Buffalo and Breadfruit

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Buffalo and Breadfruit

‘Perchés…’ – Cie Chabatz D’entrar

'Perchés…' - Cie Chabatz D'Entrar - given to us by Alliance Française and the French Art and Film Festival 2012, is what the French are good at – simple stories, well told and with a slightly surreal edge to them.  Last night, after wending a long way into the velvet and sparkling city of Kuala Lumpur, and beyond, from my suburban home - we eventually discovered Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPAC). That home for all things performance based was secreted within a park at Sentul, almost hidden amongst the verdant foliage and ponds of robust Koi carp.

As we waited to shuffle our way to the theatre hall we were becoming increasingly bethronged by the usual kissy, kissy, lovey, lovey wet-cheeked crowd who generally turn out for such city theatre performances. I could not help but notice that in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic equatorial city of Kuala Lumpur there was a large(ish) crowd of pale Europeans and a much smaller crowd of locals. It could have been the expat French contingent flocking to support their motherland’s endeavour, or simply a lack of interest on behalf of the more local inhabitants of our emerald city, but the disparity was noticeable.

It was a fine performance, spoilt only by an irritatingly rude blonde woman who was objecting to my camera clicking, and brusquely demanding that I cease. No amount of explaining would suffice that harpy who then proceeded to chitter-chatter her way through the entire performance – hence making more noise than my few camera clicks could ever have made. Nevertheless, and despite aforementioned harpy, those few short minutes being enthralled by 'Perchés…' - Cie Chabatz D'Entrar will live on in my memory long after that spell-weaving troupe has packed up and returned back to the land Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

The story of 'Perchés…' - Cie Chabatz D'Entrar, was a far from straightforward romance. In its own unique way that story of enduring love and equilibrium was reminiscent of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his engaging tale of the Little Prince blended, perhaps, with all the charm of Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie) and the beguiling humour of Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot.  The performance was a delightful, charming, balance between theatre and circus, referencing both while maintaining uniqueness unquestionably French. There was a fine matureness in the story (and performance) seldom seen in these equatorial lands, unfortunately.

With the long ‘legged’ movements of the only two characters/actors on that stage at KL PAC, as they were strapped onto their stilts, I was, at once, reminded of two things. One was of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Satre and his theses on balance, equilibrium - and the other, of certain memorable works by the Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Dali, if you remember, had flirted with the French Surrealists, and painted Sur réalité in his Paranoid Critical method. As I watched Anne-Karine Keller and Olivier Léger perform, those be-stilted figures reminded me of Dali’s elephants. There was a grace and elegance to those elongated, spindly, legs which brought to mind Dali’s Temptation of St. Anthony. That revelation brought home the weight - physical and metaphorical, that those stilts carried on that KL PAC stage floor, and the nuanced layers of meaning spinning like plates before us.

The short love story we were presented with, was in itself simple. Middle-class lovers play in circus inspired choreography. Theirs is the perfect life. They play, they tease, but the darker side appears as their societal position does not allow them to bend and pick up the caste away spoons/saucers which have been scattered - littering the stage. Tragedy arises in man’s fall; there is the pain of separation, realisation of sacrifice and the joy of reuniting amidst all the bathos and pathos of a remarkable performance, minimalist stage set, and music which both brings to life the actions on stage as well as audibly perfuming the theatre. The disappointment, if disappointment it was was only in the entire length of the performance and, as P.T. Barnum, or was that Walt Disney, said - always leave them wanting more – and that was how I, and many members of the audience were left – wanting more. I know that I most certainly did.

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The Need To Create

The need to create, the need to communicate and to use our imagination is in all of us – the young artist Pua Zhe Xuan is no exception.

Pua Zhe Xuan was born with autism. According to Kid’s health (America) - Autism causes children to experience the world differently from the way most other children do. It's hard for children with autism to talk with other people and express themselves using words. Children who have autism usually keep to themselves and many cannot communicate without special help.

Pua Zhe Xuan has developed skills in communication which are fresh for him and exciting for us. He has taken to making images to help him communicate his thoughts and feelings to the outside world. Over time, he has built up a portfolio of stunning imagery to tell his personal story and to reflect his thoughts and feelings about the world around him. Art has truly become a language for Pua Zhe Xuan, giving him a connection to a world he was born disconnected from.

As he has developed his artistic skills, Pua Zhe Xuan has been able to render complex patterns and eventually produce works of art worthy of notable artists such as the Swiss ‘Outsider’ artist Adolf Wölfli. Outsider art is that which is created outside the boundaries of the official art culture, and has included many fascinating artists and their work. Many of Pua Zhe Xuan’s images also resemble ‘naive’ artworks from places such as Haiti and more specifically the works of Hector Hyppolite, or the paintings of Frenchman Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier or the customs officer). 

Within Pua Zhe Xuan’s paintings there is often an unwitting comic element, such as cute overweight birds that should never fly – but do. They leap and fly from the boy’s imagination into our own. It is there they nest and nurse remarkable eggs of creativity. The boy’s unique artistic freedom captures our imaginations, helps us to fly, and enables us to imagine impossible but glorious worlds of his heart, and of his gentle spirit.

In those drawings by Pua Zhe Xuan, smiling lions and/or moustachioed tigers stand transfixed, as if spotted by an all too obvious camera, and pose. The comic nature comes from the all too human expressions on the animal faces. It is as if Aardman studios are in mid-capture of some comic animation, and the boy acting as their cell painter. But it is not a studio break, there is no studio and the boy reveals himself as the champion of his personal dilemma by communicating so precisely and so floridly to a multiple audience who clamber to see his slightly humorous works.

There are times when a doting parent guides his eager hand, but mostly Pua Zhe Xuan is resolutely his own person. Like any artist aware of his own mind, Pua Zhe Xuan shrugs off guidance in favour of a mind free to travel into unknown, and possibly unknowable, worlds. Like Wölfli or French naive artist Séraphine Louis, amazing floral themes re-occur within his unimaginable forests. Sometimes they dance like Heinz Edelmann’s cartoon illustrations for The Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’. At other times Chinese lanterns and trees sway to an unheard, but universal, rhythm knowable only to the boy - Pua Zhe Xuan himself. Ferns and expressive leaves remind us of both Séraphine and of Hyppolite, their closeness to nature and the brightness of their imaginations. Pua Zhe Xuan blesses us with his visions of a warm, comfortable nature where the worst thing that can happen is we split our sides laughing at butterflies and dragonflies, which are far too plump, or having our ribs tickled by those comic cats.

Over a few years, aided by one enlightened teacher Pua Zhe Xuan has grown and acquired unique skills and boundless imagination to create his formidable imagery. There is little doubt that, as time slides forward, the boy Pua Zhe Xuan will become a remarkable young man who will delight in taking his audiences on spectacular visual rides. This is but the beginning of an incredible career in art. Already Pua Zhe Xuan has exhibited in Kuala Lumpur and journeyed to Cambodia

can also be read in Dusun 5