International cultures collided, literally, on stage last Sunday
at the Aratani/Japan American Theatre in Little Tokyo as the Art of
Rice Traveling Theater performed their production about
Asia’s essential crop.
The company made their message clear midway through the night as
two rice farmers ““ one American and one Balinese ““
bumped into each other, sparking a comic dialogue about how
scientific advances have increased grain production into a highly
profitable industry, even as the farmers’ conditions remain
meager.
The 11-person troupe will perform the show for free at the
Fowler Museum Amphitheater this Friday, Oct. 3 at noon, in
association with USAC.
The UCLA engagement is an appropriate closing of the Traveling
Theater’s tour since the idea for the collaboration began at
UCLA with the Fowler exhibit “The Art of Rice: Spirit and
Sustenance in Asia.”
Presented like a sampler platter of Eastern arts, the program
shows each individual on stage retaining his or her unique culture
in a symbiotic community.
Judy Mitoma, the director of the UCLA Center for
Intercultural Performance and program director of “The Art of
Rice,” welcomed the opportunity to introduce the differing
artists to each other.
“Artists can often feel very isolated, so the project gave
them a chance to actually create new friendships and bonds both
professionally and artistically,” Mitoma said. “They
developed new creative strategies, new techniques of performance
and new staging of ideas.”
Swinging alongside the political commentary is a vibrant
festival of dance styles, from the abstract modern/postmodern
performance by Cheng-Chieh Yu and Roko Kawai, to the unpredictable
Chinese theater choreography of Peng Jingquan.
South Indian Kathakali dance artist Ettumanoor Kannan
Parameswaran exercises impressive control of his facial muscles
with twitching eyebrows and lips to the rhythm of a snake’s
rattle in the piece “Nature.” Parameswaran’s
dramatic eye movements as a water serpent match the physical energy
of Yu’s graceful sunbird character as she joins him in
gliding across the stage.
Many of the pieces are sung in a foreign language or lack vocal
narration. In these cases, music is the international language.
When taiko drummer Kenny Endo, gamelan musician I Dewa Putu Berata
and Burmese drum-circle artist Kyaw Kyaw Naing aren’t center
stage layering breakbeats, the composers melt synergistically with
the dancer’s rhythm. Fluid arm gestures roll along to the
melodic bell chimes of the gamelan music, while wind instruments
mimic sounds of nature.
Using projected images of rice fields, shadow puppets evolve
into a versatile multimedia space.
One minute a family of ducks bobs against a lush green
background amid the soothing patter of drums, and a minute later,
the shadow of a pot-bellied figure resembling the personality of a
crooked car salesman bids to the Balinese masked farmer on stage
for his rice fields.
The performance ends with a piece similar to how it began. The
opening displays the company members isolated from one another on
separate mats performing their own rice story on their individual
mat spaces. To close the piece, the company members walk
hand-in-hand off the stage with their mats piled on top of one
another.
The cyclical motion of the narrative signals the regeneration of
nature, with a message of hope and the celebration of life.