Ponglang

Thanks, in part, to that day at the parade (and in part to a wild night of dancing in the band room), Ponglang Nick – the Ponglang band teacher – invited me to be join the Ponglang dancers.
Ponglang is the name for the traditional Esan (or Isan or Isaan or Essan – in all cases meaning the NorthEast of Thailand) music and culture. It is very cool! (Nick has given me a CD of the music and I will play it for anyone who wants to hear it when I get back). The traditional instruments are made of wood and reads and are very romantic sounding (I think). There is also a lot of percussion -- skin drums as well as a set of wooded tubes a bit like a xylophone but bigger and hanging -- I've forgotten the names of the instruments, I'm afraid. The band also augments the traditional instruments with an electric guitar strung with bicycle brake line! All or most of the instruments are, or can be, make by Nick and his students! Very Cool! Along with the traditional music, there is traditional dancing. A band is mostly (only?) boys. The dancers are mostly girls. Most of the dancers dance in front of the band, in unison and very formally, but there is one dancer, the Jars Dancer, who dances by herself off to the side, free style. That is what I was invited to do. So I did. I have to say that being part of the band was one of the absolute best experiences I had in Prangku. A part that I will treasure always!

My professional dancing career with the Prangku School Ponglang Band (and I was a professional because I got paid! (a total of 200Bht -- about $6US) -- though I did also get a 20Bht tip from a man in the crowd!) was for a total of two performances.

The first was a celebration for the completion of a local temple. Nick (and I really don't know what he was thinking, except that he was thinking in Thai time) told me to get up and be at the Ponglang room at 4am to start getting dressed. I made it there at about 4:30, to find the dancers asleep on the floor. They didn't wake up until 4:45 or so. The dance teacher showed up around 5:30, and the band about 7:30 or 8:00am. Mrs. Amporn spent about an hour working on my face, hair and costume. Trying to turn me from a Farange into a Thai dancer. With some success. I have the hair, the clothes, and the make-up, but not the face! But, thanks to her efforts, I looked great! (even if I do say so my self!) My hair was pulled up off my face and around a bit of padding to make it round and poofy, then hair-sprayed and Bobby-pined in place (so much hair spray in fact that when I took the padding out, my hair still poofed up!) I wore a tight red bodice on top and lots of jewerly (silver, because gold is for the royalty). My skirt and the rest of my top changed during the performance -- between sets, in public, though discretely. (tangent here, it was a bit odd to me to be changing clothes out in the middle of a field surrounded by all the other students (boys and girls) and roadies and Nick -- but to do it in a way that no one, not even me, saw anything!)

We arrived at the temple, a little early and got to wander around a bit before we were fed breakfast -- one of the conditions of having the band play is that you have to feed them! The temple was all decorated with string with gods-eyes and other decorations hanging from the sky. Very colorful and festive!

And then I danced, for the first time, with only one formal lesson! Nick was kind (?) enough to record it with his video camera, so you can see that, too, if you ask nicely! I don't know how to describe Jars dancing. I stood behind the jars and pretended to pluck them in tune to the music. Moving my feet and my head and my hips also in tune to the music and smiling all the time! I danced a total of 3 songs. Two together, and then a third one later. The first two the people loved! They laughed and applauded. A monk videotaped the performance. A man came up and gave me a tip (and all the other dancers as well). And I totally messes up polite Thai behavior! Forgetting to thank him properly before taking the money! oops. Major faux pas.

After the performance (about 10 songs total, though they prepared about 20, we cut it short because some of the students had to go back to school for exams) we ate again. Wonderful food! and desert of green beans in ice cold, sweetened coconut milk! Kaek (one of the teachers at the school and a participant in the wild late-night dance parties in the Ponglang room that inspired this adventure!), Mrs. Amporn and Mrs. Kannika (the latter two are also Ponglang teachers) and I wandered around the temple, made merit by making offerings inside the temple, got blessed by holy water and put bits of gold on the cannon-ball like things stationed around the temple and rang all the gongs -- all in celebration of the completion of the new temple!

It was great fun. And the Thai people at my school loved the video! Laughing at me the whole time! Nick assures me that this is a sign that they appreciated my performance.

My second (and final) performance was at the Lamdaun Festival in Sisaket (the annual three day festival celebrating the history of the town and the blooming of the lamdaun flowers)! We arrived early, again, and had time to wander the stalls and such before getting ready for the performance. I had a wonderful time walking around with Nick who told me all about the history of Sisaket and Buddhism and all kinds of stuff -- I will miss his stories about Thai culture and comparisons between his country and mine. My dance performance went off wonderfully, even if I did dance only one dance, instead of the two that I was supposed to dance. I think, though I don't have confirmation of this, that my dancing was much better. Everyone in the audience laughed. And took my photo -- as a warning to their daughters what not to do, I think! And again I got treated like a star!

After my abbreviated performance, I joined Pe Ad for her birthday party! But soon slipped away to take advantage of my "performer" status to sit in the very front row (basically on the stage) and watch the rest of the performers. It was Great! A huge spectacle! There were many local performers dancing all kinds of different dances (though only we had live music!) and a troupe of dancers from Cambodia danced several very funny and very formal dances (a tiny bit like the dancing in the King and I for those who want to get a feel for what Thai and Cambodian dancing is like). Then, after all the dancers had finished, there was what Nick calls "Light and Sound" a play, of sorts, depicting the history of Sisaket! It started with the very early days and went all the way up to the creation of the Sanctuary near by. Very cool! Though I didn't really understand any of it. It ended with a fireworks display!

Wonderful!

On a final note, Nick tells me that a lot of people payed attention to the band because I was in it -- he hopes that my presence will help bring attention to Ponglang music and traditional Isaan culture! (Me too!) And inspire his own students to be even better dancers! And now I'm trying to get him and his band over to Chicago for a performance (maybe I'll even dance!) -- Folk fest in Feb seems best, though cruel to subject the Thai people to a Chicago winter -- so I'm taking suggestions!