Nannaphat Kampapan - Traditional Thai Dancer

Nannaphat is our amazing traditional Thai dancer on Koh Phangan!
She comes from up North of Thailand and have travelled around the world to find inspiration for her dances!

She has been dancing at Phangan's parties and on different events, celebrations and ceremonies!

When ever you visit Phangan, allow yourself a show with Miss Nannaphat. She will take you on a musical and inner adventure and send you through emotions you never knew you had!

Enjoy her beutiful storytelling dance about life, religion, happiness, humans, animals and all the elements on Earth.

She will leave you with your heart filled with a new happiness and teach how to share it with your surroundings.

A Sweet and absolutely amazing woman!

What is your Koh Phangan story?
Just before I visited Koh Phangan the very first time, I was doing a dance job in Morocco  and was travelling around there.
I came to Phangan to find more inspiration for my performances, before I planned to go back to the North of Thailand.

But ever since I came here I never returned to my hometown in the North.
I felt such a special energy here and I really enjoyed and still enjoy to share this with all the others here. Koh Phangan is full of good creative people and it gave me a chance to discover so many new and different worlds far from Thailand through all these amazing people who comes to Phangan.

What does dancing mean to you?
Dancing is the best meditation for me and it heals my soul and opens my mind. It makes me look at the world with more optimism and brings me so much happiness that I can share with the people around me.

Your dance is a traditional form of art. Can you elaborate on the mystic & story of the dance?
The traditional Thai dance rose from our traditional Spirit ceremony.
The Thai dancer receives the Spirit of Dance.

We believe that when we dance, the Spirit of Dance gives us mystical power to guide our movements, so that all steps we take when we dance with the Spirit is full of energy from our soul. That brings us happiness and peace!

Sometimes a dancer can cry with happiness when the Spirit guides or control our moves and the audience watching the dancer will feel this energy too, as if the Dancer was transferring all his or her happiness into the surroundings.
The more happy the dancer feel, the more the audience will feel the energy from the dance and feel happy and energized too.

Where does it come from? How did it emerge? What is its message?
All the moves in the dance have a certain meaning and comes from all the activities of humans, animals and elements on this Earth.
The dancer dances a story about the ways of life and religion. Sometimes the story teaches us how to live our lives and sometimes the story shows us how to conduct a ceremony for all what we believe to be true.

How did you connect your dancing to your life here?
The true Spirit Dance is deeply connected to my soul, and every movement I make, not only on stage is connected to my Spirit Dance.
Sometimes you can see when a person moves their body that they are dancers, just on the way they walk. It is like they include details in their moves than others.

The more I move with my own beat from my soul or move with the music on stage, the more happiness it brings me and the more happiness I am ready to share with everyone around me.
If I stop dancing I also much more easy feel down and are more likely to get negative thinking and feelings.

What do you feel your dance bring to the People?
When my soul is full with happiness from the dance I spread out the energy of happiness with my dance moves to the people surrounding me.

First I start from my own inner being and then I share the happiness with people around me. This way the environment or the atmosphere gets filled with a happiness that was not there before my dance!
I wish to bring them the story of my dance as well of course!

What is the best thing you ever been involved with or done?
Up North I have danced our traditional Spirit Dance at many events, to welcome foreign guests to show them the way of the local people’s life and what we believe in.
I also danced contemporary dances in many exhibitions for famous painters up in the North of Thailand.
I have danced both traditional and contemporary dance in many foreign countries to tell the story of Thai’s and what we believe in as our way of life.

What do you do when you want to relax?
I close my eyes and listen to music until my soul connects with the music. With this I create my own inner world and let my mind dance to follow the energy from the music.

Do you find Koh Phangan to be a good place for your art?
Yes, I do.

Where is your favourite place here?
On the balcony of my house! Surrounded by coconut trees and the songs from the birds. I enjoy the energy from the nature here!

What do you hope to learn from Phangan?
I hope to learn more about people and music from around the world and to get inspiration to create the full meaning of life for my dance!

What do you wish for Phangan to learn about your dance?
I wish the Phangan people will learn to understand more about the Thai traditional dance and the core believe in Thai culture and with that bring them to the conclusion of how to get real happiness with a simple life. The way of Buddha.

What are your next projects?
I like to learn more about other traditional dances and music around the world and bring it together to create my own style of dance.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
At my village up North teaching dance to the younger generation. I want to share my own experience of life and dance with them. To share with them, the inspiration I got from so many people around the world.

What are your Hopes & Dreams for your Dance Art?
To bring people more happiness and raise their optimism about the world and for them to share their own happiness further around with even more people!

What do you wish to learn more about at this time?
I wish to learn to create more happiness with dance and share it with the people surrounding me. I wish to make people understand and feel the meaning of my dance story and connect with the music from their own inner selves, so it then will be easier to bring the atmosphere of happiness all around us!

How did you get to be so skilled in this Art? What is your life philosophy?
When I began to learn the traditional Thai dance I also had the chance to learn other traditional dances from many other countries for me to create my own style.

Everything is possible when you are happy. Happiness does not mean that you are trouble free, it only means to learn to be happy also when you have troubles and life shows you a hard time. I means to understand how to make your life better with every mistake or every mishap.

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