Students from Juthamas
Beauty School perform the traditional Isaan dance ‘Bai Sri Suu Khwan’
for the wrist-binding with white string ceremony.
Manoon Makpol
The Pattaya Issan Association plans to use dance
performances to raise the group’s profile and better promote Thailand’s
northeast region.
At a Feb. 28 press conference, association acting
President Jinjutha Phothisa said a number of traditional dance
performances will be scheduled throughout the Songkran (Thai New Year)
celebration next month.
Twenty students from the Juthamas Beauty School
previewed the dances with a performance of “Bai Sri Suu Khwan,” the
traditional wrist-binding with white string ceremony performed on
congratulatory occasions by Issan natives.
Jinjutha said Issan Association members throughout
the country have been working for a decade to help preserve and
publicize original northeast culture. The work done today, she said,
will help new generations carry on the traditions.
The schedule for the April dances will be discussed
at the group’s next meeting, Jinjutha added.
In Thailand’s northeast, where summers are hot and
dry and winter months rainy and often flooded, the rural population has
created musical and dance performances rooted in daily or seasonal
activities, such as “Hae Nang Maew” (pray for rainfall ceremony), “Sueng
Bang Fai” (also a ceremony for rainfall), “Sueng Swing” (a dance showing
the techniques Issan residents catch aquatic animals), “Sueng Kratip”
(one of the most popular Northeastern dances), and “Ram Laos Krathop
Mai” (a game played by both males and females with two wooden sticks).
