SIAM SI

What can a traditional Thai object tell us about the way we live, believe, and behave today?

“Siam Si” is an international choreographic research and creation project by the National Choreography Centre of Thailand, in collaboration with Spanish choreographer Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola.

Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola is a professor at Folkwang University, a member of the Schaubühne, and a longtime collaborator of Jitti Chompee, with whom he worked in Bangkok in 2024 as part of the Unfolding Kafka Festival.

Now, Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola is returning to Bangkok to work with a new generation of Thai dance artists selected through the National Choreography Centre of Thailand (NCCT) Training Programme and the Khon Kaen Choreography Development (KKCD) programme.

The project is not a presentation of an existing work, but a living process of artistic exchange, research, and co-creation. It brings together contemporary choreographic practices with Thai cultural knowledge, embodied traditions, and ways of understanding the world.

“Siam Si” is developed through Object-Generated Choreography, a methodology developed by Jitti Chompee in which choreography begins with the object rather than the human body. Rather than treating objects simply as theatrical props or symbols, the project asks: What happens when an object itself becomes a source of choreography?

At the heart of the project is Siam Si (เซียมซี), the traditional fortune-stick cylinder found in Buddhist temples throughout Thailand. Familiar to generations of Thai people, it is an everyday object connected to belief, uncertainty, hope, ritual, and the desire to understand what may lie ahead.

For “Siam Si”, this familiar ritual object becomes something else: a choreographic agent. Through movement, sound, rhythm, and interaction, the object becomes a starting point for asking how belief influences the body, how collective rituals shape behaviour, and how seemingly ordinary objects can carry layers of memory and meaning. Rather than attempting to represent or illustrate Thai cultural identity, “Siam Si” explores something more intimate and universal: the invisible forces that quietly choreograph our everyday lives.