Pichet Klunchun and Myself by Jérôme Bel; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Novellus Theater March 3, 2009

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Dancers’ Group present the unlikely cross-cultural encounter between French conceptual choreographer Jérôme Bel and Thai dancer Pichet Klunchun, a master of the classical Khon form, in the Bay Area premiere of Pichet Klunchun and Myself on March 3. For one night only in the Novellus Theater at YBCA, Bel and Klunchun recreate their first encounter with one another in the bustling city of Bangkok in late 2004. Engaging in a lively mix of physical demonstration and high-spirited verbal debate, the pair embark upon an eloquent and often humorous quest to understand each other’s dance styles and traditions. Bel plays the rumpled postmodernist, while his foil, the supremely serene Klunchun, laments how his exacting art form—governed by precise rules for centuries—risks becoming a tourist attraction.

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