Alexander Horstmann: Inviting the Ancestors to Dance: Continuity and Change in the Nora Rongkru (Teachers Stage Ritual) Performance in South Thailand.

In Southern Thailand, everybody is descendent of the first Nora dance theatre teachers. The Nora is a healing ritual, in which the Living are possessed by the ancestor-spirits and are able to communicate their needs and desires with the Dead. In more recent times, there is a revival of the Nora Rongkru in new contexts of modernity, social uncertainty, social ruptures and psychic illness. One of the most important new functions of the Nora is the recycling of the money from the anonymous forces of the market in the ancestral economy of the house, family and village. The paper looks at the representation and performance of different Nora traditions in Southern Thailand and provides explanations for its renaissance. The Nora is also put into the frame of the rise of urban spirit mediums in Thailand today.