Part 1

• Chiangsaen Dialogues as a Performance Contact Zone: Empowering Multiethnic Youth in the Golden Triangle through an Experimental Intergenerational Theatre-Making Process Pornrat Damrhung Chulalongkorn University

  This paper examines an experimental theatre-making process called “Changsaen Dialogues” that involved young and old people of different ethnicities in the so-called Golden Triangle. The process worked with 40 local participants of different ages and ethnic backgrounds in an intercultural performance dialogue project centered in Changsaen, the border town and former regional capital on the Mekong River in Chiangrai province. Including Tai Yai, Tai Lue, Akha, Thai, and Hmong speakers, many of whom had no citizenship, the working process developed and performed a piece of devised theatre based on participants’ complex identities, rooted in their lives and life-worlds, in what could be considered a performance contact zone.
  The process evolved as a flexible set of performance processes with the participants as they developed a piece based on their life-experiences, where local artists, arts and creativity could dialogue and coalesce into a performance. Participating young people and established artists collaborated on performances that voiced their stories, feelings and thoughts, and share their hopes for the future, first at a local museum and at an artist’s studio in Chiangsaen.
  This working process allowed participants to develop inter-ethnic and inter-generational creative processes through artistic engagement and cultural dialogue.
  The working processes culminated in November 2022 site-specific performances at an artist’s mountain studio and museum in Chiangsaen. The process highlighted the value of collaboration among younger and older people as a means of opening themselves to their own voices and vitality and the importance of involving the local places in this process. Their artistic and creative activities showed the power of the artistic work in interactive spaces, where the live performing arts could engage new publics by creating new artistic possibilities through live theatre.

• Reviving Heritage, Reclaiming Spaces: Decolonizing Narratives Through Youth Arts in Ternate, North Maluku Harriot Beazley University of the Sunshine Coast Roswita Aboe

  This paper examines an Arts and Culture festival organised by a youth theatre group Sanggar Nostra Senora Del Rosario, on the island of Ternate in North Maluku, Indonesia. Known as the ‘spice islands’, Ternate and nearby Tidore island were at the heart of the global spice trade during the colonial era, as they were the sole sources of nutmeg and cloves. On the 26th February 1570, Sultan Khairun of Ternate was assassinated by the colonial Portuguese Governor during peace negotiations at the Portuguese Fort Kastela. The assassination sparked an uprising of the Ternate population against the colonisers, leading to the ascent of Khairun’s son Sultan Baabullah who vowed to avenge his father’s death. Baabullah is celebrated in local history for leading a war of resistance against the Portuguese, subjecting them to a brutal 5 year siege in Fort in Kastala, and expelling them from Ternate in 1575. Evidence of this rich history endures today with the ruins of Portuguese and Dutch forts scattered across the island. A monument from the Suharto era stands at the entrance to the ruins of Fort Kastela, adorned with murals depicting the ambush and murder of Sultan Khairun, along with the Portuguese fleeing the island in their ships.
  Based on in-depth interviews with the youth theatre group, this paper explores Ternate youth’s sense of place, including their perceptions and connections to their cultural heritage and colonial past. Established in 2022, the arts and culture festival is held annually at the Kastela Fort on the 26th February, to commemorate Sultan Khairun’s death. The festival features traditional performances of Maloku Kie Raha music, dance, and theatrical renditions depicting historical events. During the performance, young artists immerse themselves in a culturally-based trance-like state, invoking ancestral practices to protect against evil spirits. By decolonizing the site of the Portuguese Fort Kastela where the oppressive presence of the Portuguese first imposed itself five centuries ago, the festival actively dismantles colonial narratives and revitalizes this colonial space with local traditions, creating a strong sense of cultural resilience and empowerment.

• Voices in the Limelight: Youth Identity and Performing Arts Charlotte Hill Chiang Mai University

  Youth-led activism is not a new phenomenon; however, in the last five years, there has been a rise in young people worldwide calling for change and for their voices to be heard. In 2019, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore stated that “from the Middle East to Latin America to the Caribbean, and in Europe, Africa and Asia, young people are calling for action on the climate crisis, for an end to corruption and inequality, for better education and employment opportunities” (Fore, 2019, n.p). This call “for a fairer world for everyone, everywhere” (ibid) has not been lost on the thousands of young Thais who have taken to the streets of Bangkok and have demanded political and social change. However, away from the bustling streets of Bangkok and the mass spectacle of protests and high-profile youth leaders, young people in the Northern city of Chiang Mai are finding creative ways through performing arts to express their voice and find a sense of belonging in a time when they feel disenfranchised and alone.

  This research takes a bottom-up, ethnographic approach to exploring youth identity through the intersection of performing arts, youth empowerment, and community. Through in-depth interviews, participant observations, and close analysis of youth-led performances, I unpack how participation in performing arts provides a space where young people find a sense of self and belonging within broader youth cultural dynamics and challenges. To explore these themes, I focus on the inner thoughts and feelings of ten artists between the ages of 20 and 30-years-old and unpack their current realities and future imaginings. I examine the intimate and collective creative spaces youths move within, illuminating the complex relationship between performing arts and youth identity.

Part 2

• So what? This is me! Representation and social positioning in Viet Rap Sandra Kurfürst University of Cologne

  The use of the first person narrator is a crucial stylistic device in rap. By narrating the story of their lives in the first person, MCs elevate themselves above all others (Bradley 2009). In this paper, I examine the “I” in Viet Rap. Viet Rap evolved in the late 1990s and is currently evolving from the “underground” to become – what Vietnamese rappers refer to as – “overground”. Looking at the self-address of the MC is particularly fascinating in Vietnamese, in which the terms of self-address and second person address are relationally defined. In each interactional situation the parameters of who talks to whom need to be defined anew, resulting in different first and second person pronouns. Most common is the use of kin terms, regardless of the speaker’s and addressee’s genealogical relatedness (Luong 1990). However, the use of kin terms varies according to the age, gender, and status of the interlocutors, as well as the context of the speech act. Although in Vietnamese pairs of proper pronouns for I and you exist (like tôi and b?n), they are hardly used colloquially, except for very particular interactional situations. Against this background the paper examines the sociolinguistics of Viet Rap. I am particularly interested in women rappers’ social positioning within their rap lyrics in particular, and in the public sphere in general

• On Becoming and Being a Dancer in Laos’ Contemporary Dance Scene’ Roy Huijsmans Erasmus University

  The contemporary dance scene in Laos is small and young (Huijsmans, 2022). The Vientiane based dance company Fanglao is its main exponent. The scene comprises of young dancers, mostly urban-based and middle class, associated with Fanglao, and the events its hosts (i.e. the annual Fang Mae Khong International dance festival, and the Fanglao BlackBox events). The small but vibrant emerging contemporary dance scene is largely limited to the Laotian capital Vientiane. However, it is embedded in the larger urban dance culture that has exponents in various Laotian cities (Skelton, 2012). Moreover, as a social phenomenon it must be understood in relation to the wider development of a Laotian cultural scene observed since the 2000s (Arounsack, 2018).
  In this presentation, I focus on how young people involved in the contemporary dance scene in Laos experience the process of becoming and being a dancer. In this, I am particularly interested in the barriers young people in contemporary Laos experience in becoming and being a dancer, how they have or seek to overcome these, as well as the resources, relations and factors that draw young people into contemporary dance. I do so based on research with young people associated with the Vientiane based dance company Fanglao in 2019-20.
  Arounsack, S. S. (2018). Getting Lao’d: The rise of modern Lao music and films. Documentary.
  Huijsmans, Roy. (2022). “”Pieces that Form a More Complete Whole”. Potencies of meaning in Lao contemporary dance.” Music & Arts in Action 8(1):50-68.
  Skelton, T. (2012). Geographies of Children, Young People and Families in Asia. Children’s Geographies, 10(4), 473-479. doi:10.1080/14733285.2012.726408

• How traditional theatre could help to bridge nature and cultural heritage understanding? Some preliminary analysis from Jikey in Langkawi Island, Kedah, Malaysia Sharina Abdul Halim Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Abstract