Never Say Die

Never Say Die is a performance combining the Buddhist myth of Mahajanok and the stories of trauma and conflict in Thailand today, told through a hybrid style of traditional Thai dance-drama, storytelling, and contemporary physical theatre.

Mahajanok is an ancient Buddhist tale about a king named Mahajanok and a goddess or angel, named Mekkala, who engage in a discussion about perseverance and humanity, as Mahajnok struggles lost at sea. This story becomes the window through which we look at the trauma arising from the conflict and disasters of three particular situations that continue to shape Thai society and the region. The tsunami of 2004 was a natural disaster, but left behind a feeling that the region had been through conflict. And in picking up the pieces, the survivors and humanitarian supporters have been thrown into a situation often beyond their capabilities, leaving a feeling of a “second tsunami”.

On the Thai-Burma border, over 150,000 refugees fleeing the brutal persecution of the Burmese military regime are clustered in 10 camps. These are places of tension, where children are born and grow up, with the legacy of violence and persecution infects life in the camps, amidst the humanitarian support.

In the deep south of Thailand, three provinces of predominantly Muslim Malay Thai, have been overwhelmed by violence since 2001, leaving over 2,000 dead. An Islamic insurgency and overzealous security response emerged from the peace to subsume the region, leaving locals caught in the middle.