Sounding the Center: History and Aesthetics in Thai Buddhist Performance

by Deborah Wong

University of Chicago Press, 2001
Cloth: 978-0-226-90585-3 | Paper: 978-0-226-90586-0
Library of Congress Classification GN635.T4W66 2001
Dewey Decimal Classification 306.48409593

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Sounding the Center is an in-depth look at the power behind classical music and dance in Bangkok, the capital and sacred center of Buddhist Thailand. Focusing on the ritual honoring teachers of music and dance, Deborah Wong reveals a complex network of connections among kings, teachers, knowledge, and performance that underlies the classical court arts.

Drawing on her extensive fieldwork, Wong lays out the ritual in detail: the way it is enacted, the foods and objects involved, and the people who perform it, emphasizing the way the performers themselves discuss and construct aspects of the ceremony.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Deborah Wong is an associate professor of music and director of the Center for Asian Pacific America at the University of California, Riverside.

REVIEWS

"The most compelling aspect of the book, for me, is the ethnographic description. Whether she is describing performances of the ceremony, the elaborate preparation of food and floral offerings, conversations with practitioners, or even her own learning process, Wong writes with a sure eye for color and detail."

— Margaret Sarkissian, Ethnomusicology

"This book provides a new perspective to the study of music in mainland Southeast Asia by connecting music and dance with social structure and history of Thai society. . . . [The book] not only provides new insight into the role of music in contemporary Thai society, it also serves as a useful reference for corresponding research in other areas of mainland Southeast Asia."

— Giovanni Giuriata, The World of Music

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures
Preface: Attending a Ritual, Thinking about Ritual
Acknowledgments
Conventions and Orthography
1. Men Who Become the Deity: The Thai Body in Performance, The Thai Body as History
2. Performing Wai Khruu Ritual
3. Knowledge and Power in Thai Culture: Teachers as Hermits
4. Sounding the Sacred
5. Inscribing the Wai Khruu Ritual: Two Written Accounts
6. Inheritance and Nationalism: The Social Construction of Wai Khruu Rituals in Bangkok
7. The Wai Khruu as a Gendered Cultural System
8. Conclusions: Thoughts on Change
Appendixes
A. Glossary of Terms Used
B. List of the Naa Phaat Repertoire Used in the Wai Khruu Ritual
C. The Deities of Thai Court Performance
D. Thai Instruments Mentioned in the Text
E. CD Contents
F. Guide to Commercial Recordings
Notes
References
Index

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