ANTIGONE..."ANTIGONIST?"
_2015_Image Of Woman (Myanmar)
Created and performed by the New Yangon Theatre Ensemble
Ruth Pongstaphone - Executive Director
The New Yangon Theatre Institute
An adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's "Antigone"
In an age where global and local media infiltrates the identity of the individual, Image of Woman (Myanmar) celebrates the voices of emerging and master artists in the process of continual self-exploration, exhibiting artworks based on self-portrait creations, poetry, and performances that investigate the notion of identity for contemporary women in Myanmar.
Roadmap 2015
_2015_An original work of documentary theatre (Myanmar)
Created by New Yangon Theatre Institute Director Ruth Pongstaphone,
Assistant Director May Thet Zaw in collaboration with the
Batch 4 students of Theik Khar Myanmar Institute for Social Science.
Partially adapted from "The Roadmap" documentary fiction novel by Daw Ma Thida Sanchaung.
An original work of documentary theatre; performing the story of the road to democracy in Myanmar.
Created by New Yangon Theatre Institute Director Ruth Pongstaphone, Assistant Director May Thet Zaw in collaboration with the Batch 4 students of Theik Khar Myanmar Institute for Social Science.
လသာဆောင် (The "Grand Balcony")
_2019_A new work of contemporary Myanmar theatre inspired by THE BALCONY by Jean Genet. (Myanmar)
Directed by Ruth Pongstaphone with May Thet Zaw.
Written and performed by The New Yangon Theatre Institute Ensemble
လသာဆောင် (The “Grand Balcony”) is a new work of contemporary Myanmar theatre that confronts the illusion of certainty.
Inspired by “The Balcony,” play by Jean Genet, the theatre artists from the New Yangon Theatre Institute Performing Ensemble explore and expose a world of colliding fantasies, reflecting the conditions of our contemporary society in which social media and digital virtual realities can facilitate every individual’s ability to live in their own illusions. As individual “realities” collide they challenge and confront the illusion of certainty that their makers and believers rely on to make sense and order out of their lives.
The Grand Balcony
_2019_Bangkok International Performing Art Meeting
A new work of contemporary Myanmar theatre inspired by THE BALCONY by Jean Genet. (Thailand)
Directed by Ruth Pongstaphone with May Thet Zaw.
Written and performed by The New Yangon Theatre Institute Ensemble
We try to avoid uncertainty.
Uncertainty is NOT avoidable.
To ‘open your eyes’ to the illusions of certainty that we created in order to avoid the fact that we will always be unavoidably uncertain about everything.
We create titles for ourselves, and we buy insurances that guarantee us the idea of certainty.
The desire for recognition and the pursuit of certainty are driving forces behind the actions we take to establish our subjective realities.
We demand certainty from others, even though we know it is impossible.
We ask our partners, our spouses, our children, our bankers, our doctors, and our politicians to give us certainty. But all that we can have is the illusion of certainty,
so we pursue that at all costs.
We seek recognition and take comfort in the illusion of certainty that it offers when we can believe that we play a significant role in the ordering of our “reality”.
What happens when the illusion of certainty breaks down?
What will we demand of each other to fix it? How far will we go to make sure the image of the illusion doesn’t crack? What is behind the mirror?
The Grand Balcony, is one of the fantastic showcases from the 2019 Bangkok International Performing Art Meeting (BIPAM)
Inspired by“The Balcony” from Jean Genet & Guy DeBord’s “Society of Spectacle”.