Lives in Motion

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.

• List of Figures viiContributors xForeword xivAcknowledgments xvi1 Introduction: Dancing in Thailand 1PORNRAT DAMRHUNG AND LOWELL SKAR2 Remembering Contemporary Thai Dance with an Eye to Its Futures 17SURAPONE VIRULRAK3 Unseen Thailand: Exploring the Hidden Lives of Dance in Contemporary Thai Culture 31PORNRAT DAMRHUNG4 Lakhon Phanthang: Thai Hybrid Dance Drama on the International Stage in the Early 20th Century 47PAKAMAS JIRAJARUPAT5 Reimagining Classical Thai Dance for the 21st Century: The Evolution of Pichet Klunchun’s “No. 60” 65LOWELL SKAR6 A Glocalized Tradition: Worldly Currents of Nora in Southern Thailand 81KANIT SRIPAORAYA7 Made to Order: Corporeality and Community in the Contemporary Isan Dancing Body 97TANATCHAPORN KITTIKONG8 Preparing BFA Students for a Life in the World of Dance: Thai University Pedagogies 111SUPHANNEE BOONPENG9 Lanna Dance Now: Our Moves with Contemporary Northern Thai Performance Cultures 125SARAN SUWANACHOTE, RONNARONG KHAMPHA, AND WAEWDOW SIRISOOK10 B-Floor’s Moves on the Contemporary Stage 141JARUNUN PHANTACHAT11 My Improbable, Extraordinary West-East Dance Life 156BENJAMIN TARDIF12 Dance Dreams Realized: My Journey from a Bangkok Dance School to New York’s Dance Theater World (and Back Again) 171NAPAT RODBOON13 Artists’ Interviews 186LOWELL SKAR AND PORNRAT DAMRHUNG14 Glossary of Terms Relevant to Dance in Thailand 225PORNRAT DAMRHUNG AND LOWELL SKARIndex 237