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Dancing with Death

เต้นรำกับความตาย

“Dancing with Death" is situated in the spiritual everyday. It boasts liminal figures: gods and the godlike…When the dancers come together they exert a palpable force, the force of common humanity.” – RealTime Arts, Australia.

Where there is life, there is death, and where there is death, there is life. In Dancing with Death, award-winning choreographer Pichet Klunchun creates a space in between these intertwined worlds where the material and immaterial meet, where body and spirit exist in a state of kinetic freedom.

This liminal world - and being - between the living and the dead was first experienced by Klunchun at a Thai folk festival and parade where locals don colorful masks and vibrant costumes to joyfully honor fertility and death. Here, death is not feared but celebrated, and dance is free, fluid and organic in expression.

This inspired Klunchun to create a new physical vocabulary marrying the improvisational and intuitive nature of folk expression with Klunchun’s contemporary choreographic system based on classical Thai dance. Using this intricate movement language, seven dancers, including Klunchun, navigate cyclical paths of existence that vacillate between life and death, never clearly separating but always blurring the lines between these two phenomena. The spirit world parallels the material world and yet these realms intersect all the time engaging with each other. Just like how past gestures and movements keep returning to present choreographies. The 'ghosting' of these gestures are just like the haunting of spirits in the material world but also manifestations of the material in the ether.

Credit:

Produced by: Pichet Klunchun Dance Company and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay (Singapore)
Commissioned by: Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore for da:ns series 2016
Co-produced by: Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama 2016 executive committee, Arts Centre Melbourne and Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival
Technical Consultant: KANAGAWA ARTS THEATRE(KAAT)

Choreographer: Pichet Klunchun
Dancers: Pichet Klunchun, Sunon Wachirawarakarn, Porramet Maneerat, Padung Jumpan, Kornkarn Rungsawang, Julaluck Eakwattanapun

Artistic Director: Pichet Klunchun

Set Design: Pichet Klunchun

Lighting Designer: Asako Miura

Sound Designer: Hiroshi Iguchi

Costume Designer: Piyaporn Bhongse-tong

Dramaturg: Lim How Ngean

Production Coordinator/Manager: Sojirat Singholka

Stage Manager: Jirach Eiamsa-ard

Commissioned by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.

Co-produced by Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama 2016 Executive Committee, Arts Centre Melbourne - Asia TOPA and Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival.

The gentlemen

นายใน

Gentlemen is inspired by a story from the quote from the book Nay Nai “When women were not welcomed in the royal court, who replaced Nang Nai (ladies-in-waiting)?”

Through classical and contemporary dance styled in the high-energy format, Gentlemen sets out to investigate male-female roles nowadays and the training process of how men and women today aiming to reach the apex of power and influence. While everyone wants to be the best, they forget about “gentleness, rules, manners and moral”.

This performance was originally a commission and produced and presented by TheatreWorks, Singapore in 2014.

The gentlemen credit:

Choreographer/Director: Pichet Klunchun

Dancers: Sunon Wachirawarakarn, Porramet Maneerat, Padung Jumpan, Jirayus Puatput

Dramaturg: Orada Lelanuj

Costumes Design: Piyaporn Bhongse-tong

Sound Design: Hiroshi Iguchi

Production Manager: Sojirat Singholka

Computer Engineer (for costumes and props)

Edutainment & Socio-Interaction Computing (ESIC) LAB Computer Engineering Department King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi Thailand, http://esic.cpe.kmutt.ac.th

Songs used in Gentlemen

Loke Nee Kue Lakorn (karaoke reading) translating to All the world’s a stage

Music/Lyrics Paiboon Budkhun 

Singer Suthep Wongkamhaeng (singing version)

Piano Kantakan Sankhavanija (piano version)

Music “Up Up Up”: Kittipong Tamsuay KAZZ

Tam Kai

ตามไก่

Tam Kai (Following the Chicken) is a new dance performance that asks dancers to respond to the virtuoso Kraw Nai Tang Tawada piece played by the renowned ranad ek (alto xylophone) master, Boonyoung Katkong.
Throughout the hour-long performance, dancers perform a succession of improvised solo pieces, one after one, across the stage, their bodies moving in direct and unrehearsed ways to Master Boonyong’s vibrant musical energy.

Kraw Nai Tang Tawada is typically done as a solo ranad ek performance, allowing a master to show his skill, experience, intelligence, and creativity. Here, the music serves to challenge dancers, demanding their creative responses to the music’s powerful and fast-paced rhythms.

The key interesting point of this piece is the thin line that draws between the situations identified as “performance” and “non-performance”. The movements spontaneously reflect both an ephemeral and an eternal “present” that arises from each of use as each of dancers directly respond to the mighty musical energy in a unique way.

Tam Kai remains important, however, because it is a dance that breaks open traditional forms and feelings of fixed beauty, and demands that its dancers make new living kinds of beauty during the dance itself.

Tam Kai began with Company's dancers exploring body movements that suited the piece's complex and vigorous musical flow. Dancers had the full freedom to experiment with improvised movements rather than work through fixed choreographic structures. They next challenged themselves to develop ways to communicate body motion among them. The unpredictable fusion of movement, situations, and stories among the dancers also gives audiences an opportunity to exercise their own creativity as they imagine the unfolding significance of the live performance.

In contrast to the frames and limits that traditional approaches place on dancers’ bodies and minds, our new approach asks dancers to freely and creatively embody their own powers of dance as responses to the musical energy. Most importantly, dancers need to physically and mentally release themselves from familiar frames and fixed forms.

Audiences see raw, unpredictable, and unanticipated movements, while dancers free themselves from standardized mindsets and forms. As a result, everyone gets a fuller taste of aesthetic freedom.

Dancers, director, and audiences alike face the fresh energy of the creative imagination. No one knows what will happen as the show begins.

Touring of Tam Kai

2013: representing Thai Artists by performing a group dance piece “Tam Kai ” as part of Ervaar Daar Hier Theater in the Netherlands at
- Den HaagLucent Danstheater, Den Haag, October 19
- Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam, Amsterdam, October 21
- Theater Heerlen, Heerlen, October 23
- Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Utrecht, October 25
- Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Rotterdam, October 26
- Stadsschouwburg Groningen, Groningen, October 28
- Schouwburg Tilburg, Tilburg, October 30

2014: representing Thai Artists by performing a group dance performance “Tam Kai” at
- Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan, October 11-12
- Kunisaki Art Festival, Japan, October 18-19

Black And White

ขาว ดำ

Black and White was commissioned and first presented by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore as part of da:ns festival 2011.

Black and White Inspired by the battle scenes of the Ramayana murals, Thai choreographer and dancer Pichet Klunchun explores the inherent human struggle between good and bad. Black and White embarks on a search for the delicate equilibrium of opposing forces, which must be found to achieve inner peace. In this piece, planes of perception are the driving forces to viewing compositions of dancing bodies. When does struggle become support? How does confrontation turn into acceptance? What does it take to embrace and sense rather than to resist and reject? Lauded for his daring and unconventional approach, Pichet has brought contemporary sensibilities to the Thai classical form of Khon while staying true to the heart and wisdom of the tradition. Black and White is performed by six dancers including Pichet, clad in handmade costumes that are modern yet infused with the classical styles of Khon attire. This time round Pichet also works hand-in-hand with critically acclaimed musician Wu Na who provide live Chinese guqin music, and Japanese lighting designer Miura Asako who illuminates the stage.

Black and White Credit:

Director/Artistic Director/Choreographer: Pichet Klunchun
Lighting Designer: Miura Asako

Chinese Guqin (music): Wu Na

Mask and costume design for male dancers: Anuthep Potchprasart

Dramaturg: Lim How Ngean

Production Manager: Sojirat Singholka

Touring of Black and White:

World Premiere at Da:ns Festival 2011 at Esplanade Theatre Studio (Singapore): October 7-8, 2011

Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival Groningen 2012 (The Netherlands): August 17-18, 2012
Zürcher Theater Spektakel 2012 (Switzerland): August 22-24, 2012
December Dance 2014: International Dance Festival which is a collaboration between Concertgebouw Brugge and Cultuurcentrum Brugge, Brugge, Belgium, December 7, 2014
Performing Arts Meeting (TPAM) in Yokohama 2015(Japan), February 14-15, 2015

Nijinsky Siam (2010)

นิจืนสกี สยาม

Vaslav Nijinsky, the dance maverick of the legendary Ballet Russes, performed 'Danse Siamoise' in the Paris Opera. Exactly 100 years later, Pichet Klunchun, the celebrated Thai dancer, incarnates this forgotten solo dance.

Through careful research, Pichet animates the poses and movement from archival documents on Nijinsky. His version features the original score by composer Christian Sinding, first conducted by Stravinsky.

It also recalls the images of the first Thai classical dance troupe that toured Europe in 1900 and deeply impressed many artists, including Diaghlev who founded the Ballet Russes.

The historical encounter with Thai classical dance was thus part of the art movement called ‘Orientalism’ which rippled across film, visual arts and other artistic forms.

Pichet summons Nijinsky back on stage by means of paintings, photographs and traditional huge puppets called 'nang yai'. He invites us to perceive the acts of ‘reconstruction’, ‘reinterpretation’ and ‘reinvention’ of cultures.

A sensitive dance dialogue unfolds between both artists - one dead and the other alive. Between shadow and light, life and vitality is re-imagined.

Produced by Tang Fu Kuen, 'Nijinsky Siam' is a co-production by Singapore Arts Festival and Theater der Welt 2010, and supported by Zürcher Theater Spektakel and Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival Groningen.

Nijinsky Siam Credit:

Nijinsky Siam is a co-producion between the Singapore Arts Festival and Theater der Welt 2010, and is supported by Zürcher Theater Spektakel and Noorderzon/Grand Theatre Groningen.

Choreographer/Artistic Director/Set Designer: Pichet Klunchun

Lighting Designer: Jirach, Eaimsa-Ard

Dancers: Sunon Wachirawarakarn, Padung Jumpan, Pichet Klunchun

Producer: Tang Fu Kuen

Manager: Sojirat Singholka

Song: Alte Weise, Op. 89_2 composed by Christian Sinding

Historical Researchers of Production: Sylvie Dancre and Philippe de Lustrac

Chui Chai

By Pichet Klunchun