Who created the Male Waiter's Dance?

Thai dancer PichetKlunchun is a highly recognized Thai dance master in the West, a name that is known to almost all dancers from Asia at all major international dance festivals every year. He has been very successful in bridging the two dances, traditional Thai classical dance and modern dance, while maintaining the core and wisdom of the tradition. From the age of 16, Chun Klang studied with the late Chaiyaw Kumani, Thailand's national treasure of traditional Khon dance, for 16 years. In recent years, he has been active in the Eurasian dance scene, infusing contemporary dance concepts into the traditional dance art and bringing the essence of Khon to the audience with his skillful dancing. Khon, also known as Ghost Mask Dance, is a traditional dance with a long history in Thailand. It is a kind of role-playing dance in which the dancers wear ghost masks, mostly based on the Ramayana epic and the confrontation between good and evil as the original proposition, which can be said to be a Thai version of the Ramayana, with the devil, divine beasts, and human beings as the main roles, and is a reflection of the intertwined relationship between mythology, religion, and kingship.

Thai choreographer Pichet Klangchun was commissioned by Theatre Arts Workshop to create NayNai, a new form of Thai dance that combines traditional Khon dance with modern dance. NayNai is based on the idea that during the reign of King Rama VI, there were male attendants at the Thai court (Rama VI, who was educated in England, created this title). In the palace, male attendants had a higher status than female attendants and played an important role in the political, cultural and social life of the country. Subsequently, male attendants disappeared and continued to be replaced by female attendants. Klangchun compiled this work after reading the dissertation "A Study of Male Servants during the Period of King Rama VI" by Chanan Yodhong, a gender scholar at the National University of Law and Politics of Thailand, and was inspired by the historical facts and arguments analyzed in it. Inevitably, it touches on the discussion of gender issues, male and female, male and male, gender and rights, gender and struggle, all of which the work touches on to a greater or lesser extent," says Klanghong. What is particularly interesting is that the male servants' mastery of music, dance, theater, literature, and other forms of culture and art is also one of the reasons why they are favored and respected. In connection with this, it is a fact that in present-day Thailand, not only in Bangkok, but also in many remote areas, there are still young men who dress up as women and perform at festivals, and their parents are honored rather than embarrassed." Of course, in addition to drawing from traditional history and culture, Kronchun also incorporates modern thinking. There are several game episodes set up throughout the piece for the dancers to compete in, one physical, such as Muay Thai, and the other intellectual, comparing them through coping strategies. At the end of the piece, there is also a comedy or pantomime-like performance. It is quite a dramatic work, similar to the Western "dance theater", but it is still structured on Khon, which is Klang Chun's specialty, and which is itself a storyline art form.