The Human Behind the Dance: An interview with Pichet Klunchun on 'No.60'

Ahead of Pichet Klunchun Dance Company (PKDC)’s performance of the duet No.60 at The Place, we interview Thai contemporary choreographer Pichet Klunchun on his perspective on Thai culture, Khon classical dance, and the process behind creating No.60. Danced as a duet between Klunchun and company member Kornkarn “Gade” Rungsawang, No.60 focuses on six principles behind Khon, and fifty-nine traditional positions that form the basis of rigorous training in Khon. The final outcome is a new sixtieth position.

Image: Choreographer and Khon dancer Pichet Klunchun

As an artist based in Bangkok, what prompted you to choose the UK to perform No.60?

To start off with, we got support from the British Council’s Connections Through Culture grant for 2025/26. We made contact with The Place through a connection from a colleague. Earlier this year, we hosted Eddie Nixon, The Place’s Artistic Director, [during his] visit in Bangkok to learn about the dance scene in Thailand, our symposium at the choreographic centre in Bangkok, and then The Place invited me and the company to teach at the London Contemporary Dance School before presenting No.60 at The Place. But roughly 10 years, maybe over 20 years ago, the company presented one production in the UK – Nijinsky Siam (2010).

I also worked on another production in UK with a French choreographer, Jerome Bel, called Pichet Klunchun and Myself (2004).  I also worked with a UK choreographer on a production called Mahaja Nagar, and so we returned to UK again.

Khon as a classical dance is very intricate and often looked at as Thailand’s high art, but having a contemporary side perhaps adds a new dimension to the dance style. We don't have any similar dance theatre forms in the UK that traditionally narrate a grand epic - in this case the Ramakien – or contemporary forms that, for you, deconstruct and question what Khon actually is and how it fits into modern culture. So I wonder, what do you think British audiences connect with when they look at your work?

I think we now have to mention that if we're talking about Khon, we have to talk about Indian dance. The performance is originally from India. The story is from the Ramayana, and I think in the UK you are familiar with parts of Indian culture.

With Indian dance, you have Akram Khan reconstructing the form and then developing it into contemporary technique. Khon is a part of this – it’s a part of an adaptation of technique and re-tells the same story. But in No.60, we don’t quite relate to Khon's performance. It is about the body practising knowledge and method, which is a new idea for my company, and then the audience can understand or continue with thinking about the production without any background information on the culture or history of Khon.

The audience can have their own interpretation too. They can also read the diagram during the production, and have their own mind to connect the diagram, the image and their own interpretation during the production.

After recently watching your mini documentary with da:ns festival, I noted you spoke about your work needing to be beautiful. What does beauty mean to you as a modern Thai contemporary dance artist?

For basic training of Thai classical dance, we train to perform the court dance for the king, also for the gods and spirits. Beauty means make-up and costume, and all the poses are perfect - structure and movements, and no feelings and emotion. We are not talking about humans’ emotions, upsets, or being angry. That's why my [Thai] dance always represents a beauty and happiness - sometimes we call this food for heart and spirit.

Sometimes when I start to work or create as a contemporary artist, I miss the human being. A lot of people say [to me], “You are a beautiful dancer, you are a beautiful dancer.” It's a good idea, but it's another idea. It's like people cannot see the human [behind the dance].

How do you incorporate human feeling into No.60?

It's a new approach as a freedom by ourselves. When we learn the meanings [behind Khon], the idea and concept is from the master. The master will tell you, “okay, this is this meaning or this is that meaning.” And then everything we believe is from the culture, from ideas from the master.

Another question is about me. How can I interpret when we're talking about one movement, for example, [the movement showing] elephants’ fight. And how the elephant is fighting? This is me and her [Gade]. We go through emotions and feelings together.

If you take on the feelings of a pose or of a certain movement, who are you when you are on stage? Is the feeling of a pose something that you embody, or do you put something of yourself into the pose?

Everything. It's everything. Starting from the tradition, we embody, we train. This is me.

We play around from the tradition into ourselves, and then come into the human feelings and emotion.

No.60 was created around the time of Covid-19. You spoke about finding stillness in your daily life, and I wonder if there is a parallel between the stillness of the everyday and the stillness that can be found in Khon. What are your thoughts, and do you think the stillness you found in your Covid-19 routine transferred to the making of No.60 and the way you perform it?

Yes, because when we premiered in TPAM, Yokohama, the piece had a lot of success, and we thought the piece would continue touring. Then COVID came, and then everything shut down and stopped. It made me stay in the studio and sit down. It's like the production was still, pausing, and myself, still, pausing. I think I did quarantine three times, once in the studio and then at the hotel. But me and Gade, we were in different rooms and we had rehearsal together. This is a very good memory for me. We rehearsed on Zoom. We were thinking about moments in another choreography and other meanings. I think it's more about staying still, concentrating and staying in the present.

In a stark departure from Khon classical dance, No.60 is minimalist in its presentation and costume. Masks in Khon dance typically have a spiritual element – what is the relationship of your work with the spiritual aspect of Khon, and what was your motivation in deciding upon a minimalist approach?

With the traditional costume, I'm not representing myself or my ideas. The dancer then represents culture, and then I become an object - an object of culture.

I suppose if you have the mask and the costume, your identity is maybe hidden as a dancer.

Right, and then the meaning and the form and the movement is very fixed and blocks my identity. I can't change or do something more than that.

But for No.60, I want people to see me in the present time, in my body and my feelings and my emotions. I think this has happened from the last twenty-five years, more than twenty-five years, when I did my first solo, I Am a Demon. I decided to remove traditional costume and speak directly to the audience.

As you said earlier, Khon is traditionally performed to the gods, and I’m aware the dancer typically pays their respects to the shrine before performing. What is the relationship between you and your work with the spiritual aspect of Khon?

I think the spirituality is at home, in my studio. It's my spirit and when I do the contemporary work, it’s about the audience, and creating work and the theatre.

Coming now to the creative process and the way you make your work, how have you developed your creative process over as your career has progressed? How do you feel it's changed, if it has?

With all of my creations, I'm questioning my culture. Going from I am a Demon (2005), Black and White (2011), Dancing with Death (2015), Hunting the Chicken (2013) - in each production, I find knowledge. And then No.60 is made of six elements to create a new method, a new wisdom of my dance. For example, when I worked on Dancing with Death, in that production, we questioned “what is the first movement in Thai classical dance?” And then we did the research and we found, okay, circle and curve is the first movement. Each production focuses on one element, then another element, until we got to the production of No.60, which is the final element.

If No.60 is the last position and each work has its own element, what's next?

A new chapter for the company right now - after we finished No. 60, we have a new production,  already premiered – Cyber Subin (2024). It’s Khon dance about cultural heritage and AI. Humans and technology.

When you were working on No.60 with your company dancer, Gade, what was the process like? Was the choreographer-dancer dynamic like a conversation? How did you essentially construct No.60 and what were your thoughts when you were going through the process?

I think this is one part of the concept of No.60, because the No.60 is a concept about freedom, personality, identity, and Gade started as my student. In the traditional way, when you study with the master, you have a hierarchy.  You follow your master. When we created No.60, I said okay, now we are equal. You can create your interpretation, your ideas, and your concept in the same movements, and then it's kind of like we are sharing or fighting or challenging each other on stage. And then if we both want to be free, we use the concept of freedom in No.60, we both on stage can be free too.

I think it must be very exciting to be a student, but also a teacher, and have the opportunity to explore Khon and find a new way of moving. What was that like?

Every day we are looking and then do something new all the time. When we’re on stage and even for the last scene, we're just very curious how she [Gade] produced a new emotion or the feeling in that moment.

How has your journey with Khon as a modern contemporary dance form, affected your own perception of tradition in Khon and Thai culture overall?

I still practise the basic training vocabulary that my master gave me. Every Thursday we still practise the tradition. After, I move and then work with contemporary ideas to recreate and question my culture, myself and Khon. Every time I get an answer or I find something, I feel amazed by my master, amazed by my culture. I love my culture more and more because I realise, the historic teachers and dancers were geniuses in the way they think, the way they combine movements together and then push the body into a human's emotional and feelings.  I think this is something is very special and very unique. And then it makes me love another culture too. Again, when I see productions from tradition adapted into contemporary work, I'm like, wow, this is interesting. Or even if I see the contemporary work, then I enjoy it very much too.

Finally, is there anything you wanted to say to British audiences before the work on Tuesday, or anything further about No.60 itself?

For the audience, I think it's to come up and enjoy the production. The production is not a very entertaining production - it's between reading the movements and the diagram. But with No.60 right now, it's not just about the production. We worked on the concept of No.60 and then combined this concept into basic training for high schools in Thailand.

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PKDC has also developed No.60 into a learning resource for the general public, available here: https://no60.pkdance.co/

A short video course on the concept of No.60 is also available for online learning. In keeping with the company’s evolving theme of AI, No.60 also has its own generative AI tool for Thailand’s high school teachers:

https://learn.pkdance.co/

No.60 will be performed at The Place, London on the 19th May 2026.