Thai dance crew ready to stomp the world
Navinda "Lodfai" Pachimsawat is an award-winning “mover and shaker” - she’s a teacher at the Bangkok Dance studio - and right now she’s putting together a massive shakedown for a competition in Macau in August
Lodfai is training 130 dancers to take on the best that 10 other countries can muster in the contest to be staged by the Commonwealth Society of Teachers of Dancing (CSTD).
The Thai contingent ought to do well, since they’ve already picked up awards of their own at the third CSTD Thailand Dance Competition, which really puts the participants through world-standard paces. In fact the Dance Centre itself claimed the Grand Prix in the team category, and one of its troupers, Kathrya Ritter, was named best soloist, out-strutting more than 1,300 other entrants from 16 different Thai dance academies.
“Right now the students are rehearsing really hard for the next competition, every day after school until late at night,” says Lodfai, who has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne’s Victory College of the Arts.
“We’ll be presenting 78 different routines in Macau, including classical, modern and contemporary dance, as well as national showcases and a lyrical character show.”
Lodfai has been dancing since she was five. She was the first Thai to win the Aggregate Cup in the Asia Pacific Dance Competition and was one of three Asians earning scholarships in the Dance Web programme at the Vienna International Dance Festival.
“We’re now focusing on rehearsing, designing new costumes and preparing in other ways for the competition in Macau,” she says. “And, since we’ll be representing Thailand, we really hope to be bringing a bunch of awards home.”
Lodfai is the daughter of Walapa Pachimsawat, who runs the CSTD dance competition in Thailand (it’s okay – they’ve worked out the conflict-of-interest aspect) and also a niece of Wararom Pachimsawat, who’s one of the most respected hoofers at the Dance Centre.
Young Lodfai has worked with several acclaimed choreographers, earning immense experience that she’s now sharing with her own students. Rebecca Hilton, for one, does a routine called “Supertype”. Fiona Cameron does “Sounds Bites Body”, Jodie Furugia “Meanwhile Some Place Other”, Prue Long “Timeshift” and Larissa McGowan “A Ceremony of the Senses”.
While honing her craft with top-flight foreign dancers, Lodfai also studied other arts, including photography and film, which she uses to develop her dance company further.
“I like sharing the experience I gained working with the masters of contemporary dance with aspiring Thais,” she says. “My ambition is to upgrade the dance scene in Thailand to the international level.”
She ought to get Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha involved, maybe take him along to Macau. The guy’s got some serious moves going.
