Voices In-between: Three Contemporary Asian Theatre Makers Crossing Borders

Beri Juraic*

Abstract

For decades many Asian theatre artists have engaged in intercultural performances that mostly showcase traditional performing arts in contemporary ways. These performances have often been mediated through English as a lingua franca and, following neocolonial models, supported by Western funding bodies or the mechanisms of Asian soft powers. However, in recent years several contemporary Asian theatre makers, working outside mainstream institutions and major theatre companies, have sought to go beyond identity politics subverting the Western notions of ‘interculturalism’ and “transculturalism” through immersive performances, aural dramaturgies and linguistic ambiguity. In I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye (2022), Thai director/playwright/performer Jarunun Phantachat collaborated with Myanmar performers to reconstruct the history of Thailand-Myanmar relations. In performance, languages and cultures are completely muddled through the playful use of surtitling. Another project involved Japanese director Yudai Kamisato (born in Peru) and Malaysian director Mark Teh spending two weeks travelling around the Ryūkyū (Okinawan) Islands each researching for their own respective artistic projects. This article explores Yudai Kamisato’s Khao Khao Club (2020-2021), an immersive performance project about the history of the alcohol trade in Southeast Asia. The project simultaneously addresses both Japanese and non-Japanese speaking audiences through dramaturgical strategies of seeing through listening and doing. Finally, in Filipino diaspora queer artist Joshua Serafin’s PEARLS (2024), part of Cosmic Gangbang trilogy, vocal cords and translucent liquids take centre stage evoking difficulties of crossing borders in every sense; geographical, historical, personal and performative. Together with performers Lukresia Quismundo and Bunny Cadak, Serafin confronts the audience with the (im)possibility of kindness. Through a comparative-critical analysis of these three performances, this article illuminates the recent history of dramaturgies of crossing borders in Asia. By employing the notion of in-betweenness (Watsuji Tetsurō) and kapwa (Virgilio G. Enriquez), the article explores how Asian theatre makers forge new methods of staging, performing and producing theatre to re-think the notions of exchange, listening/hearing and language from an inter-Asian perspective.

Keywords: crossing borders, dramaturgy, aurality, intercultural, transcultural, in-betweenness, kapwa

In October 2022, I found myself in Kyoto, Japan, at the Kyoto Experiment festival. I climbed down to Rohm Theatre Kyoto’s North Hall space, where a staff member handed me a map. The production in question was Jarunun Phantachat’s I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye, which premiered on 15 October 2022 at Kyoto Experiment. Moments later, I change to join a group of audience members who were being taken on a fictional tour across the border between Thailand and Myanmar. With the map in hand, I followed the group as the performer welcomed us. They led us across the stage, which was littered with monitors, cables, props, and various pieces of scenery. It was a comical journey as the performers narrated the brief histories of the two countries, often tripping over the cables and props. These stories include, for example, a white elephant that was caught and brought back to King Ektakt, who named him Luan Kew Jaruna Pantacha, the people of Kanchanaburi, who sometimes saw Jaa’s spirit at Sai Yok Noi Waterfall, or prisoners of war during the Second World War amongst others. After the tour, as I sat down in my seat, I could reread the comic stories in more detail. I also noticed on the reverse side of the map was an invitation to recite a prayer, as well as various QR codes that would eventually form part of the performance. It was unclear who was guiding whom in this performance. I wondered, as spectators, were we the tourists in this fictional world, guided by a map or by the performers? Did the director guide performers or were they taking over the production? The above amusing play on director Phantachat’s identity (Jaa and Jaruna) seemed to be doing all the questioning. It was a critical dramaturgical device, bearing witness to the blurring of hierarchies and roles in theatre, and was arguably emblematic of the recent contemporary Asian theatre-making that crosses borders.

The stage tour before the performance of *I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye*, 2022. Directed by Jarunun Phantachat. Photo: Haruka Oka. Courtesy of Kyoto Experiment

Beyond Intercultural and Transcultural Theatre

For decades, many Asian theatre artists have participated and continue to participate in intercultural performances that predominantly showcase local traditions in contemporary forms. These performances have often been mediated through English as a lingua franca, and, following neocolonial models, supported by either Western funding bodies or by mechanisms of Asian soft powers. In addition, such theatrical projects have centred around strong directorial figures such as Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Suzuki Tadashi and more recently Miyagi Satoshi, Tim Supple, who offer, as festival curator Gordana Vnuk observes, “a moussaka which tries to convince us, with a bit of Indian make-up, majestic Japanese costumes and roars of two to three dark-skinned actors, that it is engaging with the rest of the world” (20).

In this article, I explore the works of performance makers Jarunun Phantachat, Yudai Kamisato,^[1] and Joshua Serafin, who are working on the margins of dominant theatre circuits. Their works go beyond identity politics and theatrical hierarchies through immersive performances, aural dramaturgies, and linguistic ambiguity. The performance makers are process-oriented, not interested in presenting polished performances and expose theatrically their vulnerabilities as artists and human beings. They do not easily fit within Western frameworks of ‘interculturalism’ and ‘transculturalism’ categories.

I first examine the terms “interculturalism” and “transculturalism” in scholarship before proposing a new way of thinking about theatre crossing borders from an inter-Asian perspective. What philosophies, theories, and concepts in Asia could we employ that would complement Asian performances that cross borders?

In her study of the work of Japanese playwright and director Terayama Shūji, Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei employed a both/and framework to discuss Terayama’s theatre. Her balanced and nuanced approach enables Asian theories to be considered on equal terms with Western scholarship. Similarly, in World Theories of Theatre (2017), Glenn Odom advocates for “further examination of the intercultural nature of modern theatre theory” by incorporating non-Western theatrical theory. Although I am primarily drawing upon the notion of in-betweenness as proposed by Watsuji Tetsurō in 1937 and kapwa, as defined by Virgilio G. Enriquez in 1986, concepts I find more fitting for the works under discussion, I also align with Sorgenfrei’s and Odom’s theoretical and methodological approaches.

In the second part, through a comparative-critical analysis of three performances, I will illuminate the recent dramaturgies of crossing borders in Asia. These include the following: I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye (2022) by Jarunun Phantachat, Khao Khao Club (2020-2021) by Yudai Kamisato, and PEARLS (2023) by Joshua Serafin. These three performance makers are by no means the only representatives of new theatre crossing borders, but their works exhibit specific characteristics that are interesting for my analysis.

Rather than working with static terms such as “cross-border theatre,” my notion of crossing borders centres on an active and ambiguous process of crossing physical, dramaturgical, and imaginary borders. I also consider how Asian theatre makers forge new methods of staging, performing, and producing theatre to re-think the notions of exchange, listening/hearing, and language from an inter-Asian perspective. My methodology is also based on thick description as proposed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz.

This method allows me to contextualise their works within complex cultural and linguistic environments. While artistic and linguistic references are important characteristics in the works of Phantachat, Kamisato, and Serafin, I will, as much as possible, refrain from designating theatre makers according to their national identity. These theatre makers are in constant movement between various locations: Phantachat between Bangkok, Mae Sae, and Tachileik; Kamisato between Tokyo, Okinawa, and Lima; and Serafin between Bacolod City and Brussels. All three of them move between places in the rest of Asia and the world. These moments of in-betweenness are a significant trait of their creative practice.

How can this in-betweenness be reflected in inter-Asian theatre scholarship? Intercultural theatre, a Western concept developed in the 1970s as an exploration of how different cultures interact in theatre, has been extensively critiqued by scholars such as Rustom Bharucha, Una Chaudhuri, Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, and Marvin Carlson. I do not wish to repeat what is widely acknowledged but rather point out how we might think differently and coin new terms and concepts without categorisation. For example, Patrice Pavis’ hourglass model, where sand representing one culture seeps into a single container of the other culture, has long been regarded as a representative model for analysing intercultural theatre. By contrast, through the works that I explore, we can imagine two sand containers each simultaneously sieving into separate empty containers. These containers are in proximity; perhaps even touching, but they remain separate and private. This is particularly evident in the works of Lima-born Tokyo-based director Yudai Kamisato, as I will demonstrate later.

Along with Phantachat and Serafin, Kamisato’s works are open to plurality without mixing. They demand that their audiences and the creative team think beyond finding “value” in exchange to create new temporary performance assemblies that are based on spending time together or just being without the need to give or receive, as Malzacher explores in The Art of Assembly – Political Theatre Today, albeit in a different context. By contrast, Fisher-Lichte proposes the concept of “interweaving of performance cultures” as a process of continual production of “new differences” in which “these differences are not understood as opposites but seen within and as well as” (11). While I agree with Fischer-Lichte on the continuity of the process, such concepts still categorise and label certain performance practices, thereby introducing elements of “value” into the discourse about theatre crossing borders. I would recall here Édouard Glissant’s notion of opacity in Poetics of Relation, who observes: “to conceive opacity of other for me, without reproach for my opacity for him […] it is not necessary to try to become the other (to become other), nor to ‘make’ him in my image” (193). In other words, it is about the separate weaves that might touch, but without the need to transform or change.

Although less common, the notion of transcultural theatre has most recently gained some ground in scholarship. In Transcultural Theatre, Günther Heeg states that “transcultural theatre is theatre of becoming,” that “must be repeatedly questioned anew and cannot be grasped, defined or located as a special category of theatre.” Yet, Heeg’s thinking about transcultural theatre is problematic as it tries to universalize theatrical experiences based on European philosophy (in his case Deleuzian). In other words, while Heeg proposes interesting ideas, it is still one-sided. Mary Mazilli’s study of the Nobel-Prize winning Chinese (French) playwright Gao Xingjian attempts to articulate a new term postdramatic transnationalism, following Hans-Thies Lehmann’s postdramatic theatre, that “accounts for a variety of styles and influences but also interprets transnationalism by the very nature of a postdramatic discourse” (Gao Xingjian’s Post-Exile Plays, 6-7). The study nevertheless lacks an Asian perspective – first, Lehmann advocates for process rather than the finished product, and her study has minimal descriptions of the process or the performances themselves. Second, she does not engage with the Chinese version of Lehmann’s book, which introduces, by way of translation, a new definition of theatre into Chinese scholarship (namely, repurposing the word juchang 剧场).^[2] In contrast, a number of Asian theatre scholars have recently started employing holistic frameworks that redefine theatre crossing borders. Kyoko Iwaki’s notion of “drifting” to describe the work of theatre director Mark Teh based on ethnologist and folklorist Orikuchi Shinobu’s work on ukare-bito or furōmin (drifting people). Similarly, Rosella Ferrari introduces the concept “Asian Theatre as Method” to propose a model for inter-referencing among Asian theatre-makers. Both intercultural and transcultural theatre also present ethical problems that cannot be addressed solely with Western scholarship in mind. To address these shortcomings and avoid the universalizing tendencies of Western frameworks, I turn to relational Asian philosophies and concepts that centre on interconnectedness.

Words wavering in-between the projection and the curtain. PEARLS by Joshua Serafin. Photo: Andrea Avezzù. Photo: Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of Joshua Serafin

In-Betweenness and Kapwa

In this paper, I base my arguments on the concept of “in-betweenness” proposed by Watsuji Tetsurō between 1937 and 1949 across three volumes. Watsuji uses the Japanese word ningen (人間), which combines the characters for “person” (hito) and “between” (aida). The term refers not merely to an ‘individual human being’ or simply to society; rather, “individuals are basically different from society and yet dissolve themselves into society” (15). This is very contradictory but nevertheless it expresses that the “locus of ethical problems lies not in the consciousness of isolated individual, but precisely in the in-betweenness of person and person” (10). In addition, Watsuji introduces the concept yononaka (世の中), which combines the characters for “society” and “inside,” reflecting the relational and interdependent thinking about in-betweenness. Watsuji explains:

We cannot sustain ourselves in any aida or naka without acting subjectively. At the same time, we cannot act without maintaining ourselves in some aida or naka. For this reason, aida or naka imply a living and dynamic betweenness, as a subjective interconnection of acts (18).

In other words, Watsuji here discusses the spatio-temporal relationship between a person and a person. For Watsuji this is the basis of human existence, which is simultaneously historical, climatic and social. Comparatively, the key concept in Filipino psychology that describes interpersonal behaviours is kapwa. Virgilio G. Enriquez describes the term as “unity of self and others.” In addition, pakikipagkapwa refers to the practice of seeing ourselves connected to others, to “the humanness to its highest order” (Santiago qtd. in Enriquez 12).

Building on this conceptual foundation, it is essential to examine how Watsuji’s philosophy and Enriquez’s ideas intersect to create a nuanced framework for understanding theatre and performance from an inter-Asian perspective. Both thinkers emphasize relationality over individualism, creating fertile ground for exploring performative practices that transcend rigid national or cultural boundaries. In Watsuji’s ethical system, ningen sonzai (human existence) is not a fixed state but a dynamic process constantly negotiated through aidagara, the betweenness of relationships. This dynamic relationality highlights the performative act as a space of negotiation and ethical involvement, a liminal space, a lived expression of aida, where personal and communal identities interact, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes contentiously.

This is particularly significant in a region that has not fully addressed its historical traumas before and after the Second World War. Here, kapwa and pakikipagkapwa come into play, as they are based on shared humanity while allowing room for individual differences. Pakikipagkapwa can be viewed through a performative lens. Performers and audiences engage in acts of recognition, empathy, and solidarity. When seen through the lens of aidagara and kapwa, theatre that crosses borders becomes a productive space for both convergence and tension. Contemporary performances challenge the often-homogenizing discourse of Asian theatre by emphasizing the specificity of cultural contexts while also highlighting mutual ethical relations and concerns. Next, I offer comparative performance analyses related to these concepts.

Scenes from Jarunun Phantachat’s I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye, 2022. Video: Courtesy of Kyoto Experiment

Jarunun Phantachat: Journeys and Returns

In the production I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye by Bangkok-based director Jarunun Phantachat, we see a resurfacing of personal history and grand (contentious) narratives framed through a dramaturgical device of journeys and returns between the stage and auditorium. This device could already be inferred from my experience described at the beginning of the article when I was offered a “Cultural guide map: Follow Jaa’s Footpath” and an optional tour of the stage. As the tour concluded, I took my seat and began reading Jaa’s biographical notes.

Jaa is the nickname for Jarunun, the performance’s director. She is an actor, playwright, director, producer, and co-director of an important independent physical theatre group based in Bangkok, and she has won several awards. This biographical detail is important as it will become relevant during the performance itself. Phantachat also collaborated with Yudai Kamisato on the Khao Khao Club Online (2020) project during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by upside-down maps of the world. Similar to Kamisato, Phantachat uses maps, and in I Say Mingalaba, there are instructions written in English and Japanese:

You can choose to follow your guide or go to your seat. Free your mind and enjoy the language you may not 100% comprehend. You can take photos and videos on this tour. Beware of the cables and kindly do not touch the stuff. The stories are told in a totally truthful way apart from the parts that are made up.

Phantachat’s production is best described as a comedic ritual, a re-enactment of the fragile history between the Siamese and Burmese empires before and after the arrival of the British, with more recent twentieth and twenty-first-century histories and a critique of identity politics layered over these. Performed in six languages (Thai, Burmese, Japanese, English, French, and some German), performers portray themselves, director Phantachat, and various historical figures. They come on stage using their real names and argue over who can play Jaa (Jarunun Phantachat) better. “Everybody wants to be Jaa, she is great,” exclaims one performer. The other counters: “Jaa is not a Burmese name,” implying that the Burmese performer can’t effectively portray Jaa. This highlights an important critique of the need to represent identity on stage. The switching between personal and historical perspectives underscores the complexity of in-betweenness. It also aligns with kapwa, as the boundaries between self and others blur in both private and collective memories.

Scattered props, video screens and messy subtitles. Jarunun Phantachat, I Say Mingalaba, You Say Goodbye, 2022. Photo: Haruka Oka. Courtesy of Kyoto Experiment

Similar to the pre-performance tour, the performers continue creating a mess on stage, aided by a technician turned performer. Despite the subtitles, the performers switch freely between languages, even mid-sentence, forcing us to interpret the images and stories alongside the sound of unfamiliar languages. This multilingual dramaturgy can be described through Watsuji’s concept of ningen sonzai which states that the individual self only exists through relationships with others. Similarly, the idea of pakikipagkapwa emerges as an ethical practice of listening beyond understanding and being open to the other, even without complete comprehension.

At several points, performers lip-sync over Phantachat’s voiceover. At other times, the subtitles are projected onto the stage floor, making them difficult to read, requiring us to focus on the sound of the unknown language(s). Furthermore, Jaa created this work in response to her own experiences as a Thai woman born near the Myanmar border. In an interview, she reflects:

Before 2022, I came across an artist from Myanmar and discovered that Orwell had also lived there, and ‘1984’ may very well be an allegory of the situation at the time. Then I came up with a plan to travel to Myanmar and work with the artists there. I had planned to retrace Emma Larkin’s routes described in ‘Finding George Orwell in Burma’, but then Covid happened, along with the coup in the country.

The thwarted journey to Myanmar further underscores the impossibility of fully “returning” to origins, a reminder that belonging is always negotiated in the relational space of in-betweenness. While Phantachat could not escape the Western (Emma Larkin) references, the process, helped by wider global circumstances (pandemic), lead to finding new spaces of in-betweenness dramaturgically.

Throughout the performance, the stories that were once part of the cultural tour are retold on stage, and the audience is invited to scan the QR code from the map before the performance and again provided via projections to learn more. Yet during the performance, the QR codes were largely ignored by the audience, indicating a possible resistance to digital mediation. QR codes could also be read as a space of in-betweenness, between the digital, the creative team, performers, and us. In addition, it could be viewed as a social critique of the digital world’s tendency to conceal information and as a critique of theatre as a place of interpretation on stage.

Sometimes parallel scenes are unfolding simultaneously on different levels of the stage. In several moments, the performers engage in a comic ritualising of Phantachat’s figure by a way of raising hands up in the air that is followed by a succession of projections of personal photos from her childhood, film references and folk stories against pop songs (Anna and The King, stories of Thai and Burmese princes and kings, the story of Lady Mamia) and politically charged stories and images (1976 Bangkok Massacre, coup in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, war in Ukraine).^[3] In these moments the stage becomes a visual installation surface for the audience to think about the ‘wounded history’ of individuals and society by returning us to the beginning of the journey. A journey that arguably echoes Yudai Kamisato’s journeys across Pacific Ocean and beyond.

The main visual for the project depicting Okinawan alcoholic drinks. Khao Khao Club by Yudai Kamisato. Photo: Courtesy of Yudai Kamisato

Yudai Kamisato: Aural Dramaturgies

Yudai Kamisato is an award-winning playwright and director, born in Lima, Peru, and now living in Tokyo. His father is from Okinawa and his mother from Hokkaido. Tokyo is therefore in-between these two places. His performances, presented at major theatre festivals in Japan (Kyoto Experiment, Festival/Tokyo [F/T]), are inspired by his travels and stories heard across borders, namely South America and Asia.

Kamisato’s first online project, Khao Khao Club Online, consisted of three distinctive parts – an immersive audio performance that premiered as part of Theatreformen festival in Braunschweig, Germany, in July 2020 under the name Khao Khao Club.mp3, a short film, and a PDF book, both premiering as part of Jejak-Tabi Exchange platform in December 2020. While I consider all three components as performances, my focus here is on the audio performance, although I refer to the other parts for context.

This three-part audio piece situates the Ryūkyū Kingdom (present-day Okinawa) at the heart of Southeast Asian trade through the premise of the migration of awamori from Thailand to Okinawa. Awamori is a distilled, rice-based alcoholic drink, and another Japanese distilled alcoholic drink, shōchū, usually made of potatoes, originates from awamori.

The research for the project was conducted in collaboration with director Mark Teh (Kuala Lumpur) and involved traveling around the Okinawan islands in December 2019 and a trip to Northern Thailand in early 2020, just before the pandemic began. In the unpublished PDF book as part of performance project in question, Kamisato explains the collaboration:

Even if it is called collaboration, it is not a question about doing work together. We were interested in each other’s work and methods, and from the beginning, we talked about doing separate works. I went there because I chose the theme of shōchū […] now I have no idea what Mark will make.^[4]

The notion of spending time together in the in-between spaces (Okinawa and Thailand) without influencing each other is here realised to the fullest. International collaboration does not necessarily require a mutual project. In the introduction, Kamisato remarks that the study of upside-down maps has made him realise that Japan is not an isolated nation within Asia, as he was led to believe throughout his education. Kamisato’s thinking about maps relates to the politics of perception and how one recognises that Asia, and indeed Japan, is not a homogeneous place. This realisation then translates into a real-life collaboration with a Malaysian director and aligns with Kamisato’s desire to shift his own perception. In other words, the idea of taking the journey with Teh is to see a familiar world through someone else’s eyes. This is the kind of process that can be described through the notion of in-betweenness and kapwa because the process rests on finding new solidarity, in this case, with another director’s project, without the need to create a single work together. This “non-doing” is itself a radical ethical choice that aligns with kapwa because it emphasises the relationship over the product and the process over the outcome.

From the process to the performance. Yudai Kamisato and Mark Teh’s immersive journeys in Okinawa. Photo: Courtesy of Yudai Kamisato

What kind of dramaturgy could evolve from this? When I listen to Khao Khao Club.mp3, I notice how much listening plays a part. Kamisato wants his audience to experience the (re)discovery he went through as well. In the online talk One Thing That Helped, with the then-artistic director of Theatreformen festival, Martine Dennewald, Kamisato states, “I want the audiences to imagine how the world has many aspects.” The pandemic might have halted physical travel, but it seems not to have halted cultural exchange. As people spent more time at home, alone or with others, cooking emerged as a global ritual. Browsing social media for recipes and preparing food from distant cultures became a kind of synonym for travel. Kamisato’s immersive audio performance, consisting of three interconnected audio pieces, then joins this pandemic trend. At the same time, it questions Japanese and Okinawan identity through reverting to known pop-culture references.

The first piece, entitled Awamori, lulls its audiences into a sense of familiarity. A female voice (played by Sumire Urata) slowly narrates the recipe for the preparation of awamori whilst the glass and ice are clinking. As an alcoholic drink is being poured, a cheerful tone is set. One can’t help but think about all those Japanese celebrity chefs on Instagram who post daily recipes for elaborate Japanese dishes. This is further exemplified in the second piece, entitled “Kōji mold,” when the female narrator provides the recipe for oyako-don, a traditional Japanese rice bowl dish consisting of chicken, egg, and scallion. However, the female makes a copious number of pauses as if she is doing something else than performing. Eventually, she will become more and more drunk, and her narration becomes less comprehensible.

For the performance, audiences are asked to download all three MP3 files and print the PDF document, which features translated text in both Japanese and English, side by side. For non-Japanese speakers and the premiere audience, this announcement presents a dual process of listening and seeing (reading) from the outset. For Japanese speakers, this could serve as a cheat sheet, primarily because the text also includes footnotes that explain historical contexts. We then already have this dual process of two concurrent actions by the individual audience members – reading (or watching the pages) and listening. As the female’s speech becomes less comprehensible, the hierarchy between reading and listening is also erased.Furthermore, the performance invites increasingly layered engagement – listening, reading or watching the printed page. As suggested by the written text and the performer herself, the activities that one can partake in could be drinking and cooking. This also arguably enhances the sense of shared space, as there is now a third or fourth activity that joins the visual and auditive ones.

I would assert that at certain moments in the play, there are also some equalising points between Japanese and non-Japanese speakers, as both must rely on the written text due to the reduction of speech or linguistic experiments. For example, both Japanese and non-Japanese are presented with the original and translated text. For non-Japanese speakers, the inclusion of Romanised Japanese may be an invitation to appreciate and follow the sound of the Japanese language without difficulty. For the Japanese, it may also be an invitation to examine the English translation. The piece can thus be perceived as a constant translation and retranslation by its listeners, whether they understand Japanese or not.

This process also occurs within the body of the spectator, through their ears and physical sensations. This is facilitated by the binaural audio technique, which requires participants to wear headphones to fully experience the piece. By carefully positioning two microphones, this technique creates a three-dimensional sound effect and a sensation that the listener is in the room with the performers. For non-Japanese speakers, this enhances the musicality of the Japanese language through the female performer’s use of intensity and speed. Nonetheless, for Japanese speakers, this amplifies the experience even further. In fact, Kamisato leverages the potential of onomatopoeic sounds and tongue twisters in Japanese. This is especially evident in the third section of the audio piece titled Ryūkyū. The linguistic experiments extend beyond simply exploring Okinawan and Japanese identity; they involve wordplay with cultural and food references that are more or less familiar; from the famous haiku poet Matsuo Bashō and novelist Yoshimoto Banana to Okinawan traditional cloths and foods like soba, sashimi, or ramen. Their piling is similar to the way Phantachat assembles her identity during the pre-performance tour and later in the performance. Consequently, the abundance of references blurs identities.

There are other characteristics of identity dislocation. First, the audience is tasked with both listening and watching (reading) at the same time, much like in a shared physical space. Second, by employing the highly suggestive binaural technique in conjunction with linguistic experiments, the piece encourages audiences to engage with it according to their individual codes. The headphones then act as an in-between space. In this way, the text as a reading surface and the audio performance as a listening surface serve as conduits for spectators’ own (linguistic) experimentation. What the text looks like and sounds like becomes a highly individualized experience, helped by these two different modes of engagement across at least four “languages”: three on the page (Japanese, Romanized Japanese, and English) and performative languages such as performers’ speech and sounds, among others. This dramaturgical strategy also resonates with I Say Mingalaba when the subtitles are displayed on the floor rendering them invisible. The audience’s comprehension is dislocated and they are required to imagine. Overall, Khao Khao Club demonstrates how creating a performance out encounters, how bringing the external, seemingly faraway stories, can be a rich and intimate experience for audiences and create the shared space within a private space, or in other words creating a sense of being both an outsider and insider (kapwa).

Joshua Serafin: Surfing on Kindness

It’s a cold autumn night when I make my way to Birmingham’s Hippodrome and the Patrick Studio. I am attending the Fierce Festival to see Joshua Serafin’s PEARLS. It is far from the Philippines’ Negros Occidental and its capital, Bacolod City, where they were born, and somewhat closer to their current base in Brussels, Belgium. The performance is the third and final part of a larger work called Cosmological Gangbang, which Serafin describes on their website as a piece that “seeks to create a novel suite of movements for ungovernable bodies and the ecologies they inhabit.”

Solidarity and kindness. Photo: Thor Brødreskift, Oktoberdans. Courtesy of Joshua Serafin

Difficult to summarise and impossible to reduce to a single message, PEARLS must be experienced both individually and collectively; the performance radiates kindness that’s rarely seen in contemporary performances. The performance begins with a short video shimmering on the back curtain, showcasing imagery of waterfalls, rivers, beaches, and fire. A voiceover narrates a story in Tagalog, a language I do not understand. The subtitles are barely visible, and I have to rely on my imagination and a few odd Spanish and English words appearing amongst this onomatopoeic language.

As the performance unfolds, a ritualistic singing and movement ensues around and on the triangular floor in the middle of the stage. First, Serafin’s powerful vocal cords take centre stage in a poignant play of light. Later, they are joined by the two other performers, Lukresia Quismundo and Bunny Cadag. It is in their beaten and sometimes broken voices that we hear the (neo)colonial vestiges. It is equally evident as they move their bodies across the space. The pearl-shaped lighting fixture flickers, while smoke envelops the space, as if trying to recreate the images seen in the video a few moments earlier.

Midway through the performance, the trio breaks the fourth wall with comedic provocations that evoke the difficulty of crossing borders in every sense: geographical, historical, personal and performative. Serafin reminds us yet again of the limitations and privileges of crossing borders when explaining the darkest moment of their journey to the U.K. Cadag’s visa was rejected and an appeal cost four thousand euros. Serafin’s, Quismundo’s, and Cadag’s infectious laughter, punctuated by deep thoughts, produces a (cosmic) energy and dynamic that reminded us that being in the world is not just about solidarity and empathy, but kindness. “When the world is unkind, what do you do? It’s how you work with it,” echoes through the auditorium. It also demonstrates that kindness can be slippery when taken for granted. This is particularly evident in our collective inability as an audience to deal with the difficult questions that three performers throw at us and do not expect an answer.

The relief comes when everyone in the audience is invited to recite a few poetic lines about being in the middle of the sea, and everyone does so. As our murmuring of the lines fades away and performers disappear briefly in the increasing smoke, the slimy material starts oozing from that pearl-shaped light I mentioned above. The trio comes back to play with this material, much like children playing with the mushy seaweed scattered on a sandy beach.

Playing with the pearly material at Birmingham’s Fierce Festival in November 2024. PEARLS by Joshua Serafin. Photo: Tyra-Elise Harris.Courtesy of Joshua Serafin and Caravan Productions

At the end we are watching a video again; this time we see figures on a bangka in the middle of the sea.^[5] As the bangka disappears into the sunset, the question “when the world is unkind, what do you do?” still continues surfing on the kindness expressed by these performers. In short, the performance makes us aware of the totality of this kindness of kapwa and its doings and our inability to grasp it. Through moments of vulnerability, shared laughter and to the performance internal and external interactions, performers invite us into a space of solidarity, one where that acknowledges both the joy and pain of being together. Yet, this kindness resists commodification and remains ephemeral to the moment that I personally witnessed.

*Pearls* and in-between. Photo : Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of Joshua Serafin

Conclusion: The (Im)possibility of Inter-Asian Theatre of Crossing Borders

Through comparative analyses of diverse dramaturgies, I have shown that the new theatre of crossing borders is an ongoing process of uncertainty and mutual recognition of existing in the in-betweenness (aidagara) as well as practicing kapwa as listening without grasping, solidarity and kindness. While I have to an extent followed Western methodology, I have excluded Western theories and concepts here to demonstrate the possibility of exploring performances of crossing borders solely within an Asian context. Paradoxically, I also needed these theories to make my argument. Western theory should not be neglected either. If nothing else, integrating them with other approaches might be fruitful. Future explorations of dramaturgies of crossing borders within Asia should prioritize relationality and reject essentialist categories, embracing the complexities of Asian performance practices by starting with an Asian perspective. I have employed here the term “crossing borders” but there may be other more appropriate terms, concepts, and definitions that could apply depending on specific performance practices.

In the final analysis, within Phantachat’s, Kamisato’s, and Serafin’s work, the dramaturgies of crossing borders are reflected in the process of the journey and the return. This involves rethinking crossing borders allegorically through the spatial-temporal positioning and engagement of spectators and performers in the theatre space. Finally, it is important to note that all three seek to dismantle the hierarchy of roles in theatre and render this visibly on stage. Kamisato comes into this process as a writer, Phantachat as an actress-turned-director, and Serafin as a visual artist. All three create a space between languages. Choosing between one or the other language is impossible, because they are all present to be listened to and read equally. Their performances also shift our perception beyond the visual in many ways. The way words sound is important, rather than their meaning. Like the fading image of bangka, the drunken journey of the awamori across the map, and the obscured subtitles on the stage floor, the performances remind us that crossing borders is less about arrival or departure but about the shared journey, about being together.

Acknowledgement: This article draws on ideas and theoretical concepts from my PhD thesis, ‘Dramaturgies of Crossing Borders: Yudai Kamisato’s Theatre In/Out of Japan,’ as well as my conference presentation at the Asian Theatre Working Group’s 14th regional colloquium, held online from March 2-4, 2022, hosted by the University of the Philippines-Diliman. These ideas have been significantly modified and re-contextualized. The writing of this article was partly supported by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council and The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. I thank Yudai Kamisato, Joshua Serafin and his team, and the Kyoto Experiment directors for providing images and answering questions about the work.

Endnotes

^[1] According to the Hepburn system for romanisation, Yudai should have a macron over the ‘u’. In addition, Japanese names should normally follow Japanese order with surname first. However, I have respected Kamisato’s wishes to omit macron and use English name order for English language publications.

^[2] While the word translated in English would refer to the theatre as a building, the artists and scholars in China use this word to differentiate postdramatic theatre practices. Similarly, Japanese word for engeki and gekijō has been proposed to distinguish “postdramatic” theatre forms. See Hayashi Tatsuki’s afterword in Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Posutodorama engeki ha seijikitekika? / Is postdramatic theatre political? Translated by Hayashi Tatsuki.

^[3] Reading from programme notes, the massacre on 6 October 1976 was also one of the starting points for Phantachat. It refers to the events in which Thai Border Patrol Police, right-wing paramilitaries and bystanders assaulted student activists, who were accused of lèse-majesté, resulting in numerous casualties. The campus of Thammasat University was the site of this massacre (Phantachat 2022).

^[4] Mark Teh’s research culminated in theatre project Fragments of Tuah, produced by Five Arts Centre. The premiere run took place between 28 August to 7 September at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre.

^[5] Double outrigger sail boat native to the Phillippines (another word used is paraw).

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*Beri Juraic was awarded PhD in Theatre from the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University, United Kingdom. He was Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University (2024-2025) and Visiting Scholar at Kansai University (Japan) in 2022. He has published in VERGE – Studies in Global Asias, Performance Research, Critical Stages and Theatre Research International amongst others. Together with director Yuta Hagiwara, he is the recipient of 2024 Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Prize for Japanese Theatre Scholarship. He is the co-convenor of Asian Theatre Working Group at the International Federation for Theatre Research. Apart from his academic career, he has worked internationally as a theatre and contemporary dance producer, festival curator, dramaturg, and critical eye.