The Aurea Terra Project, directed by composer Prach Boondiskulchok, is an artistic research initiative exploring new syntheses between the Piphat cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia and classical contemporary music, drawing on attitudes and techniques from Historically Informed Performance Practice. These syntheses inevitably confront the complexities of borrowing, appropriation, and the gaze of Orientalism. Yet musical borrowing is as ancient as music itself—a fact amplified in multicultural contexts, such as the Thai tradition of Pleng Pasa (เพลงภาษา, literally “Musical Languages”), where stylistic features of “foreign” cultures are paraphrased with varying degrees of accuracy, naïveté, and humour. This presentation shares a case study in the imaginative transcription of one such Pleng Pasa: Burmese Dance of the Blades (พม่ารำขวาน), outlining the hypotheses and processes developed during the project’s first residency in Bangkok (13–28 August 2025), in collaboration with Piphat masters Somnuek Saengarun and Taweesak Akkarawong, and jointly hosted by the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute and the Goethe-Institut Thailand.

Performers

Prach Boondiskulchok (Piano and Artistic Direction)

Somnuek Saengarun (Pi Nai)

Thaweesak Akarawong (Ranat)

Jenna Sherry (Violin)

Rowena Calvert (Cello)

Anusorn Prabnongbua (Percussion)