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 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