The success is onstage

Bangkok's 12th International Festival of Dance and Music from September 11 to October 24 brings a packed roster of ballet, classical music, contemporary dance, jazz, Russian opera and more. How we got to this remarkable point is quite a story."It's not easy getting these shows and putting them on, one after another, in September and October!" says Jaspal Singh Uberoi, president of International Cultural Promotions, which organises the festival.

His own favourites from past years include the Hungarian State Opera's "Turandot", the Zurich Ballet's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Zubin Mehta and Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.

The last two are returning this year with different shows.

Importantly, Uberoi says, the festival has spurred on Thai dance and music. "We've encouraged peo¬ple to go into whatever art form they want to do," he says.

"When we started, there were three ballet schools. Today there are more than 20 branches of six different ballet schools.

"We were the first to bring in an opera production, in 2000. We promoted it and developed the audience. Two years later Somtow Sucharitkul, despite being dissuad¬ed by his friends, started his Bangkok Opera, and then Sofie Thanapura started the Metropolitan Opera of Bangkok."

The festival has had 11 great years despite omnipresent financial woes, Uberoi notes.

"No arts festival makes money, and we're further handicapped because we're the only one in the world that gets less than 10 per cent of our budget from the gov¬ernment.

"We get support from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, which views the festival as another way to promote the country. And tourists do come to the festival: Last year about 1,900 tickets were sold overseas, mostly in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong."

Missing from this year's lineup is anything homegrown, something that's a staple of other major cities' festivals. Uberoi explains:

"The problem is we never get to see the finished production before the festival starts. And when they are involved, they have to compete with all the foreign productions in the festival, so it's difficult to sell tickets.

"'Kiss of the Spiderwoman' sold only 30 per cent of the seats, and 'Faust' only 25, despite frontpage coverage in the major newspapers. It's up to the Thai government to develop local talent to reach a level from which they can move on, like their Singaporean, Taiwanese and Korean counterparts.

"And if the government wants us to present a Thai production, it should give us support.

"We got a 30percent discount one year on the rental of the Thailand Cultural Centre," Uberoi says, "but the people there weren't so supportive and we had prob¬lems backstage, so we've decided never to ask for a discount again."

Uberoi observes that dancer Pichet Klunchun has been touring internationally, "but in smaller halls, and with the support of the presenters, not the Thai govern¬ment".

Pichet asked Uberoi's team whether Thais would buy tickets to see his productions if they were part of the festival, "and the response was not positive at all".

"If we could use local sympho¬ny orchestras to accompany the opera and ballet productions from overseas, we'd save substantial money, but every time we suggest it to the foreign companies, the answer is negative."

Nevertheless, Uberoi says, "Our programmes are getting better and better every year. More and more people know about us worldwide. The artists travel around and they talk to one another." you must see thesen The Novosibirsk Opera Theatre's "Prince Igor" on September 11 is a new produc¬tion of an opera that's rarely performed outside Russia and will be the festival's grandest curtain raiser so far. It had four National Theatre Golden Mask Award nominattions. See www.OperaNovosibirsk.ru.

* The Novosibirsk Ballet Theatre's "La Bayadere" on September 15 won the Golden Mask last year for best ballet production, conductor (Andrei Danilov) and male dancer (Igor Zelensky). Both Danilov and Zelensky are coming to Bangkok.

* The Zurich Ballet's "Swan Lake" on September 22 and 23 is a unique vision by Swiss maestro Heinz Spoerli. The company has earned acclaim on all three previous visits to the festival. See www.ZurichBallet.ch.

* The Cisne Negro Dance Company's "Fruit of the Earth", "Flock", "Cherche, Trouve, Perdu" and "Trama" on October 9 mark the acclaimed Brazilian troupe's first visit. See www.CisneNegro.com.br.

* The Swedish Jazz Kings and the Shuffle Demons on October 15 will mingle Roaring Twenties Chicago jazz with jazzfunk fusion and get the audience involved for a fun evening. See www.ShuffleDemons.com.

* The Nederlands Dans Theatre's "Whereabouts Unknown" and "Bella Figura" on October 22 and 23 sees one of the world's leading con¬temporarydance companies debut in Bangkok, and I guar¬antee this double bill, choreo¬graphed by Jiri Kylian, will be a onceinalifetime experi¬ence. In my opinion, if you can only see one show at this year's festival, this is it. See www.NDT.nl.

* Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on October 24 are bringing spell¬binding renditions of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" and Mahler's "Symphony No 1". This is their first stop on a global tour. See www.IPO.co.il.

* Tickets for this year's festi¬val, again at the Thailand Cultural Centre, cost Bt400 to Bt10,000 at www.ThaiTicketMajor.com.

* See the full programme at www.BangkokFestivals.com.    

Win tickets

* The Nation will award a pair of tickets to each of the seven readers who can explain, in 100 words or less, why they'd love to see any of the "mustsee shows" listed on this page.