Narumol Kop Thammapruksa in performance, arms lifted against a cool projected background.
Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

Chiang Mai · Theatre & Mask · 1994 — 2026

Narumol
“Kop”
Thammapruksa

Theatre artist, director, mask maker and peace educator. Her work moves through mask, ritual, autobiographical storytelling and intercultural performance across Asia.

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Artist Statement

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The practice moves between mask theatre, site-specific ritual, autobiographical storytelling and peace education. Missing artist-approved language is left open rather than completed on her behalf.

Selected Works

Performances, collaborations and ritual sites

A concise path through key works in performance, direction and archive. The full chronology is available in the CV.

Kop in the pale Maya Yak mask, hands clasped in prayer, lit against black.

Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

Mask Theatre·2013

Maya Yak (The Demon Hero)

A mask performance drawn from the story of Sukhahajara, the demon who gives himself for peace. The stillness of the pale face meets the pressure of a body in prayer.

Role
Mask performer
Direction
Nikorn Sae-Tang · script Pradit Prasartthong
Venue
Bangkok Art & Culture Centre; Burapha University

Video: courtesy TERASIA

Site-Specific & Sacred·2020

TERA เถระ

The audience walks the forest-temple path at Wat Pha Lat by night — a meditation on life, death and Buddhism, drawn from The Cat Who Went to Heaven. Restaged in Bandung, Indonesia, 2024.

Role
Director & art director
Programme
TERASIA (Japan Foundation Asia Center)
Site
Wat Pha Lat, Chiang Mai

Video: Thai PBS (embed)

Recent Direction·2024

เจ้าหลวงคำแดง · Chao Luang Kham Daeng

A Lanna guardian-spirit legend staged with master performers of the North for the Lanna Wisdom School’s 30th anniversary — heritage carried to a new generation. Featured by the national broadcaster, Thai PBS.

Role
Director
Venue
Lanna Wisdom School, Chiang Mai
Press
Thai PBS feature, 2024
Ensemble still from Mobile, a multilingual devised work on migration in Southeast Asia.

Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}. Production photography: Caleb Ming / SURROUND, courtesy The Necessary Stage.

Intercultural·2006–2007

Mobile

Migration and movement across Southeast Asia, told by an ensemble of nine. Kop is credited as both writer and performer. Commissioned for the Singapore Arts Festival 2006; toured to Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo.

Role
Writer & performer
Company
The Necessary Stage (Singapore)
Direction
Alvin Tan & Tatsuo Kaneshita · head writer Haresh Sharma
Stage still from Hotel Grand Asia, a sixteen-artist Asian collaboration at Setagaya Public Theatre.

Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

Intercultural Asian Collaborations·2005

Hotel Grand Asia

Sixteen Asian artists build one work — “The Lohan Journey” — at Tokyo’s Setagaya Public Theatre. A high-water mark of the pan-Asian collaboration that defines Kop’s practice.

Role
Actor & collaborator
Venue
Setagaya Public Theatre (Theatre TRAM), Tokyo
Context
Asian Contemporary Theatre Collaboration
Red brush-stroke poster for Akaoni (The Red Demon), directed by Noda Hideki.

Poster: courtesy the artist. Designer: {placeholder}

Intercultural·{placeholder}

Akaoni (The Red Demon)

Hideki Noda’s parable of the outsider and belonging — a landmark Japan–Thailand credit. Kop performs; the red brushwork of the poster is part of the work’s language.

Role
Actor
Direction
Noda Hideki
Venue
Setagaya Public Theatre & Bunkamura, Tokyo; Bangkok. Dates: {placeholder}
A golden Lanna chedi lit against the night sky during the World Festival of Sacred Music.

Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

Site-Specific & Sacred·2000

World Festival of Sacred Music

More than 100 musicians from some ten countries, across Wat Suan Dok, Chiang Mai and Payap Universities — sacred music as an instrument of peace, inspired by the Dalai Lama’s call. Kop was project manager.

Role
Project manager
Support
Prince Claus Fund
Sites
Wat Suan Dok · CMU · Payap, Chiang Mai / Lamphun

Video: courtesy the artist

Recent Direction·2025

Megara and Mekhala

Greek myth carried in mask, staged in Chiang Mai for International Women’s Day — the mask tradition turned toward women and story.

Role
Director
Occasion
International Women’s Day
Venue
{placeholder}, Chiang Mai

Mask Theatre·2025

To Conceal is to Reveal

The paradox at the centre of her mask practice, made a title: what the mask hides, it also shows. Directed and performed by Kop for the Len Yai Program.

Role
Director & mask performer
Venue
Haan Studio, Chiang Mai · October 2025
Documentation
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Performance & Media

Because the work is live, it lives in motion

Selected video documentation is embedded from source channels, with stills and captions held close to the work they document.

TERA เถระ · site-specific, Wat Pha Lat Video: courtesy TERASIA
Chao Luang Kham Daeng · contemporary Lanna theatre Video: Lanna conservation foundation (embed)
Multinational cast of the Mekong Project gathered on temple steps.
Mekong Project · cross-border collaboration Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Megara and Mekhala · Greek mask play Video: courtesy the artist

Additional video, captions and production credits: {placeholder}

Archive · 1994 —

Traces from three decades, many countries

Earlier documentation is shown at a scale that respects the source material: photographs, posters and records from performances made across changing formats.

Documentation from World Artists for Tibet, Bangkok, 1998.
World Artists for Tibet · 1998 · Coordinator, Project 304 Gallery, Bangkok Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Site-specific dance from Chiang Mai Social Installation III, 1995.
Chiang Mai Social Installation III · 1995 · Coordinator & dancer — “Mother Earth,” “Circle of Life” Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Women Warrior Tales, devised across Indonesia, 2000.
Women Warrior Tales · 2000 · Actor–director, across Indonesia (Art Network Asia) Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Chiang Mai University Art Museum.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea · {placeholder} · Director, CMU Art Museum Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Calligraphic poster for Sound of the Ocean, Taiwan, 2006.
Sound of the Ocean · 2006 · Playwright, Spring Wind Theatre, Kaohsiung Poster: courtesy the artist
Butoh performance at Himeji Cultural Center, 2013.
Erotica — Butoh & Senryu · 2013 · Performer, dir. Katsura Kan, Himeji Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
He-Me-She-It, an autobiographical work.
He-Me-She-It · 2005–2007 · Playwright–director; Virgin Labfest, Manila Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}
Multinational cast of the Mekong Project on temple steps.
Mekong Project · 2003–2004 · Artistic director (Dance Theatre Workshop / Rockefeller) Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

See the full chronology, 1994–2026, on the CV →

Portrait of Kop Narumol Thammapruksa, arms raised mid-gesture against a cool projection.
Photo: courtesy the artist. Photographer: {placeholder}

About

The body as an instrument of peace

Narumol “Kop” Thammapruksa works with theatre as a live meeting point: mask, body, story, ritual and civic practice.

Based in Chiang Mai, she is a theatre artist, director and mask maker whose record spans site-specific performance, intercultural Asian collaboration, autobiographical storytelling and peace education. She co-founded the International WOW Company with Josh Fox in {placeholder}; additional founding details are {placeholder}.

Alongside the stage she is a peace educator and aikido practitioner, a committee member of the Peace Culture Foundation (since 2016) and a regional representative of the Mekong Cultural Hub. Her work treats performance as a shared space for attention, conflict, memory and repair.

Education
B.Sc. Agricultural Extension, Chiang Mai University (1993) · M.A. English for Communication, CMU (2011) · Ph.D. candidate, Peacebuilding, Payap University. Status: {placeholder}
Teaching
Lecturer, Faculty of Mass Communication, Chiang Mai University. Start year: {placeholder}
Based
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thai-script name: {placeholder}. Preferred romanisation: {placeholder}.

Recognition

Named, cited, documented

Selected public records, institutional pages and independent writing connected to the work.

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Contact

For booking, curatorial enquiry & press

For performances, workshops, interviews, research enquiries and rights requests, use the contact details below.

Email
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Representation
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Studio
Chiang Mai, Thailand (home address withheld by design)
Elsewhere
YouTube · Peace Culture Foundation · {placeholder}

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