, six-year old self. Then, one day in 1997, Theatre du Soleil came to town.

"If there was ever a place in the world that corresponded with every level of my childhood dreams, it was Theatre du Soleil," says Beheshti in an email interview. Plucking up the courage to put her crippling fear of the stage behind her, she auditioned for one of their productions – and the rest, they say, is history.

"The stage is both a marvellous and dangerous place. When one is so fragile (on stage), one can catch fire, or be devoured," adds Beheshti, 39.

This was her first and most important lesson about acting.

But being part of Theatre du Soleil, meant there was more to come. The French avante garde performing arts collective, which has been around since the 1960s, is unique.

Reknowned for its epic productions, merging of art forms and utopian approach to theatre, its creations are often the result of a hierarchy-free collaborative process. It is also flexible about the gestation period of a show; often leading to productions that can span between anything from three and half to seven hours.

This month, Malaysia is going to get a rare taste of it, because Beheshti, who has had 16 years to absorb everything Theatre du Soleil has to offer, will be making her way to Kuala Lumpur for a nine-day workshop on the Muscle Of Imagination, starting tomorrow at The Actors Studio@KuAsh Theatre in Taman Tun Dr Ismail.

Theatre du Soleil's troupe often develop production ideas through improvisational exercises. And for eight hours a day, Beheshti will teach students how to use the imagination as a source from which to draw richer and broader visions with which to improvise.

As she says: "There is no game without imagination, the imagination drives the game."

But Beheshti wants to be clear, even if it means debunking myths and dashing hopes – there are no techniques utilised in Theatre du Soleil.

"Instead there are laws, attitudes and state of mind towards work.

"This is another feature that sets us apart from other schools, we can use the word discipline, but not technique – there are no recipes, this is not like studying music or dance where technique is indispensable."

Taking part in the workshop will no doubt mean getting a rare insight into the Theatre du Soleil's creative process.

Like the group's founder Ariane Mnouchkine says at the beginning of each production – it's a quest, one does not know what one will discover, and it is the stage that will reveal things to her.

This approach certainly contrasts with the idea of working towards a preconceived idea, in a quest, there is this notion of "revelation", or at least a path to traverse before attaining it, explains Beheshti.

In acting, what is important is to learn to listen to oneself, and to learn to see.

"This may seem obvious and simple, but there is nothing as complicated as this," she says.

Often, people tend to be too descriptive or too didactic when doing improvisation work.

Beheshti explains; in life we move forward, without necessarily knowing what is going to happen the following minute. And this doesn't bother us. Why? Because we listen and respond naturally.

"But often, on stage, it's as if a demon starts gnawing at our heads, asking 'what am I going to say? what am I going to do?'"

Beheshti's point: if we go with too many instructions, where is freedom, where is surprise, where is fortuity?

Too often, people believe they know. They listen and they see, but they are blind and deaf.

"I try to put myself and my participants in a state of mind where one is in a perpetual state of listening.

"Above everything else, we must have courage to accept that we don't know everything."

In other words, she will teach you to flex those imagination muscles and just go with the flow.

Part of this, will be done through music – you're own personal soundtrack if you like.

Beheshti believes that listening to music, whether played on a speaker, or internally, is a good way of filling up the internal silence which we otherwise tend to occupy with anxiety, obsession and fear. For her, "acting in music" can help free us from this mental oppression, and help us raise visions, and therefore enter a transposed and poetic dimension.

"It stimulates the imagination and invites us to take a walk in the country of our own dreams. It can inspire a thousand and one possible stories, and lead us, in spite of ourselves, to our own hearts."

Curiosity piqued?

Muscle Of Imagination runs from July 17 to 27 (July 22 is a rest day) from 10am to 6pm at The Actors Studio@KuAsh Theatre, in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur. Presented by Kakiseni and organised by Capricomm and Need Entertainment, tickets for the workshop are priced at RM1,000 or RM500 for students. If you are simply interested in theoretical aspects, observer tickets are also available, priced at RM500. For more information, contact Gan Hui Yee at 016-208 4449, or visit http://goo.gl/VyK8L.

Soul of a nation

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'Kembara Jiwa Fukuoka: Expanded Passion' is a sampler of Malaysian contemporary art bound for Japan in October.

A FINE selection of different modes of Malaysian contemporary art practices will go to Fukuoka, Japan, as part of Galeri Chandan's Kembara Jiwa (Soul Train) project.

With the subtext, "Expanded Passion", Kembara Jiwa Fukuoka will feature 17 emerging and established artists selected by project curator Nur Hanim Mohamed Khairuddin, including seven from the 21 who took part in the first Kembara last year in Jogjakarta (Taman Budaya) and Bandung (Sunaryo Art Space) in Indonesia.

The exhibition "proper" will be held at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (FAAM) in Japan on Oct 3-8. A Malaysian preview is currently being held at Galeri Chandan, Publika in Kuala Lumpur till July 22.

Gallery founder cum owner Nazli Aziz said that the annual project is a vehicle to expose and raise the profile of Malaysian artists abroad, with the next stop planned for Singapore next year.

"The project falls under the 'community' component of Galeri Chandan's three-pronged strategy with a view to upgrading the Malaysian art ecosystem, the other two being 'commercial' and 'charity,'" said Nazli, whose core business is in interior design (ThreeHundredSixty).

"This is not a profit-making enterprise. Whatever revenue made will be ploughed back into the project fund, to ensure its sustainabity, and the gallery is not making money from this," he added.

Galeri Chandan also supports an artist's residency called Nafas in Jogjakarta for periods of one, three and six months, with a recent addition in Penang, in collaboration with Universiti Sains Malaysia.

The Fukuoka-bound works include two collaborations of Kamal Sabran (Space Gambus Experiment)-Goh Lee Kwang (20-minute short film of improvisational sounds screechy jerks in part, Bunyian Aneh Dari Batu Gajah), and Izan Tahir-Marvin Chan's Pendekar Jari (oil, lino print and resin). Goh has another work, a Conceptual Art of a dumb incapacitated TV with the tagline, Boycott, but with a RM5,000 tag.

A husband-and-wife team, Azliza Ayob and Ilham Fadhli 'Kojek' Shaimy, presents two different world-views, both using collage.

Azliza entices with her amorphous rainbow-hued fractal of objects of feminity with shades of Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keefe. Azliza had spent 70 days in a residency at FAAM last year.

Ilham insinuates Lilliputian figures with an Antony Gormley loneliness. It is the Theatre of the Absurd in a mock apocalyptic Hieronymus Bosch scenario.

The works are irreverent, ironic and facetious with a serious socio-political sandiwara, with some touching on gender, identity and heritage. Not all works are wall hangings, with some New Media installations like those of Hasnul J. Saidon, Haris Abadi and to a lesser extent, Samsudin Wahab with his flashing coloured bulbs on Damien-Hirst skull imagery; or the De-Constructed contraption of Noor Azizan Rahman Paiman (better known just as Paiman), or the whimsical stand-alone ornamentative ceramic totems (on cylindrical concrete base) of Umibaizurah Mahir@Ismail.

Samsudin, Haris and Umibaizurah were from Kembara 1, the others being Jalaini Abu Hassan ('Jai'), Juhari Said, Phuan Thai Meng and Haslin Ismail.

Jai's diptych, Tiger Tamer, is layered in meanings and subtexts about cultures (clash of?) and desires (individual and regional/location) using symbolisms and Malay pepatah with one half using a backcloth of Nusantara "teardrop" paisley-leaf motif which doubles as a tattoo on the "protagonist" wielding an odd floral-duster cum fan – his talismanic "weapon" to subdue the tiger? An added ambiguity comes from the side inscription, "Omotesendo Hill", referring to Japan's Harajuku park, in the other half of the work which also has an insignia of the dragon of Imperial Qing. Will the tiger lose its stripes, and thus power and identity?

Juhari uses the dog, a pedigree dalmatian in a side-winding double image because of its stark design, in a begging stance to reflect on the docile nature of society, in Two Dalmatians And Red Line, using woodcut on large watercolour canvas (230cm x 110cm). Juhari has consistently taken printmaking to new areas, like in his ground-breaking Okir (Carving) printmaking on wood stumps in 2007.

He will be reunited with his woodcut sinseh, Yoshisuke Funasaka, who is one of two Japanese artists invited to join the show, the other being sculptor Mamoru Abe.

Haslin, a major award winner of the coveted Young Contemporary Artists 2010 noted then for his architecture from book shreds, plumbs for an organic bioscape of internal protoplasmic entrails in intricate tangle from his just-ended Transfiguration solo at G13 gallery, combining bio-fantasy with mock sci-fi.

Phuan's trio of works I See, is a pun on identity cards and the IC issue in Sabah.

Hasnul's Ripples In Fukuoka is an updated version of his work during his research residency during Ramadan in Fukuoka in 2003, which became strangely what he conceded as a "spiritual catalyst" in consonance with the lucidity of Zen. Morphing altered faces questioning notions of self, identity and existence appear and vanish in a flat "crystal ball" here.

Paiman is back with more "madcap" gizmos, this one from his Circus Elementary School series with a symbolic doll bust on a console pedestal (with fake drawers) on either side. On one side is a diva of extravagance (an expensive-looking ring is seen on its back window when lit) while the other side is dominated by the iconic Psy doll with a trigger for the sensational Oppa Gangnam Style song and a Duchampish miniature toilet bowl in its casing. The "magic" is in the duck effigy, the proverbial quack, encased in a coffin-like box which somehow survives as a sawn-off groove in the centre reveals.

Fauzulyusri and Suhaidi Razi complete the list, with Fauzul popular for his beauty in imperfections of child-like conteng (graffiti-like), stains, mottling, textures and layers.

This will be the first time a dedicated selection of Malaysian art gets to show in Japan. In the past, it was under the South East Asian or Asian umbrella like the Contemporary Asian Art Show (1980, 1984, 1989, 1994), Asean Art (1990), the New Art From South-East Asia and the Asian Art Show in 1992, the Birth of Modern Art In South-east Asia (1997), and Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (1999 onwards). The only Malaysian to have featured under the museum's Asian Artist Today programme was Tan Chin Kuan, in 1991.

Kembara Jiwa Fukuoka: Expanded Passion is on till July 22 at Galeri Chandan, Lot 24 & 25 (G4) Publika, Jalan Dutamas 1, Kuala Lumpur. Opens 10am-5.30pm. Hotline: 03-6201-5360.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Rabu, 17 Julai 2013