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This book celebrates dance in Thailand, focusing on the diversity of Thailand's dance cultures and their place in today's world. Giving voice to eminent artists and scholars on the complex roles that Thailand is pursuing for artful movement at home and abroad, it provides key perspectives on Thai dance traditions and practitioners.
List of contents
List of Figures vii
Contributors x
Foreword xiv
Acknowledgments xvi
1 Introduction: Dancing in Thailand 1
PORNRAT DAMRHUNG AND LOWELL SKAR
2 Remembering Contemporary Thai Dance with an Eye to Its Futures 17
SURAPONE VIRULRAK
3 Unseen Thailand: Exploring the Hidden Lives of Dance in Contemporary Thai Culture 31
PORNRAT DAMRHUNG
4 Lakhon Phanthang: Thai Hybrid Dance Drama on the International Stage in the Early 20th Century 47
PAKAMAS JIRAJARUPAT
5 Reimagining Classical Thai Dance for the 21st Century: The Evolution of Pichet Klunchun’s “No. 60” 65
LOWELL SKAR
6 A Glocalized Tradition: Worldly Currents of Nora in Southern Thailand 81
KANIT SRIPAORAYA
7 Made to Order: Corporeality and Community in the Contemporary Isan Dancing Body 97
TANATCHAPORN KITTIKONG
8 Preparing BFA Students for a Life in the World of Dance: Thai University Pedagogies 111
SUPHANNEE BOONPENG
9 Lanna Dance Now: Our Moves with Contemporary Northern Thai Performance Cultures 125
SARAN SUWANACHOTE, RONNARONG KHAMPHA, AND WAEWDOW SIRISOOK
10 B-Floor’s Moves on the Contemporary Stage 141
JARUNUN PHANTACHAT
11 My Improbable, Extraordinary West-East Dance Life 156
BENJAMIN TARDIF
12 Dance Dreams Realized: My Journey from a Bangkok Dance School to New York’s Dance Theater World (and Back Again) 171
NAPAT RODBOON
13 Artists’ Interviews 186
LOWELL SKAR AND PORNRAT DAMRHUNG
14 Glossary of Terms Relevant to Dance in Thailand 225
PORNRAT DAMRHUNG AND LOWELL SKAR
Index 237
About the author
Pornrat Damrhung is Professor of Dramatic Arts at Chulalongkorn University and Associate Member of the Royal Society of Thailand, specializing in contemporary dance cultures, community performance, and young people’s theater.
Lowell Skar teaches Global Cultural Studies at Chulalongkorn University, and focuses on how modern cultural life in Asia, including the performing arts, is both entangled in local embodied knowledge and engaged with transnational practices and imaginaries.
Summary
This book celebrates dance in Thailand, focusing on the diversity of Thailand’s dance cultures and their place in today’s world. Giving voice to eminent artists and scholars on the complex roles that Thailand is pursuing for artful movement at home and abroad, it provides key perspectives on Thai dance traditions and practitioners.
