New York, NY
Thai Dance Workshop with Waewdao Sirisook
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Date
Location
- Ailey Extension
- 405 W 55th Street
- New York, NY
Time
In this introductory workshop, participants will expand their dance technique through Thai arts, culture, and history as they learn principal styles of Thai dance. The class will focus on dances from the Northern Thai region, including choreography, facial expression, and bodily control, as well as dance philosophies. By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to perform basic Northern Thai dance movements including Fawn Leb.
Fawn Leb, also known as the “fingernail dance,” is the traditional dance of the Lanna region, characterized by focused, meditative movement that represents the elegance of Lanna divinity. The footsteps and other movements represent the Lanna philosophy of living a balanced life, where simplicity meets complexity, ease meets difficulty, and different rhythms and body postures balance all elements, promoting a calmer and more concentrated mind. Dancers wear long, extended fingernails to depict gods and goddesses depicted in ancient temple wall paintings. Lanna people developed this refined dance over many decades, imagining how the ethereal and otherworldly movement of these deities might appear.
The instructor will provide students with Lanna phasin (tube sarong) with instructions on how to wear it and an explanation of the Lanna belief about cosmology through the structure and motive of the phasin. Bronze nail extensions will also be provided.
This workshop is presented in partnership with Thai Theatre Foundation and the Royal Thai Consulate–General, NY as a part of THAI NEXT.
About the Instructor
Waewdao Sirisook, 2024 Silpathron Award-recipient, holds an MFA from the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, a BFA from Chiang Mai University’s Thai Arts program, and studied Balinese dance in Bali, Indonesia.
As a professional traditional and contemporary dancer, Waewdao has participated in international cultural exchange programs with the Tourism Authority of Thailand since the age of 19, performing in dozens of cultural missions throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. Her work focuses on expressing the diversity of her native traditions, Lanna arts and culture, maintaining its roots, and bringing it to diverse audiences. Waewdao received a fellowship to participate in the Asian Pacific Performance Exchange 2006 and has received fellowship funding for study and research in the United States for three years in a row by the Asian Cultural Council.
Waewdao is an adjunct professor at Bangkok University, a guest lecturer at the Music and Performing Arts Program at Chiang Mai University, and a teaching artist-in-residence for the Institute of Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University. She also contributed choreography to the Black Eyed Peas “Boom Boom Pow” music video and has collaborated with numerous international artists, including Paul Emerson from Company E, director and playwright Hiroshi Koike, Indian puppeteer and activist Anurupa Roy, and music composer Andy McGraw.
FAQs
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