{"id":635,"date":"2025-11-11T06:55:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T06:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/32\/?p=635"},"modified":"2026-05-20T19:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:29:35","slug":"whose-intercultural-theatre-a-case-study-of-nsysu-chula-summer-intercultural-theatre-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/32\/whose-intercultural-theatre-a-case-study-of-nsysu-chula-summer-intercultural-theatre-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose Intercultural Theatre?: A Case Study of NSYSU-Chula Summer Intercultural Theatre Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jen-Hao (Walter) Hsu<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

This paper investigates the power dynamics of cultural flows within intercultural theatre practices in Inter-Asia contexts. Using my own pedagogical experience as a case study, it first examines how an experimental intercultural theatre summer program\u2014co-organized by National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand\u2014was reshaped through critical reassessments of interculturalism informed by the perspectives of Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre. To illuminate this transformation, the paper traces the long-standing theatrical connection between Taiwan\u2019s Assignment Theatre, led by Chung Chiao, and Thailand\u2019s Anatta Theatre, directed by Tua Pradit Prasartthong\u2014a collaboration that directly enabled the reorientation of the program. Ultimately, the paper argues that the aesthetic strategies and cultural politics animating this Inter-Asia partnership not only recalibrated the program\u2019s pedagogical vision but also foregrounded three interrelated concerns: the self\u2013other dynamics underlying cultural identity formation; the revolutionary potential embedded in folk theatre traditions; and the capacity of bottom-up performance practices to engage with the politics of everyday life. The paper concludes by evaluating the extent to which this intercultural program succeeded\u2014or failed\u2014to achieve these aims.

Keywords:<\/strong> NSYSU-Chula Summer Intercultural Theatre Program, Assignment Theatre, Chung Chiao, Anatta Theatre, Tua Pradit Prasartthong, Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Inter-Cultural Theatre to Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

From July 27 to August 9, 2025, I, together with several faculty colleagues, led a group of theatre students from the Department of Theatre Arts at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, to participate in a two-week intensive intercultural theatre program at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Co-organized by Pawit Mahasarinand and me, the program featured a week-long likay<\/em> workshop led by Tua Pradit Prasartthong (Tua afterwards), followed by a second week of lectures, fieldwork, discussion sessions, and a final presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not the first iteration of the summer program. The bilateral Taiwan\u2013Thailand intercultural theatre program was launched in 2024. While the inaugural edition focused primarily on Thai history, the Ramakien<\/em> epic, and khon<\/em>, the royal masked dance-drama, the second program shifted its focus toward the folk tradition of likay<\/em> and its contemporary cultural meanings. At first glance, this shift occurred simply because Pawit suggested that likay<\/em>\u2014with its accessibility, humor, and everyday resonance\u2014might serve the students better than khon<\/em> if our pedagogical goal was to explore Thai society through intercultural theatre perspectives. Yet, this adjustment also reflects the broader ramifications of critical re-examinations of intercultural theatre through the lens of Inter-Asia people\u2019s theatre. In order to elucidate how this transformative process reflects our critical re-evaluations, it is necessary to revisit the major discourses on intercultural theatre since its inception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we take Peter Brook\u2019s 1989 production of The Mahabharata<\/em> as a pivotal moment that ignited global debates on intercultural theatre, the discourse has since evolved through multiple theoretical phases. Patrice Pavis\u2019s edited volume, The Intercultural Performance Reader<\/em>, documents key early examples\u2014from Brook to Suzuki\u2014while compiling manifestos, interviews, and theoretical reflections that map the field\u2019s central concerns: translation, power asymmetry,and the emergence of a \u201cthird space\u201din reception. The edited book can be read as Pavis\u2019s response to criticisms of the \u201chourglass model.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a> In an attempt to redress its West-centric orientation, he incorporates a section that foregrounds perspectives from non-Western cultural and theatrical contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Schechner further expanded the field by situating intercultural performance within anthropological and ritual studies. In Between Theater and Anthropology<\/em>, he introduced the concept of \u201crestored behavior\u201d\u2014repeatable, detachable strips of action\u2014to explain how performative forms travel across cultures and between ritual and theatre. By seeking to blur the boundaries between aesthetic and social performance, he contributes to the expansion of theatre studies into performance studies; this conceptual move resonates with his advocacy of voluntary interculturalism as a mode of unsettling and exceeding the limits imposed by national borders (41-50). This model legitimized training exchanges and workshop laboratories as sites of intercultural knowledge production, though it later drew criticism for obscuring underlying power inequalities in seemingly voluntary cultural exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most incisive critique of Eurocentrism in intercultural theatre comes from Rustom Bharucha. In Theatre and the World<\/em> (1993), he interrogates the ethics of cultural borrowing, arguing that Euro-American directors\u2019 appropriations\u2014such as those by Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, and Antonin Artaud\u2014of non-Western others often reproduce colonial asymmetries and transform living traditions into aesthetic \u201cresources\u201d used to rejuvenate a crisis-ridden West. From what he calls a \u201cThird World perspective,\u201d Bharucha foregrounds the intertwined issues of colonial history, power relations, and the manufacturing of consent, thereby destabilizing the once-celebrated field of intercultural theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Rustom Bharucha\u2019s intervention marks the postcolonial turn in intercultural theatre, he also reminds us that the emergence of intercultural theatre practices can be complicit with the neoliberal, exploitative logics of economic globalization. Echoing Bharucha\u2019s concerns, Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert\u2019s widely cited essay \u201cToward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis\u201d offers a rigorous attempt to address issues of power dynamics by replacing one-way import\/export models with a cartography of practices\u2014multicultural, postcolonial, intercultural, and intra-cultural to open up discussions of all kinds of crossing. Their framework enables reexaminations of power relations in any specific instance as a two-way flow rather than a unidirectional act of appropriation. Rejecting the celebratory discourse of hybridity or fusion as a romanticized \u201cthird space,\u201d Lo and Gilbert emphasize the need to confront the conflicts and contradictions that emerge from cross-cultural encounters shaped by historical, political, and economic inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to earlier frameworks premised on asymmetrical West\u2013non-West relations, scholarship shaped by the postcolonial turn has increasingly relocated intercultural theatre within the decolonial conditions of Asia, Africa, South America, and the wider Global South, thereby reframing the field through non-Western epistemologies and power configurations. For example, Rustam Barucha has laid bare the politics of his relocation back to India from cosmopolitan North America as a conscious choice to keep practicing intercultural theatre with an intracultural spin \u201cto transcend the conceit of its ongoing complacencies\u201d (The Politics of Cultural Practice 162<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From his earliest postcolonial encounter with Peter Brook\u2019s production of The Ik<\/em> (1975) to his recent encounter with the other in Slovenia, in his book The Politics of Culturral Practice<\/em>, Bharucha details many anecdotes of cross-cultural moments in order to elucidate the politics and ethics of meeting the other in this world of uneven development. In the same vein, Christopher Balme\u2019s Decolonizing the Stage<\/em> adopts a similar strategy. His concept of \u201csyncretic theatre\u201d shifts the analytical focus toward the cultures of colonized peoples and indigenous communities, examining how they use performance to respond to their colonial experiences and how theatre becomes a site of resistance. Although Balme also explores cross-cultural interactions, his postcolonial perspective clearly differs from approaches grounded in Western aesthetic ideologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to postcolonial critiques of intercultural theatre, the second-year program intentionally shifted its focus away from khon<\/em> and the Ramakien<\/em>, prompted by critical reflections on the cultural politics embedded in its curriculum design. In determining what content to include, we inevitably confronted the politics of cultural representation within this intercultural project. Through the selection of specific materials, what do we expect our students to learn about Thai culture? Why are these materials considered representative of \u201cThai culture\u201d? Have we, perhaps unconsciously, imposed a particular version of Thai culture upon our students? What elements are included\u2014and which are excluded\u2014from this construction? Upon closer examination, what version of Thainess is produced through this process of selection and omission? And how might this constructed Thainess shape students\u2019 understanding of power dynamics within the learning process of intercultural theatre?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With hindsight, our first-year program indeed risked essentializing Thai culture by upholding the orthodox royal traditions of Ramakien<\/em> and khon<\/em> as the primary and legitimate entry points into a culture unfamiliar to most of our students. Although revered today as emblematic markers of Thai royal culture, Ramakien<\/em> and khon<\/em> are fundamentally \u201cinvented traditions\u201d shaped during the Chakri dynasty. They served both to legitimize monarchical authority and to construct a state-endorsed cultural identity at a moment when the Chakri monarchy sought to lead Siam\u2019s transition into a modern nation-state.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Students from first year program in a khon<\/em> workshop with renowned Thai artist Pichet Klunchun in his Chang Theatre. Photo: Courtesy of Jen-Hao Walter Hsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Although the Ayutthaya monarchs had adopted the Indian Ramayana<\/em> and transformed it into the Thai Ramakien<\/em> to sanctify kingship and legitimize their moral and political authority, much of this cultural legacy was almost entirely lost during the devastating Burmese\u2013Ayutthaya war of 1767. The destruction of Ayutthaya not only erased the physical capital but also disrupted the symbolic and ritual foundations of kingship that had been anchored in the Ramakien<\/em> tradition and its performative expression through khon<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the war, King Taksin (r. 1767\u20131782) undertook the formidable task of restoring the Siamese polity from his new capital at Thonburi. Recognizing the importance of symbolic power in consolidating political legitimacy, Taksin began to reconstruct the cultural and ritual heritage that had underpinned Ayutthaya\u2019s conception of kingship. Efforts were made to recover fragments of the Ramakien<\/em> narrative, to rebuild performative traditions, and to reestablish courtly ritual forms, including khon<\/em>. These cultural projects were crucial to stabilizing a kingdom emerging from fragmentation and demographic dispersal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project of cultural restoration was systematized and completed by King Rama I (r. 1782\u20131809), founder of the Chakri dynasty, following his relocation of the capital to Bangkok (Rattanakosin). One of Rama I\u2019s earliest initiatives was the commissioning of a new canonical version of the Ramakien<\/em> to replace the texts lost in the fall of Ayutthaya. This project not only revived the epic but also selectively reshaped it to align with the political cosmology of the new dynasty. The adoption of the royal title \u201cRama\u201d further fused Chakri kingship with the epic\u2019s divine protagonist, symbolically grounding the monarchy in a trans-historical and cosmological lineage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Chakri dynasty unfolded, khon<\/em> was gradually, but intermittently, redeployed by successive King Ramas to construct a royal performing-arts tradition that functioned as a ritual theatre of sovereignty, embodying ideals of hierarchical harmony, righteous rule, and cosmic order. On the one hand, through its stylized gestures, elaborate masks, and tightly disciplined choreography, khon<\/em> dramatized the moral universe of the emerging Bangkok polity. On the other hand, it served as a cultural emblem for the royal family, deployed in international exhibitions and other high-profile diplomatic settings to present a glorified vision of Thainess and to secure dignity and recognition among competing colonial powers within the new global order. In this way, both the Ramakien<\/em> and khon<\/em> played pivotal roles in reconstituting the ideological foundations of kingship, legitimizing the Chakri dynasty, and producing a coherent cultural identity for a kingdom rebuilding itself in the wake of crisis (Singaravelu; Rutnin; Hinata).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the reconstruction and canonization of Ramakien<\/em> and khon<\/em> during the Thonburi and early Rattanakosin periods were not mere acts of cultural preservation. They were deliberate statecraft strategies, deploying mythology, performance, and ritual to rebuild political legitimacy, unify a fragmented population, and articulate the foundations of what would become modern Thai national identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although originally instituted by the monarchy as a form of cultural hegemony, the Ramakien<\/em> has over time been nationalized as a Thai tradition, permeating education and everyday life (Gosling; Sompiboon). Nevertheless, in contemporary Thailand, young people increasingly negotiate their Thainess through acts of rewriting, reimagining, and subverting the Ramakien<\/em>, challenging the royalist narratives that once defined it. Rather than accepting the epic as a fixed symbol of monarchical virtue, many youth artists, theatre practitioners, and digital creators reinterpret its characters and storylines to address the contradictions of modern Thai society\u2014authoritarianism, gender norms, class inequality, and the politics of moral legitimacy. Student theatre groups often restage episodes of the epic through critical dramaturgies, portraying Rama not as a flawless sovereign but as a conflicted figure whose authority must be questioned, while recasting Sita, Hanuman, or even the demon king Tosakan as embodiments of resistance, marginality, or alternative moral orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online reinterpretations, ranging from memes to graphic novels, cosplay, and independent animation, further open a participatory space where youth claim the right to define Thainess outside state-sanctioned frameworks. In these creative practices, the Ramakien<\/em> becomes a living cultural text through which young Thais articulate dissent, imagine plural identities, and renegotiate their relationship to a tradition long bound to royalist ideology. Through such rewritings, Thainess emerges not as inherited essence but as an ongoing, contested process shaped by the aspirations and political consciousness of a new generation (Kerdarunsuksri; Boonhok).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our first-year program briefly acknowledged contemporary re-workings of the Ramakien<\/em> and khon<\/em>, its curricular emphasis remained firmly anchored in their orthodox, royalist forms. This focus inadvertently positioned us within the exoticizing gaze originally engineered by the modernizing monarchy during the colonial encounters, a gaze that, in the present day, has been repurposed as a touristic spectacle and integrated into the global consumer economy that fuels Bangkok\u2019s current prosperity. When we arrive at the Suvarnabhumi airport as tourists, we can hardly ignore the enormous, visually arresting statues of Tosakan Ravana that welcome us with a carefully curated sense of exotic Thainess, particularly if we lack knowledge of the mythological narratives they embody. Similarly, the \u201cChurning of the Milk Ocean\u201d sculpture positioned at the entrance of the duty-free area offers a dramatic visualization of the Hindu cosmology underlying the Ramakien<\/em>, resonating with the khon<\/em> performances periodically presented in Bangkok\u2019s luxurious shopping malls.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A mural painting of Tosakan from Ramakien<\/em> in the metro station of Sam Yan during the Bangkok Pride month for tourist gaze. Photo: Courtesy of Jen-Hao Walter Hsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Upon returning to Taiwan, I could not wonder if our first year program has been packaged with an unconscious colonial, tourist desire to \u201cknow\u201d about Thai culture? In spite of all its rigorous lectures, fieldworks and workshops aiming to bring forth in-depth knowledge about Ramakien<\/em>, khon<\/em> and Thai history, have we unwittingly imposed an essentializing narrative about Thai tradition with the Monarchy at the center? Therefore, in preparation for the second year program, when Pawit mentioned about Tua and likay<\/em>, I immediately agreed with this turn, a turn to the folk and popular tradition that might bring our students closer to the everyday life realities they encountered on the streets of Bangkok. But why turning to likay<\/em> could be an anti-dote to our first year Monarchy-centered curriculum? This has to be explained with a Taiwan-Thailand Inter-Asia people\u2019s theatre connection between Chung Chiao and Tua Pradit Passartthong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre Connection between Chung Chiao and Tua<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

When Pawit first mentioned Tua and likay<\/em> to me, it was not, in fact, my first encounter with either his name or the art form for which he would later be honored as a National Artist. Even before we launched our first program, Chung Chiao, the leader of Assignment Theatre in Taiwan, had already spoken to me about this \u201cold friend\u201d and expressed hope that we might reconnect with him in Thailand. Chung Chiao told me that he and Tua first met through the Asia People\u2019s Theatre network in the 1990s and had forged a deep sense of camaraderie and friendship that endured over the decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a theatre review published in 2019, Chung Chiao recalled how he first encountered Tua in South Korea shortly after the Tiananmen Incident erupted in China in 1989. At the time, both were invited to participate in a workshop organized by Minyechong <\/em>(the Federation of Korean People\u2019s Arts and Cultural Organizations), where an emergent network of Inter-Asia people\u2019s theatre began to take shape. Assignment Theatre had not yet been established; Chung Chiao was then working for the left-wing journal Renjian<\/em> (Among People<\/em>) and was deeply involved in social movements challenging Taiwan\u2019s authoritarian regime. After the journal\u2019s founder, Chen Ying-Zheng, visited Minyechong <\/em>and witnessed how South Korean grassroots cultural workers mobilized traditional folk culture and performing arts to advance decolonial and de-Cold War projects, he hoped someone from Taiwan could learn from their strategies. He recommended Chung Chiao, who was working under him and had a theatre background, to travel to Seoul and participate in a \u201cTrainer\u2019s Training Workshop\u201d organized by Asian Council for People’s Culture directed by Mr. Al Santos from the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was there that Chung Chiao met people\u2019s theatre practitioners from across Asia, including Jang So-Ik from South Korea, Augustine Mok from Hong Kong, Al Santos from the Philippines, and Tua from Thailand, among many others. At the time, Tua was working with Makhampom Theatre, a progressive, left-wing grassroots theatre collective founded after the 1976 Thammasat University massacre to confront unresolved social contradictions in Thai society. As Chung Chiao recounts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back after thirty years, it now seems that every gaze directed at me was implicitly asking, \u201cWhat has happened to socialism? What are we upposed to do now?\u201d<\/em> It was under the weight of these questioning eyes that I took my first step into the realm of Asian people\u2019s theatre. One could say that, in the early 1990s\u2014precisely the moment when neoliberalism triumphantly declared its total victory\u2014I, together with a newly formed alliance of Asian people\u2019s theatre practitioners, attempted to revive the dormant seeds of leftist culture that had once taken root in our bodies under the overlapping structures of colonialism, the Cold War, and martial-law regimes (experiences shared across much of Asia). From the standpoint of reigniting Third World theatre activism, we sought to make one last attempt to resist the overwhelming coloniality of modernization that saturated the rapidly globalizing world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tiananmen Incident undoubtedly had profound repercussions for grassroots people\u2019s theatre practitioners across Asia. For many, it appeared to signal the collapse of socialism in China, a political project that had long served as a beacon of hope for those seeking alternatives to American-style capitalism. Yet these progressive cultural workers were equally unwilling to accept Francis Fukuyama\u2019s \u201cEnd-of-History\u201d proclamation and its assertion of the inevitable triumph of global neoliberalism. Confronted with this historical impasse, they were compelled to ask: how could progressive cultural work continue without succumbing to paralysis? What alternative pathways could be imagined to reinvigorate left-wing, decolonial practices under dramatically altered geopolitical and historical conditions? Rather than being constrained by the neoliberal historical condition, they continued to work and flourish over the following thirty years, during which the network of Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre expanded, diversified, and continually reinvented itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A group photo of People\u2019s Theatre practitioners across Asia during the workshop in Seoul. Tua is the half-naked man in the middle but Chung Chiao is not in the photo. He told me he was the cameraman who took this picture. Photo: Courtesy of Chung Chiao<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of the most significant collaborative projects that sustained this network was \u201cCry of Asia,\u201d a production that drew upon pre-modern Asian legends and assembled ritualistic bodily techniques from various Asian traditions to allegorize the binary antagonism between the West and Asia under the new conditions of neocolonialism. Yet by the late 1990s, when globalization had entered a mature stage, this approach began to generate controversies and debates. Reflecting on the production process of the \u201cCry of Asia\u201d series, my previous research notes that one of the collaborators, the Dutch practitioner Eugene Van Erven,[2]<\/sup><\/a> explicitly pointed out that Al Santos\u2019s[3]<\/sup><\/a> method simplifies and homogenizes the very idea of Asia or Europe, as well as the binary opposition between them. Similarly, after participating in several iterations of \u201cCry of Asia,\u201d Chung Chiao questioned whether Al Santos\u2019s attempt to integrate Asian performance systems continued to carry traces of \u201cOrientalist exoticism,\u201d imagining Asia through Western eyes (Hsu 22-3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Globalization opened up new spaces for progressive forces around the world to gather and collaborate. However, the enduring specter of \u201cWestern imagination\u201d and its attendant construction of the \u201cOther\u201d limited the effectiveness of cultural criticism in addressing the emerging forms of domination and oppression in this new era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These internal reflections and debates within the Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre network prompted practitioners to adjust their approaches and strategies. Thus, in 2005, Taiwan\u2019s Assignment Theatre, Hong Kong\u2019s People\u2019s Theatre Society, and the South Korean people\u2019s theatre practitioner Jang So-Ik formed the East Asian People\u2019s Theatre Network, a new alliance shaped by their critique of the ACPC\u2019s self-Orientalizing tendencies. This network represented a renewed attempt to understand and practice \u201cAsia\u201d through a different set of experiences (Hsu 23)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, in response to the global transformations since the 1990s, if this East Asian People\u2019s Theatre Network sought to address the pressing realities of contemporary East Asia, it needed not only to confront the memories of Japanese imperialism but also to move beyond the Cold War\u2019s entrenched geopolitical boundaries. This required forging connections and dialogues with cultural practitioners working under socialist regimes, including those in contemporary China. Only through such cross-border engagements could the network collectively confront the unresolved historical problems of Cold War geopolitics amid China\u2019s accelerating rise. With these critical reflections in mind, Chung Chiao\u2019s Assignment Theatre in Taiwan deliberately distanced itself from the early Asian People\u2019s Theatre tendency to employ pre-modern folk legends and traditions as tools for raising political consciousness. Instead, Chung Chiao developed an aesthetic approach that blended Augusto Boal\u2019s strategies with Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt<\/em>, ultimately cultivating a distinctive form of \u201cmagical realism\u201d that confronted the unresolved historical and political paradoxes of the Cold War era (Smith).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, when Tua returned to Thailand, he did not turn away from traditional culture. Rather, he devoted himself to mastering the grassroots folk form likay<\/em> and reimagined it as a powerful cultural tool for challenging dominant historical narratives and state-sanctioned ideologies. Working first with Makhampom Theatre and later with Anatta Theatre, which he founded, Tua has consistently drawn inspiration from the aesthetic and communal dimensions of folk performance, particularly the itinerant, improvisatory, and incisively satirical qualities of likay<\/em>. He deliberately fuses these elements with modern theatrical techniques to create works that confront themes of memory, displacement, and political struggle, including the fraught histories and lingering legacies of Thailand\u2019s democratic uprisings (Sompiboon 218\u201397; Chung).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Chung Chiao observes, Tua\u2019s artistic practice is equally rooted in cultural democracy and community engagement. Makhampom Theatre has long conducted border-region workshops addressing refugee trauma and has developed creative educational programs for marginalized communities\u2014one workshop famously asked participants to \u201cbecome refugees\u201d through role-play as a way to probe their assumptions about hope, futurity, and identity (Chung). Seen from today\u2019s vantage point, Tua\u2019s sustained commitment to likay<\/em> is far from the inadvertent self-Orientalization once attributed to early Asian People\u2019s Theatre. Beyond his subversive re-appropriation of the likay<\/em> tradition, he also co-founded the Bangkok Theatre Festival in 2002, institutionalizing a platform that brings folk performance into contemporary practice while encouraging experimental works that unsettle the notion of \u201cnational\u201d cultural borders. His recognition as a National Artist and recipient of the 2004 Silpathorn Award further demonstrates how his work traverses\u2014and productively destabilizes\u2014the divide between grassroots cultural activism and institutional prestige. Taken together, these achievements attest to Tua\u2019s lifelong effort to render likay<\/em> not as an obsolete folk relic, but as a living, generative art form animated by a resilient folk spirit that continues to thrive in the present.[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Chung Chiao and Tua\u2019s theatrical friendship and camaraderie have endured for decades. Most recently, they reunited at the International People\u2019s Theatre Festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Chung Chiao<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
To Conclude: Tua and Our Program<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

My previous research on Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre helped me recognize what Tua and his likay<\/em> workshop could offer our students: not only an encounter with a culturally distinct folk performance tradition, but also an understanding of how such a form remains deeply entangled with contemporary social realities in an intercultural learning environment. This shift allows us to move away from the royally sanctioned version of Thainess, one largely detached from the lived experiences of most Thai people, and challenges the top-down pedagogical model associated with khon<\/em> by opening an improvisational space in which students can actively participate and contribute. Moreover, as a living tradition, likay<\/em> enables intercultural deconstructions and reconstructions of Thainess in ways that the museum-like aesthetic of khon<\/em> cannot; the latter risks producing a glamorously exotic yet culturally ossified representation of Thai culture. By inviting Tua into the second-year program, we aim to intervene critically in the problematic cultural politics embedded in our first-year curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the first-year program, several students pointed out the dissonance between what they had learned in class and what they observed in the everyday life of contemporary Bangkok, particularly the stark contrast between the glittering consumer lifestyles familiar to students raised under global capitalism in Taiwan and the visible poverty relegated to the city\u2019s margins. Their candid insights reminded me of the transformative potential of Tua\u2019s involvement: rather than treating Thai performance traditions as static anthropological artifacts, we must activate them as cultural instruments capable of facilitating deeper intercultural understanding in the contemporary world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, the Chung Chiao\u2013Tua Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre connection sharpened my understanding of major debates in intercultural theatre, especially those grounded in postcolonial critiques of power asymmetries. It prompted questions about whether the structural inequalities identified in Eurocentric models of intercultural performance might be reconfigured through Tua\u2019s likay<\/em>-based pedagogy. When the analytical frame shifts into an Inter-Asia context, specifically the exchange between Taiwan and Thailand, how might students rethink the pre-modern\/modern and West\/non-West binaries that underpin much intercultural theatre discourse? And might they also recognize the urgent political agendas animating Inter-Asia People\u2019s Theatre, particularly its attempts to confront oppressive conditions generated by global capitalist modernity during and after the Cold War?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Tua addressed the political dimensions of his work during the initial lecture, he did not foreground explicit political content during the workshop. Instead, he used the sessions to introduce students to the performative structures and techniques of likay<\/em>, its ritual opening, vocal styles, dance vocabulary, and martial-arts-based movements. Yet he also stressed repeatedly that none of these conventions are fixed: likay<\/em> is a living tradition, continually reshaped by new communities entering Thai society at different historical junctures. Students were therefore encouraged to bring in cultural elements familiar to them, participating actively in the evolving fabric of the form.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A group photo of all students and faculties after the first week likay<\/em> workshop with Tua. Photo: Courtesy of Jen-Hao Walter Hsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

During post-program reflections in Taiwan, our MA student Lin Chun-yi observed that the improvisational, free folk spirit of likay<\/em> resonated strongly with Taiwan\u2019s own grassroots tradition of kua-a-hi<\/em> (a local form of music theatre)<\/em>. This sensibility surfaced vividly in the final presentation at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, where Tua guided students in devising a likay<\/em> adaptation of the Chinese folk tale The Legend of the White Snake<\/em>. Although Tua provided an overarching structure, the students collaboratively shaped the performance\u2014surprising us all when they transformed the patriotic Chinese song \u201cPlum Blossom\u201d (Meihua<\/em>) into a playful love duet between the leading characters. Such moments made clear that the students had absorbed the creative freedom and dynamic vitality that mark likay<\/em> as a living folk tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we were unable to fully integrate Tua\u2019s likay<\/em> pedagogy with the lectures and fieldwork of the second week, particularly Professor Wasana Wongsuratwat\u2019s deconstructive historical narratives on shifting power relations among the monarchy, Chinese elites, and commoners, and how these dynamics manifest in museums and historical sites.[5]<\/sup><\/a> Although Tua envisioned an Inter-Asia likay<\/em> adaptation of The Legend of the White Snake<\/em>, we as faculty hoped such an intercultural project might also open critical spaces for students to engage with issues such as the human\/non-human or sacred\/secular divides in the original text, or to connect performance with the \u201chistories from below\u201d they encountered during lectures and site visits. These pedagogical aims may have been too ambitious for a two-week program, but they nonetheless provide important blueprints for future iterations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As globalization continues to flatten local cultural differences under the logics of transnational capitalism, culture itself is increasingly mobilized by both state and market forces to reinforce national or ethnic identities or to be commodified for consumption. With the seeds planted through Tua\u2019s involvement, we may one day witness a student emerging as a new artistic force who understands how intercultural performance in Inter-Asia contexts can become a politicized, deconstructive practice, capable of unsettling hegemonic cultural regimes, whether national, neoliberal, or global capitalist, within the seductive yet constraining realities of contemporary consumptive mode of living.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The young lovers encountering the hooligan. A scene from our final intercultural likay<\/em> interpretation of the Chinese story, The Legend of the White Snake<\/em>, at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts. Photo: Courtesy of Jen-Hao Walter Hsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Endnotes<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> Pavis\u2019s \u201chourglass model\u201d uses the image of fine sand flowing through an hourglass\u2014passing through layers of filtering, sifting, dispersing and recombining to conceptualize the process of cross-cultural transfer between a source culture and a target culture. This model is often criticized as overlooking the unequal power dynamics between source and target cultures (Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture<\/em> 4-5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> He is also the first person who did research and published an English book on People\u2019s Theatre movements in Asia, starting with PETA from the Philippines (The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia<\/em>).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a>Al Santos and his ACPC (Asian Council for People\u2019s Culture) are the leading organizers of the \u201cCry of Asia\u201d projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> Please see two online reports: \u201cPradit Prasartthong,\u201d Bangkok Theatre Network<\/em>, and \u201cPradit \u2018Tua\u2019 Prasartthong,\u201d Koktail Magazine<\/em>. I also conducted an in-person interview with Tua after the program on 8 August 2025, during which he repeatedly emphasized that his artistic practice is more revolutionary than it is concerned with conserving traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> Wasana Wongsurawat concluded her lecture with a documentary on the contested survival of a Mazu temple located near the Chulalongkorn University campus. The struggles surrounding this temple encapsulate a range of issues\u2014activism, cultural memory, competing historical narratives, and value conflicts\u2014triggered by Bangkok\u2019s ongoing and often ruthless processes of urban redevelopment and gentrification. After class, we invited students to visit the temple with us in order to reflect on its intercultural significance, especially given that Mazu is also revered as a patron goddess in Taiwan. Yet only a few students expressed interest in participating. For a detailed discussion of this case, see Chan Ying-Kit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Balme, Christopher. Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Postcolonial Drama.<\/em> Oxford UP, 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangkok Theatre Network. \u201cPradit Prasartthong<\/a>.\u201d Bangkok Theatre Network<\/em>, The Japan Foundation Performing Arts Network. Accessed 10 Nov. 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bharucha, Rustom. Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture.<\/em> Routledge, 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization.<\/em> Athlone Press, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boonhok, Saranpat. \u201cIndian Myth, Korean Wave, and \u2018Thainess\u2019: Politics of Hybridity in Thai Literature in the 21st Century.\u201d TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia<\/em>, vol. 13, no. 1, May 2025, pp. 1-18. Cambridge UP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan, Ying-Kit. \u201cIn Bangkok, Whose Heritage Counts?<\/a>\u201d New Mandala<\/em>. Accessed 17 Nov. 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chung, Chiao. \u201cTheatre From the South: A Re-connection with Thailand\u2019s People\u2019s Theatre<\/a>.\u201d PAReviews<\/em>, National Culture & Arts Foundation, Taiwan, April 17th<\/sup>, 2019. \uff08\u937e\u55ac\u3002\u3008\u4f86\u81ea\u5357\u65b9\u7684\u5287\u5834\u2015\u8207\u6cf0\u570b\u6c11\u773e\u6232\u5287\u7684\u91cd\u9022\u3009\uff0c\u8868\u6f14\u85dd\u8853\u8a55\u8ad6\u53f0\uff0c2019\u5e744\u670817\u65e5). Accessed 20 Oct. 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilbert, Helen, and Jacqueline Lo. \u201cToward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis.\u201d The Drama Review<\/em>, vol. 46, no. 3, 2002, pp. 31\u201353.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gosling, Marshall. The Ramayana in Contemporary Thailand.<\/em> MA thesis, University of Michigan, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hinata, Shinsuke. \u201cA History of Thai Intellectuals\u2019 Perceptions of Khon, the Masked Dance of Ramayana, on the Modern World Stage.\u201d Ramayana Theater in Contemporary Southeast Asia<\/em>, edited by Madoka Fukuoka, Jenny Stanford Publishing, 2022, pp. 165-82.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hsu, Jen-Hao. \u201cArt Festivals in the Folk\u2019s World: A Discussion Centering on the Asia Madang Arts Festival and Zhao Chuan\u2019s Grass Stage.\u201d Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore<\/em>, no. 218, 2022, pp. 7-57. (\u8a31\u4ec1\u8c6a\u3002\u3008\u85dd\u8853\u7bc0\u5728\u6c11\u9593\uff1a\u4ee5\u300c\u4e9e\u6d32\u5ee3\u5834\u300d\u85dd\u8853\u7bc0\u8207\u8d99\u5ddd\u300c\u8349\u53f0\u73ed\u300d\u70ba\u8a0e\u8ad6\u6838\u5fc3\u3009\u3002\u300a\u6c11\u4fd7\u66f2\u85dd\u300b218 (2022): 7-57).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kerdarunsuksri, Kittisak. \u201cRamakian in Modern Performance: A Way to Cope with a Cultural Crisis.\u201d Manusya: Journal of Humanities<\/em>, special issue no. 5, 2003, pp. 24\u201346.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koktail Magazine. \u201cPradit \u2018Tua\u2019 Prasartthong<\/a>.\u201d Koktail Magazine<\/em>. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture.<\/em> Translated by Loren Kruger, Routledge, 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. editor. The Intercultural Performance Reader.<\/em> Routledge, 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rutnin, Mattani Mojdara. Dance, Drama, and Theater in Thailand: The Process of Development and Modernization.<\/em> Silkworm Books, 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schechner, Richard. Between Theater and Anthropology.<\/em> U of Pennsylvania P, 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cInterculturalism and the Culture of Choice: Richard Schechner interviewed by Patrice Pavis.\u201d The Intercultural Performance Reader<\/em>, edited by Patrice Pavis, Routledge, 1996, pp. 41-50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singaravelu, Sachithanantham. \u201cThe Rama Story in the Thai Cultural Tradition.\u201d Journal of the Siam Society<\/em>, vol. 70, 1982, pp. 50\u201370.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, Ron. \u201cMagical Realism and Theatre of the Oppressed in Taiwan: Rectifying Unbalanced Realities with Chung Chiao\u2019s Assignment Theatre.\u201d Asian Theatre Journal<\/em>, vol. 22, no. 1, 2005, pp. 107\u201321.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sompiboon, Sukanya. The Reinvention of Thai Traditional-Popular Theatre: Contemporary Likay Praxis.<\/em> PhD dissertation, University of Exeter, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Erven, Eug\u00e8ne. The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia.<\/em> Indiana UP, 1992. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Jen-Hao Hsu (Walter)<\/strong> is an associate professor in Theatre Arts Department at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He earned his PhD in Theatre Arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He has published academic articles on modern and contemporary Chinese theatre studies in journals in Australia, Taiwan and mainland China. His research looks at the formations of modern and contemporary theatres\/performances in the Chinese-speaking world, especially in relation to critical topics of modernity, sexuality and nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2025 Jen-Hao Hsu (Walter)
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #32, December 2025
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

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