The Festival

What is Unfolding Kafka Festival?

The Unfolding Kafka Festival is a biennial event that provides a platform for outstanding international artistic exchanges that enrich the field of contemporary art in Thailand. The persistent fascination for Kafka’s style and his mysterious characters reveals and provides us with room for interpretation.

In a natural and rational way, Kafka combines obscure and surreal scenarios with the real world, a motif which today is used in a variety of literary and cinematic formats. But we intend to challenge our Thai audience to explore other interpretations of Kafka’s works through visual and conceptual art. “Abstract and conceptual art are not there to confuse us, but rather to give us freedom for interpretation and make us think.” Thus, our programme, which gives birth to important cross-cultural and cross-discipline collaborations, definitely conducts creative exchanges with arts communities.

The Festival poses the question of how choreography, physical movements, installations, sculpture and visual arts interact and facilitate a translation from one to the other. Conceived as a multidisciplinary approach, the festival focuses on the relationship between material and choreographic design, perception and literature interpretation, folding and unfolding design of inner and outer space of the human body, as well as interaction and participation between different mediums.

DirectorJitti Chompee

Why the name “Unfolding Kafka”?

Everything started when Jitti Chompee, founder and director of the festival, saw “Der Bau” by Isabelle Schad and Laurent Goldring at Tanzplattform 2014 in Hamburg, Germany. The performance, inspired by Franz Kafka’s novel, made Jitti realize that the piece, conceived as a dance work, could easily be considered as a visual art. He said: “I think this is a new perspective that should be introduced to art students and creators here”. Hence, he decided to propose to the Goethe Institut Thailand to invite both artists to come and present their work in Bangkok. Since Kafka, a German author, inspires the piece, the Goethe Institut Thailand was very enthusiastic to proudly support the project. Meanwhile, Jitti kept exploring Kafka’s work, “A Letter to His Father”, which made him think about origami and Yoko Seyama, a visual artist and scenographer. The artistic collaboration between Yoko and Jitti gave birth to a piece called “The Silence of Insects”, which has been supported by the Japan Foundation, another essential cooperation that allowed the festival to take form. Later on, after the festival’s first edition, the Kylian Foundation invited Jitti in 2016 for an artistic residency at Korzo Theatre in The Hague, Netherlands. Still inspired by Kafka’s work, Jitti created a new piece, Red Peter, which, since then, has been traveling around the world to diverse dance festivals. Never would he have thought that so many projects and ideas could come from one special encounter…

Festival Team

Artistic Director: Jitti Chompee

Assistant to Artistic Director: Kanokporn Vorapharuek
Stage Manager: Thachaporn Jirasakkee

Technical Director: Jirach Eaimsa-ard

Project Coordinator: Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon
Press & PR Coordinator: Jitti Chompee

Programme Designer: Ta S. Kasitipradit
Web Designer: Chanatda Ruangrat

Web Editorial: Kanokporn Vorapharuek and Jitti Chompee

Cooperation Partners: the Goethe-Institut Thailand, the Japan Foundation, Bangkok, Ambassade de France en Thaïlande, Embassy of Portugal, Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language, Arts ACT and the Australian Embassy Thailand, Embassy of the Czech Republic in Bangkok, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Brno and the City of Prague, TCEB and 18 Monkeys Dance Theatre.

Venue Partners: Lido Connect, Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music , The Peninsula Bangkok, Jim Thompson Art Center, Hostbkk and Alliance Française Bangkok

Hotel Partner: The Peninsula Bangkok, Holiday Inn Express Bangkok Siam

Educational program partners: Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University (FAA), Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts Multidisciplinary Art Innovation Program (FAAMAI), Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Khon Kaen University / Bachelor’s Degree of Fine and Applied Arts (Performance Practice)

Contributors

The Unfolding Kafka Festival is teaming up with the Goethe-Institut Thailand, the Japan Foundation, Bangkok, Ambassade de France en Thaïlande, Embassy of Portugal, Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language, Arts ACT and the Australian Embassy Thailand, Embassy of the Czech Republic in Bangkok, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Brno and the City of Prague, and TCEB to extend a high level of support to our arts and culture festival. We are spreading the word that Thailand has this unique “signature” festival, which allows local people to discover at first hand some of the most dynamic contemporary artists in the world and who, most of the time, never came to South-East Asia.

Your contribution will also help independent artists, who aren’t supported by their governments or any other institutes. “Your contributions will help independent artists without thinking about race or borders.” Since there aren’t many subsidies here in Thailand to help the contemporary art scene, we need your help.

You not only make this year’s event possible, but also ensure stability for future editions. Gain access to the entire festival programme and support our cause by purchasing our festival pass.

Contact us at unfoldingkafkafestival@gmail.com