Thai Dance

Blue house performing their Thai dance

What was the activity?

Loy Kratong is a Thai festival celebrated every year. At our school we celebrated it on the 30th of October and it was a day filled with many Thai cultural shows, one of which I was a part of. I signed up for the inter house Thai dance competition which involved daily practices for a week leading up to our final performance.

What were my aims?

My aims were to develop my Thai dancing skills, step outside my comfort zone, to memorize all the dance moves, contribute my own ideas and help put on a good show.

There were eight people involved in this performance and we met every lunch time to practice our dance. After about two weeks of practicing we performed our dance on the 30th of October. On the day we had to first of all get ready which involved getting our hair and makeup done and getting dressed up in our traditional Thai outfits. We ended up coming 3rd place out of the four positions and even though we didn’t win we were all really happy because we knew we’d done our best. Overall I feel the activity was a success, everyone involved had to push themselves and learnt something new.

What did I do?

I took me a few rehearsals but eventually I learnt the whole dance off by heart. On the day of the performance I didn’t have to rely too much on looking at the other dancers in order to remember all the moves. I definitely feel that I stepped outside my comfort zone as I haven’t put on many dance performances in my life and definitely not Thai ones. I have only Thai danced a few times before so this was a big challenge for me. Since our final performance was quite a success I feel that I reached most of my goals successfully. One of my aims was to contribute my own ideas however this was something I struggled with as I have a very limited Thai dancing background. Next time I will try to have a little more input.

Were there any difficulties along the way?

During the first few rehearsals we had to design the actual dance which we struggled with a little bit but we managed to get a hold of a Thai dance DVD which helped us immensely. Another major problem we came across was that two of our dancers decided to drop out on the day of the performance. We had to solve this by finding two new dancers and teaching them all the moves in just a few hours. Fortunately they learnt the dance very fast so our performance was a success.

What did I achieve?

This dance allowed me to develop my creativity skills as I haven’t done much Thai dancing before. I also became more of a risk taker seeing as this was a new experience for me. Next time I come across a new and unfamiliar situation I will know that if I try my best I will be able to overcome the challenge.