Background
Choreographer, dancer and costume designer, Waewdao Sirisook, received her MFA in Choreography from the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, her BFA from Chiang Mai University, and also studied Balinese dance in Bali, Indonesia.
As a professional traditional and contemporary dancer, Waewdao has participated in international cultural exchange programs with the Tourist Authority of Thailand since the age of 19, performing in dozens of cultural missions throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. Her choreography focuses on expressing the diversity of the authentic traditional Lanna arts and culture. Waewdao's intention is to maintain the root of the original arts and culture of her own region and bring it to diverse audiences.
Waewdao received a fellowship to participate in the Asian Pacific Performance Exchange 2006 and has received fellowship funding for study and research in the United States for for three years in a row by the Asian Cultural Council. She also participated for many years in the non-profit organization, LA Thai Kids, providing traditional Thai dance lesson to the Los Angeles Thai community.
Waewdao is a guest artist-in-residence teaching Southeast Asian Dance at Payap University and occasionally guest lectures at Chiang Mai University. She also contributed choreography to the Black Eyed Peas video, Boom Boom Pow.
Selected Past Performance Venues
REDCAT(Los Angeles)
UCLA Botanical Gardens (Los Angeles)
Lincoln Center (New York)
Cannes Film Festival (France)
UCLA Fowler Museum (Los Angeles)
Chiang Mai University (Thailand)
Kyoto Seika University (Japan)
Chiba City Museum (Japan)
Sacred Music Festival - Vancouver
Asian Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) (Los Angeles)
Awards
Asian-Pacific Performance Exchange/APPEX Fellowship (2006)
Asian Cultural Council Mae Kong Fellowship (2006-2008)
Asian Cultural Council research grant (2008-2009)
Yu-Shan Han Fellowship Award (2007-2008)
Education
M.F.A. Choreography, World Arts and Cultures Department, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Dance Certificate, Singolah Tinggi Seni, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
B.A. Fine Arts/Thai Arts, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand