ABSTRACT
Although skilled bodily movement is integral to Thai culture, professional dance sometimes seems hard to find in the kingdom. To think about this seeming contradiction, this chapter will develop some perspectives and explore some examples on the place of minor forms of dance in contemporary Thai culture. Rhythmic bodily moves are pervasive in Thai life, but they often go unmarked as art, leaving them underappreciated as dance. Amid a changing Thai society, much of what is credited as “contemporary dance” in Thailand has come to be dominated by either those who mastered the refined elegance of various Thai traditional dance forms or those who disciplined themselves in dance disciplines rooted in the West. While this has devalued much of the cultures of movement outside of these two versions of contemporary dance on the national stage, such forms of movement remain common to homes, communities, and temples, and are key to identities performed in local, less visible, and amateur patterns of movement. The emergence of new media and a kind of “dance or else” attitude helped these forms of minor dance to proliferate, whether as bodily memories, community identities, or struggles for cultural recognition. Communities in urban and rural areas see dance as key to engaging young, old, and local artists and amateurs in events for celebrating Thai bodies in motion. Although the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many patterns and forms of vernacular movement, they found new viral forms of performing and sharing their work, and since late 2021 have begun to reemerge in new co-present and online venues.
