As many Asian big capitals, Bangkok is a swarm of young talent, but Bangkok also a the cultural center for Thai traditional arts.
Perhaps the most active players on Bangkok's art scene are its cultural centers.
These ensure that scene stays booked with top-notch exhibitions and performances from the world of visual arts, dance, drama, music, fashion, film, design, literature and more.
The foreign contingent regularly put on events showcasing international talent.
Ring up, check their websites or just drop by to find out what's on.
- Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
- Bangkok Music Society
- Bangkok Symphony Orchestra
- Alliance Française - 29 Sathorn Rd
- British Council - 254 Chulalongkorn, Soi 64 Siam Sq., Phaya Thai
- Goethe Institut - 18/1 Goethe, Sathorn Soi 1
- Japan Foundation - Serm-mit, F10, Sukhumvit Soi 21
- The Belgian Club of Thailand
Theaters
Bangkok's performing arts scene may not throb like in other cities, but look under the surface and you'll find it there, beating to its own rhythm. No, there aren't many plays, stage shows or performance pieces being staged, and sometimes it's as if mainstream pop and rock acts are the only things that captivate the masses.
Still, fans of the performing arts can find diamonds and everybody will appreciate the low ticket prices. For more information on what's happening, visit these sites for event information:
Bangkok Theaters:
- Aksara Theater - King power complex, Phaya Thai
- Patravadi Theater - 69/1 Soi Wat Rakhang, Thonburi
- Traditionl Thai Puppet Theater (Joe Louis) - Suanlum night market
- Siam Niramit - 19 Tiam Ruammit Rd
- National Theater - 2 Rachimi Rd, Sunam Luang
Ram Thai (Thai traditional
dance)
Dance in Thailand (Ram thai) is the main dramatic art form of Thailand.
Thai dance, like many forms of traditional Asian dance, can be divided into two major categories that correspond roughly to the high art (classical dance) and low art (folk dance) distinction.
Although the traditional performing arts are not as vibrant as they once were, suffering inroads by western entertainments and generally changing tastes, Thai dance drama is not extinct. What survives displays the elegance of an art form refined over centuries and supported by regal patronage.
The Thais reputedly first acquired a dance troupe when, in AD 1431, they conquered the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor and took as part of their booty an entire corps de ballet. Dancers whose performances had once been seen as a symbolic link between nature, earth and the realm of the gods.
Aside folk and regional dances (southern Thailand's Indian-influenced manohra dance, for example), the two major forms of Thai classical dance drama are khon and lakon nai. In the beginning both were exclusively court entertainments and it was not until much later that a popular style of dance theater, Likay, evolved as a diversion for the common folk who had no access to royal performances.
Bangkok
Opera
The Bangkok Opera is an opera company founded in 2001 as a production company to mount Madana, the first full-length grand opera by a Thai composer.
This production featured in the title role the American soprano Stacey Tappan.
The Bangkok Opera's 2006 production of Das Rheingold with a unique look drawn from Southeast Asian mythology. In 2002, under artistic director Somtow Sucharitkul, the Bangkok Opera began a series of productions with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, moving onto larger-scale works such as Mae Naak, The Magic Flute, and Turandot.
At the end of 2005 the Bangkok Opera declared its first "complete" season and also started a five-year project to perform the complete Wagner's Ring Cycle in Bangkok. Its resident orchestra is the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra and its resident chorus is the Orpheus Choir of Bangkok.
The opera company performs regularly at the Thailand Cultural Centre
Contemporary Art Museum & Culture Center
There is a lot of modern museum in Bangkok
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre is a contemporary arts museum in Bangkok, Thailand. The plans for a contemporary art museum in Bangkok were initiated by Bangkok governor Bhichit Rattakul. Construction started in 2000, but was later halted due to funding problems and alleged corruption. In 2005, the project was restarted. Originally named Bangkok Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art (BMOCA), it was renamed to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre before opening.
The museum opened in July 2008 with the inaugural exhibition "Always Roaming with a Hungry Heart" of photos by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Currently, "Traces of Siamese Smile: Art+Faith+Politics+Love" is being featured until November 23.
The display includes more than 300 works by Thai and international artists. Located in the center of downtown Bangkok, the Centre is currently a landmark with a huge statue of what some could label as a space woman, done in white, seated, about 20 feet tall. The photo herein is quite misleading because the Centre is not a part of EGV movie theaters. Its style is modern inside with a round center space in the main entry hall and several glass enclosed (room sized) spaces off to the right.
Jim Thompson Art Center
Jim Thompson Art Center has a great location and people have a different kind of experience when they come here. If you go to the museum, you’ll see history and antique collections. The art center has shows that meet an international standard; you don’t see many exhibitions of this quality in Thailand. We are funded by the foundation, so we can afford to be non-commercial. The new William Warren Library is also free and we want Thai people to come. You can come to read—it’s like a Starbucks with free wifi, except without the coffee.
Bangkok University Gallery
They always promote young artists. The new space they moved into is a bit hard to get to but has a very nice atmosphere. The white-box building is great; it serves well as a gallery because it’s not architecturally showy but instead accentuates the works of the exhibited artists. A good art space has to be like that, very neutral. There’s only natural light there and it’s very bright, which can actually be a challenge for curators or exhibition designers when they want to show art which requires darkness.
Chulalongkorn University Art Center
At first glance, it seems like they put the gallery in the wrong place—on the seventh floor of the library building, requiring visitors to pass through strict security. But once you get there, it seems completely separated from the busy library downstairs. The room here is also a challenge for curators because the corners and angles are strange; it’s not really rectangular. It’s fun to do an exhibition design there, and at night the balcony view is breathtaking.
Thai Music
The music of Thailand reflects its geographic position at the intersection of China and India, and reflects trade routes that have historically included Persia, Africa, Greece and Rome.
Thai musical instruments are varied and reflect ancient influence from far afield - including the klong thap and khim (Persian origin), the jakhe (Indian origin), the klong jin (Chinese origin), and the klong kaek (Indonesian origin).
Though Thailand was never colonized by colonial powers, pop music and other forms of modern Asian, European and American music have become extremely influential.
The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung and mor lam; the latter in particular has close affinities with the Music of Laos. Aside from the Thai, ethnic minorities such as the Lao, Lawa, Hmong, Akha, Khmer, Lisu, Karen and Lahu peoples have retained traditional musical forms.
Classical
Music
Thai classical music is synonymous with those stylized court ensembles and repertoires that emerged in its present form within the royal centers of Central Thailand some 800 years ago.
These ensembles, while being deeply influenced by Khmer and even older practices and repertoires from India, are today uniquely Thai expressions.
While the three primary classical ensembles, the Piphat, Khruang Sai and Mahori differ in significant ways, they all share a basic instrumentation and theoretical approach.
Each employ the small ching hand cymbals and the krap wooden sticks to mark the primary beat reference. Several kinds of small drums (klong) are employed in these ensembles to outline the basic rhythmic structure (natab) that is punctuated at the end by the striking of a suspended gong (mong).
Seen in its most basic formulation, the classical Thai orchestras are very similar to the Cambodian (Khmer) pinpeat and mahori ensembles, and structurally similar to other orchestras found within the widespread Southeast Asian gong-chime musical culture, such as the large gamelan of Bali and Java, which most likely have their common roots in the diffusion of Vietnamese Dong-Son bronze drums beginning in the first century ACE.
Modern Thai Music
By the 1930s, however, Western classical music, showtunes, jazz and tango were popular. Soon, jazz grew to dominate Thai popular music, and Khru Eua Sunthornsanan soon set up the first Thai jazz band. The music he soon helped to invent along with influential band Suntharaporn was called pleng Thai sakorn, which incorporated Thai melodies with Western classical music. This music continued to evolve into luk grung, a romantic music that was popular with the upper-class. King Bhumibol is an accomplished jazz musician and composer.
Phleng pheua chiwit
By the 1960s, Western rock was popular and Thai artists began imitating bands like Cliff Richard & the Shadows; this music was called wong shadow, and it soon evolved into a form of Thai pop called string.
Among the groups that emerged from this period was The Impossibles. The '70s also saw Rewat Buddhinan beginning to use the Thai language in rock music as well as the rise of protest songs called phleng pheua chiwit (songs for life). The earliest phleng pheua chiwit band was called Caravan, and they were at the forefront of a movement for democracy.
In 1976, police and right wing activists attacked students at Thammasat University; Caravan, along with other bands and activists, fled for the rural hills. There, Caravan continued playing music for local farmers, and wrote songs that would appear on their later albums.
In the 1980s, phleng pheua chiwit re-entered the mainstream with a grant of amnesty to dissidents. Bands like Carabao became best-sellers and incorporated sternly nationalistic elements in their lyrics. By the 1990s, phleng pheua chiwit had largely fallen from the top of the Thai charts, though artists like Pongsit Kamphee continued to command a large audience.
String (Thai pop)
String pop took over mainstream listeners in Thailand in the 90s, and bubblegum pop stars like Christina Aguilar, Bird Thongchai McIntyre and Asanee-Wasan became best-sellers.
Simultaneously, Britpop influenced alternative rock artists like Modern Dog, Loso, Crub and Proud became popular in late 1990s.
In 2006, famous Thai rock bands include Clash, Big Ass, Bodyslam and Silly Fools. The late 90's saw pop overshadowed by the remarkable commercial resurgence of Luk Thung, but modern Luk Thung has also adopted some elements from the pop acts.
Bird Thongchai & Sek Loso Tata Young Clash
Cinema & TV
Bangkok boast world class, state-of-the-art movie theaters showing the latest Hollywood and Thai blockbusters. A select few cinemas, notably House and Lido, screen less common independent and international films. Foreign films are mostly screened in their native languages with subtitles in Thai.
For artsy fare, check out the regular screenings at culture cebtres like the Alliance Française, Goethe Institut and Japan Foundation - most movies are shown with english subtitles.
Seats are reasonably priced at around B100-180 and B250-300 for VIP places. The best place to check screning times is on the daily-updated www.movieseer.com
Bangkok Cinema:
- APEX Lido,
Siam & Scala - Siam Square, Rama I
Rd
- EGV grand Major Cineplex - Siam Discovery Center, Rama I Rd - www.majorcineplex.com
- EGV Metropolis - Big C Ratchadamri
- House - Royal City Avenue (RCA) Petchaburi Rd
- Krungsri IMAX Theater - 5th fl. Siam Paragon, Rama I Rd
- Paragon Cineplex - 5th fl. Siam Paragon, Rama I Rd
- SF Cinema City MBK - 7th fl. MBK center, Phaya Thai rd
- SFX Cinema City Emporium - 6th fl. Emporium, Sukhumvit 24
- SF World Cinema - 7th fl. Central World Plaza, Ratchadamri Rd
Thai Cinema History
The cinema of Thailand dates back to the early days of filmmaking, when King Chulalongkorn's 1897 visit to Berne, Switzerland was recorded by Francois-Henri Lavancy-Clarke.
The film was then brought to Bangkok, where it was exhibited.
This sparked more interest in film by the Thai Royal Family and local businessmen, who brought in filmmaking equipment and started to exhibit foreign films. By the 1920s, a local film industry was started and in the 1930s, the Thai film industry had its first "golden age", with a number of studios producing films.
The years after the Second World War saw a resurgence of the industry, which used 16 mm film to produce hundreds of films, many of them hard-driving action films. Competition from Hollywood brought the Thai industry to a low point in the 1980s and '90s, but by the end of the '90s, Thailand had its "new wave", with such directors as Nonzee Nimibutr, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul as well as action hero Tony Jaa being celebrated at film festivals around the world.
Actual
Thai cinema
In the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, three directors of television commercials – Nonzee Nimibutr, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Wisit Sasanatieng – were thinking that films needed to be more artistic to attract investors and audiences.
The first breakthrough was in 1997, with Nonzee's crime drama, Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters, which earned a record box office take of more than 75 million baht.
Also
in 1997, Pen-Ek's crime comedy, Fun Bar Karaoke, was selected to play at
the Berlin Film Festival – the first time in
twenty years that Thai
cinema had had any kind of an international presence.
Nonzee's next film, the ghost story Nang Nak, was an even bigger success, earning 149.6 million baht – the highest grossing film at the time.
Wisit, who wrote screenplays for Dang Bireley's and Nang Nak, broke out with Tears of the Black Tiger, a super-stylised western homage to the Thai action films of the 1960s and '70s. It was the first film to be included on the programme at the Cannes Film Festival.
There were also the Pang Brothers from Hong Kong, who came to Thailand to make stylish movies, starting with Bangkok Dangerous and the nod to J-Horror, The Eye.
According to some scholars the 1997 financial crisis also influenced Thai movies in another way. One example is Bang Rajan from 2000 by Thanit Jitnukul which is based on an old Thai tale about how a small village succeeded in resisting a huge foreign.
The analogy is quite straightforward with Thailand as the small village and the international monetary market as the foreign enemy.
Action films are a predominant genre of Thai film. In recent years, the martial arts films starring Tony Jaa, Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior and Tom-Yum-Goong, have put Thai action films on the international map.
Kerd ma lui (Born to Fight) is in the same vein, and gives more exposure to action choreographer Panna Rittikrai.
The Bangkok International Film Festival
The Bangkok International Film Festival (BKKIFF) is an international film festival held annually in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2003.
In addition to film screenings, seminars, gala events and the Golden Kinnaree Awards.
TV Series
Thai series are an excellent way to understand Thai culture and Thai society.
Seniority, relations with parents, monks, civil or religious festival, Thai food, life after death, ghosts are always part of Thai TV series.
TV series usually reflect the long-standing traditional values, especially the importance of the family institution, seniority and respect.
Almost all Thai TV series are funny.
Reading & Screening
Bangkok is home to an eye-poping array of excellent book shops, small, large and spawling.
just head for any major mall - Siam Paragon, Emporium, All Seasons Place, CentralWorld or Central Chitlom, to name a few - and look for chain favourites like Asia Books, Kinokuniya, B2S, Nai-In or Bookazine.
Plenty of other stand-alone local book stores across town offer the latest in print, new and used.
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