Guidelines for Creating Thai Dance Performances on Cruise

Abstract

This article is part of the thesis on Guidelines for creating Thai dance performances on cruise ships. The objectives are 1) to study the history of the business of Thai dance performances on cruise ships, and 2) to study guidelines for creating Thai dance performances on cruise ships. The study focused on information from documents, interviews, observation, and creative experimentation.
The study results showed that Cruises on the Chao Phraya River emerged in the 1980s with the Pearl of Siam currently not operating. It was the first ship during that time to provide services in the form of dinner serving food and drinks, offering Thai dance performances, live bands, etc. Later, there were many other ships competed in such services, such as the Shangri-La Hotel ship, Riverside Hotel Boat, Grand Pearl Boat, Chao Phraya Princess Boat, etc. These dinner boats would have a similar service time of 2 hours from 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., depending on the program of each company. Some ships might add the Sun Set time before sunset. The duration could be 1 hour or 1 hour 45 minutes. The process of creating a Thai dance performance consisted of 7 steps: 1) creating the concept of the performance, 2) creating the melody or music for the performance, 3) selecting the performers, 4) designing the dance moves, 5) designing and inventing the costumes, 6) presenting creative works to course advisors 7) publicizing the performance to the general public. Developing the arts and culture of dance and music was a challenge. There should be systematic management. Thai dance performances on cruise ships should have clear support to be successful. Marketing strategies should be brought into use and the performances organizers themselves must think about developing a more efficient form of Thai dance performances so that the culture of Thai dance would not deteriorate. The researcher was personally involved with Thai dance and therefore realized that performing Thai dance on a dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River should be managed in accordance with the rapid ongoing situation of the country. Thai dance must keep up with the times as well. Therefore, the guidelines for creating Thai dance performances on cruise ships should include important factors: studying the context of the ship, the needs of the operator, the nationality of the tourists, the conservation, the development and application of the performance format, creating something new,orevenredesigntheperformancescheduletobemore appealing and sustainable. This would result in new creative ideas for costumes in various shows in order to be beautiful, famous and unique in their own way. However, the creation of the work must toe the line to Thai culture and not violate traditions and customs. And the idea of creating a Thai dance performance on a cruise ship had to be consistent with the purpose of creating the work that could be put to practical use