Last Weeks Research: Khon Dance Drama
/
0 Comments
Trust me to go straight for the most colourful and dance like theatre! I was immediately drawn to Khon as I've seen it hundreds of times in 'The King and I' one of my favourite musicals of all time! I've found it so beautiful but never known what it is. So I have decided to use this as my research presentation.
For the past couple of days I've been looking at the history of this dance drama and watching videos on YouTube.
History:
- Khon originates from Thailand and is traditionally preformed in front of a royal court.
- It is typically preformed by men in masks, a performance with women is called a khon phu ying.
- It is unclear when Khon was first preformed.
- It is one of 6 traditional Thai dance dramas.
- Khon originates from the Ramayana's stories.
- In 1932, when the monarchy in Thailand ended, as did the popularity of Khon dance drama as it was rarely every preformed for commoners. In the 60-70s it began to get popular again- women were allowed to preform with the men.
Videos:
This video shows different costumes and make up for Khon
Conventions:
- There is always a 'Chorus' who narrates the performance and now sing as during the time of the royals, they would not sing.
- The stories are from the Ramakien- an different version of the Indian Ramayana. The most preformed story is the story of Prince Rama. A story I know well from childhood.
- There are for 4 main characters- monkeys, a female lead, male lead and a demon/angel.
- Masks are a major part of this theatre practise- they are used for mainly the demon/angel and the monkeys. They define if the character is good or evil.
- Hand gestures are a huge thing- I can see this from the videos, I have yet to find a website that explains what they mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khon
http://www.tour-bangkok-legacies.com/khon-dance.html
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/thai/literature/ramakian/khonmasksofthailand/khonkhon.htm#The Khon Drama
