A TROUPE of 56 Thai Khon mask dance performers will tonight make its debut at Sydney Opera House, two years after gaining international fame at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The show is part of a one-week-cultural trip organised by the ministries of Culture, Foreign Affairs and Tourism & Sport to celebrate the 84th birthday of HRH Queen Sirikit and the 65 year-relationship between Thailand and Australia. Deputy Prime Minister Thanasak Patimaprakorn will lead the troupe as it stages the Ramayana at the Concert Hall and also displays an exhibition for HRH Queen Sirikit, who has championed this high art form for more than five decades. “The government aims to use cultural policy as soft power to promote our country,” said Thanasak. “By using our rich culture, we hope to strengthen relations in the fields of politics, economics and investments.”  Thai Khon dancers dressed in extravaganza costumes will stage the two-act show featuring five episodes.

The show begins with “The Abduction of Sita” and ends with “Encounter with Sadayu”.  After a 20-minute-intermission, the last act will kick off with the exciting episode “Gathering the Troops”, peaking with “At the Battlefield” before ending happily with the episode “Joyous Celebration”. “Promoting Khon globally is one of our missions at the Culture Ministry’s Office of Performing Arts. This time we have a great chance to perform at the prestigious Sydney Opera House as well as promote our culture in Brisbane,” Lasit Isarangkura, music and drama expert at the Office of Performing Arts, told The Nation. For the past decade, Thailand has been promoting the high art form internally. In 2006, Thai Khon marked a new chapter for Thai performing arts by performing the Rayamana at the Versailles Palace in Paris as part of the “Tout a Fait Thai” festival featuring contemporary art, films and cuisine. At the event, HRH Princess Maha Sirindhorn also performed traditional Thai music at the Guimet Museum.  Once again in 2015, Thai Khon dancers performed Ramayana at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time. The show marked a new chapter of Thai performance art, 130 years since the Siamese orchestra made its debut there during a cultural exchange between King Rama V and Queen Victoria.  The Khon performance was part of the “Totally Thai” festival organised by the ministries of Culture, Foreign Affairs and Tourism & Sport to celebrate the 60th birthday of HRH Princess Sirindhorn and the 160 year-relationship between Thailand and the UK. “After planning this for nearly seven months, we have prepared extravagant props, a narration in English and a dramatic show in order to impress foreign audiences,” said Lasit, the project manager.  Thai experts will use the exhibition to demonstrate how to make Khon costumes, while the seventh circle biography of HRH Queen Sirikit will be highlighted and her life’s achievements in Khon preservation will also be featured.  “Nowadays, Thai people have few opportunities to view a Khon performance, since putting it on is not an easy matter”, Queen Sirikit once remarked.  In 2003, she arranged for a meeting between experts on Khon and related fields of fine arts and crafts under the auspices of the SUPPORT Foundation. The experts were to research the traditional art of Khon performances and were later re-constituted as the Royal Khon Performance Production Committee.  In 2007, the committee staged a premier performance of “Prommas”, an episode from the Ramakien (Ramayana), to celebrate the auspicious occasion of the 80th birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the 75th birthday of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit. With the success of that show, the Queen Sirikit commanded that a Khon performance, now known as the “Royal Khon Performance” be staged annually. The cultural trip, which is taking place from today until Sunday, will promote the masked dance both on and off stage.  There will also be a demonstration of “wai khru”, or teacher worship ceremony, and a live performance by a traditional orchestra at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in New South Wales on Wednesday and another promotion of Thai culture in Brisbane on Sunday.

Source:
courtesy of BANGKOK POST

by PHATARAWADEE PHATARANAWIK THE NATION

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