It’s been 25 years since the 1988 uprising in Burma – the protest that saw thousands killed and imprisoned followed by years of military dictatorship. But now  Burma is beginning to open up, and the country is seeing change. New Year, New Burma follows Thingyamen, Burma’s water festival god, as he makes his annual four-day visit to earth to observe the people’s deeds, good and bad. This year, as the country transitions, he’ll be judging how Burma’s people are using their new found freedom of speech.

For the first time in more than two decades, the streets are filled with the song of Thangyat, one of Burma’s oldest folk arts- once an inseparable part of the water festival celebration . This year, student activist Aint Thiri Thu follows in the footsteps of legendary performers, taking centre stage with her peers to playfully chant criticisms of their government’s misdeeds from the year gone by, in hopes that such mistakes can be avoided in future.


But can the young students revive an art form that they’ve never even heard? Will the former government, not used to admitting mistakes, actually listen to the voice of the people? And will the students be safe to sing out their satirical verse, or does Burma still have a long road ahead before becoming a truly free country? Thanks to Johnnie, Shwe, Khin Mar Win and Khine.

BBC World Service New Year New Burma

For Australian Broadcasting Corporation

It’s been 25 years since the 1988 uprising in Burma – the protest that saw thousands killed and imprisoned followed by years of military dictatorship. But now Burma is beginning to open up, and the country is seeing change. New Year, New Burma follows Thingyamen, Burma’s water festival god, as he makes his annual four-day visit to earth to observe the people’s deeds, good and bad. This year, as the country transitions, he’ll be judging how Burma’s people are using their new found freedom of speech.

For the first time in more than two decades, the streets are filled with the song of Thangyat, one of Burma’s oldest folk arts- once an inseparable part of the water festival celebration . This year, student activist Aint Thiri Thu follows in the footsteps of legendary performers, taking centre stage with her peers to playfully chant criticisms of their government’s misdeeds from the year gone by, in hopes that such mistakes can be avoided in future.

But can the young students revive an art form that they’ve never even heard? Will the former government, not used to admitting mistakes, actually listen to the voice of the people? And will the students be safe to sing out their satirical verse, or does Burma still have a long road ahead before becoming a truly free country? Thanks to Johnnie, Shwe, Khin Mar Win and Khine.

ABC New Year New Burma

This piece was made for ABC broadcast in November 2014. It features the Island St Kilda - a land of superlatives: sheer cliffs rising out of the Atlantic, sea birds screeching around iceberg-like stacks. Remote and isolated, 40 miles from the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, for hundreds of years it was populated by 150 or so inhabitants whose subsistence living involved scaling the cliffs to catch seabirds for food and oil. The last 37 residents chose to leave in 1930, leaving an island coated thick with mythology.

 St.Kildians
Even before its evacuation, St Kilda was romanticised by people who lived far from its isolated shores. Cut off from the world with its dramatic landscape and eccentric way of living, the island was seen as a kind of utopia. Victorians sent steamboats of tourists to gawp at the noble savages. Today the empty island is a symbol of peace and solitude, a remote signal-less lone isle, now populated only by birds.

Edge of the World is the story of St Kilda - the folk stories of bird catching and cliff climbing - and how it seized our imaginations. Utopia may be an unobtainable idea, a dream, but what is life without dreams? Perhaps we need our utopias to house them...

Edge of the World

Made for BBC Radio 3's experimental radio slot Between the Ears.

Poet Lemn Sissay weaves through five women’s final days of pregnancy. Armed with audio recorders Diptee, Olya, Lynda, Sally and Nikki tape their journey: from shopping trips for disposable knickers and maternity towels, to the moment they wonder whether it’s started, whether this is it.. to the peak of their labours. Deliverance bravely bares all from pregnancy to birth, and Lemn dialogue with the women reveals the way through the process not only is a new child born but a new woman.  
 


Deliverance

Legend has it that the largest bell in the world rests at the bottom of a Myanmar river. Cast by King Dhammazedi in the 1400s the great bell was said to be made of bronze and weigh 200 tons. Two hundred years after it was cast, the bell was stolen by a Portuguese general from where it hung at Yangon's golden Schwedagon Pagoda. He rolled it onto a raft and tried to sail it across the wide Bago river. But as the raft crossed the river the great bell rolled off sinking down to the bottom of the riverbed where it has remained submerged for the last 400 years.

Myths have grown up around the bell. Does a green dragon spirit protect it? Will it only rise again when the right leader comes to power? And do those who try to take the bell always come to great harm? November 2015 sees the freest general elections in Myanmar of its 50 years of military dictatorship. As the parties scramble to convince their people to vote for them is now the right time for the giant bell to rise?

The Dhammazedi Bell juxtaposes the story of the bell and its many rescue attempts with the modern story of Burma and its forthcoming election.

The Dhammazedi Bell

Award-winning producers specialising in strong storytelling and beautiful sound design.

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