This is just a quick note to thank Nick Ridout for giving a flavour of some of the conversations that were had as part of the 'Panic Buttons' event. I would love to give more details - it feels like there were so many issues addressed that will resonate at the London conference - but frankly I'm exhausted, and haven't got the brain-space to reflect.
The Public Forum, Panic Buttons: Culture and Crisis in Malaysia and the Region
The forum took place this afternoon, Sunday June 11, 2006 at the Actors Studio in the Bangsar Shopping Centre, KL, Malaysia. It's a studio theatre with a thrust stage and some very efficient air conditioning which had participants shivering through the first hour of proceedings. It's on the third floor of a shopping mall. Such is the nature of carving public space out of the private/corporate sphere. The session was moderated by Sharaad Kuttan, and began with short presentations by seven panellists, all of whom had participated in the previous two days of roundtable discussions at Valentine Willie Fine Art. The seven on the stage were Goenawan Mohamed, Kathy Rowland, Lee Weng Choy, John Pang, Yap Sau Bin, Chumpon Apisuk and Jennifer Lindsay.
I complelety understand the difficulties in being in it and reporting on it at the same time. However even a brief description allows us to travel there and imagine. So send us some one word images or maybe even relay a question that is on the floor and we'll join you.
...oh blimey this is far too difficult.
The discussion is dense and nuanced and in an emergent phase (and I'm enjoying listening to it too much to write about it ;-)
I need to consult with participants, and decide how best to use this blog - there is also a question of whether or not they are identified personally on this forum.
There are about 25 people in the room at the moment - artists, academics and activists from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Germany and the UK.
The morning began with participants introducing themselves, and then the organisers - Ray Langenbach, Lee Weng Choy, Paul Rae and Sharaad Kuttan - introduced the structure of the event as a whole, which will work through a series of panels on different aspects of the relationship between the key terms 'performance', 'crisis' and 'rights'.
Concerns over human rights and performance often find themselves located at the intersection of state and individual expressions of agency, authority and action. These junctures are themselves made yet more problematic still by conflicting notions expressed variously by states and individuals of art as both public and/or private practice. In June 2004, the 10th Performance Studies international (PSi) conference Perform: State: Interrogate: was held in Singapore. Along with a regional roundtable held in preparation for the conference in Penang, Malaysia, in 2003, PSi#10 represented an opportunity to assess the distinctive ways in which ideas and analysis intersect with cultural performances and artistic practices in the East Asian region. That this would be an on-going project was inevitable, and two years on, the conveners and co-ordinators of that conference, are hosting another regional-level event in Kuala Lumpur 9th-11th June which is itself intended to feed into this year’s PSi#12 conference Performing Rights. PSi#12 Performing Rights will engage similar and related questions and will see the dialogue and discussions begun at Panic Buttons brought to the attention of a wider audience meeting in London, June 15-18, 2006
bring your belongings, your baggage, your garbage. bring your unsent letters and your to-do lists. bring the chair, the newspaper, the security blanket. bring what you own: ideas, attachments, accomplishments, fears. bring what you thought you needed. bring your sense of entitlement, your marshmallows and your skewers. bring your rights. without them, it will just be us.