Pictures: © UNFOLDING KAFKA FESTIVAL Bangkok 2024 - Chanon Muknak & video stills: Michael Maurissens/ CARRÉ BLANC PRODUCTIONS)

About MO[RAM]LAM  

In the year of the 100th anniversary of Franz Kafka's death, the Unfolding Kafka Festival 2024, a biennial festival of contemporary performing arts in Bangkok, concluded for the fifth and final time with the collaboration Mo[ram]lam between Jitti Chompee's 18 Monkeys Dance Theatre and CocoonDance. This was not only a meeting of two choreographic signatures, but also of an Eastern and Western world, of traditional and contemporary art and music.

Mo[ram]lam, premiered at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Drama Center Chulalongkorn University, is the result of an exchange between molam musicians Sombat Simla and Arthit Khamhongsa, five performers, vocal artist Justin F. Kennedy, live electronic musician Szymon Wojcik and two choreographers, Jitti Chompee and Rafaële Giovanola. Each choreographer has created an individual work within a shared space.

The audience is divided into two groups, each experiencing one of the works with moments of overlap. The sound shared between two different worlds and sides is the focus and bridge of this project. Fascinating how both worlds start communicating and inspiring. Mo[ram]lam is somewhere between a choreographic or physical project, an installation due to its unusual setting, and a concert. The bridge that ties it all together is the music and the presence of live musicians. The challenge of creating something unified from two very different worlds made it exciting. The costumes, the movement, the music - all these elements are different, but at the same time they form one piece. The idea of separating the two sides of the stage is intriguing. It's as if we're reflecting the way the world works - how people on one side of the planet live completely different realities, and yet at the same time we're all sharing the same space.