Dancing to connect

Last Tuesday at Chulalongkorn University’s Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney set the perfect tone for the celebrations marking 180 years of Thai-US diplomatic friendship by welcoming the Battery Dance Company and their young Thai performers with a speech in flawless Thai.
The first part of the 100-minute “Dancing to Connect” programme comprised five dance numbers jointly created by Thai students and BDC dancers, who triple-tasked as dance instructors and choreographers and worked with the students for three days prior to the performance.
The 108 students in their early to late teens were selected for the programme by the event’s co-organiser RumPuree World Dance Studio. They came from the Golden Jubilee Royal Goldsmith College, Holt Salathai Foundation, Human Development Foundation, Islamic College of Thailand, Centre for the Protection of Children’s Rights Foundation and World Vision Foundation of Thailand.
The performance reconfirmed that if you can move, you can dance and underlined that contemporary dance is all about the spirit of artistic freedom and experimentation, as some numbers also blended in traditional Thai dance. I did, however, find myself wishing that the students had been mixed up, thus allowing them to exercise their creativity with their peers from other schools with different levels of background in dance.
That failure to separate the schools resulted in a perception that two of the five groups had been preparing their performances way before the workshop and the rehearsals with BDC members. The audience could have been forgiven for thinking they were watching school entries to “Thailand Got Talent” or “So You Think You Can Dance”. I don’t think that’s the purpose of the “Dancing to Connect” programme.
Five BDC dancers then took to the stage and performed four excerpts from “Autobiographica”, a work created in 2011 in celebration of the company’s 35th anniversary. The performance featured short pieces, linked by video clips showing them walking up and down the stairs of a building, created by five dancers/choreographers – four of whom were in Bangkok. The most memorable dance number was by Mira Cook, in which the four performers not only danced but also individually recorded their voices into a machine that then repeated and mixed them with those of other dancers to create a unique soundscape. The piece effectively highlighted the ensemble spirit of the company as well as the individuality of each member.
Each BDC member is a dancer, a teaching artist and a choreographer — meaning they get to perform, inspire and create. They are not just engulfed in their artistic world but also find opportunities for those outside of it, especially youths who can use dance as a means for expression, not just simply covering dance movements from music videos or following the rigid routines of classical dances. This helps the young people to develop not necessarily as dancers but as spectators who can enjoy and freely interpret dance.
 This admirable duality, or perhaps that should be triality, brought to mind a conversation with a recent graduate who also teaches classical ballet and Spanish dances. She is soon off to Spain to continue her studies and will then pursue a career as a professional dancer with an overseas company. Her parents, she told me, would prefer that she continued teaching, or at least repeat what her teachers have taught her to younger dancers who might in turn repeat this routine of dance education in Thailand.
I’m not suggesting she should move to New York and join BDC though.

STILL CELEBRATING
The next event marking the 180 years of Thai-US diplomatic relations is “Everyday Life”, an exhibition of 90 photographs taken by Thai and American lensmen.
It runs from Friday to Sunday at Central Court in CentralWorld, from July 26 to 28 at Central Airport Plaza in Chiang Mai, August 1 to September 13 at Chulalongkorn University and November 15 to 17 at Central Surat Thani.
For more details, see the US Embassy Bangkok’s Facebook page.