Developed from “Trance I: The (Un)Governed Body,” which was staged in May 2018 as a work-in-progress performance. Trance was born out of the director’s interest in the recent popularity and prevalence of spiritual mediums in Thailand. Teerawat and the performers explored the body and mind in various states—trance, meditative, susceptible, and powerless. The first phase of development posed questions about freedom of the body, mind, and thought and involved structured feedback sessions with audience members. 

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The second phase of development began with experiments with materials, such as aluminum wires, rubber tubes, nylon stocking fabric, and thermal blankets. Material exploration opened doors to experiments with design and director-performers collaboration and widened the concept beyond the issues tackled in the first phase of the process to include issues of memory, identity, and migration. “The (Un)Governed Body” asks questions about bodies that constantly have to face, negotiate, and struggle with foreign entities or identities inside themselves, which sometimes cause these bodies harm, sometimes endow them with power or sacredness, and sometimes rob them of autonomy. 

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