Ronnarong Khampa (Thailand)

Profile

Ronnarong Khampha (“Ong”) is a dancer/choreographer from the Lanna region of northern Thailand. He studied dance as a youth in his village and graduated with an honors degree in Thai Arts from Chiang Mai University in 2005. Ong has developed his own performance style using traditional dance as the base, venturing into contemporary aesthetics.  He studied Javanese and Balinese dance in Solo, Indonesia for two years and uses Indonesian motifs to augment his contemporary work.

Since 2001, Ong has also performed as percussionist with Changsaton, the leading musical group specializing in traditional and contemporary Lanna music. He has performed in Europe, North America, and Asia, with a variety of artists from Thailand, America, Japan, and Indonesia. He also gives master classes, recently teaching Lanna Dance to international exchange students at Payap University in Chiangmai. In 2010, Ong received a grant from the Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowship to do artistic and scholarly research in Japan and Indonesia.