Growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand, I had never imagined one day I would be dancing and performing throughout Upstate New York.
My journey started on the muddy road of a citizen-less refugee camp for the K’Nyaw (Karen) people of Myanmar. I was born in the hospital of the Umphiem refugee camp in mid-western Thailand. I did not question why I was living in the camp. To me it was home.As a kid, I was not aware of the situation my community was in, but at least there was no war and hunger to struggle with. I was lucky enough, but if I had lived 7.5 miles across the border from Thailand and into Myanmar my survival would be threatened. There was not much to do in the refugee camp; I spent much of my time wandering the muddy street, sometimes running up and back on the bamboo stairs for fun. The most exciting part of living in the camp was the big ceremony held annually, K’Nyaw’s New Year, and the highlight of the event was the Karen Traditional Dance.
My family started our lives in Utica, New York, in 2009, when I was nine. At that time, there were only a few cultural events and spaces for people who had just resettled to enjoy practicing their traditional dances. Fortunately, the community is persistent in preserving their cultural identity, and we seize opportunities that come our way to find spaces to preserve our culture. The K’Nyaw’s New Year was a special event that held the community member and being able to participate in the Traditional Don team was an honor to hold. At the age of thirteen, I auditioned for the dance. The K’Nyaw traditional Don’s audition started in a local church in downtown Utica, The Tabernacle Church, and what the community comes to know as “Pe Wah Ko Throt” behind the Stanley Theater.
The traditional dance is composed of dancers, singers, and instrument players. As dancers, we had to first practice singing at least 12 songs, each of which is between 3 and 6 minutes long. After that, we began to practice dancing. As a first-time dancer, it was quite difficult. Flexibility and balance are critical! My body and muscles were stiff, my hands needed to be more curved, my elbow needed to be straightened, and my knee needed to reach my abdomen. The hardest part is holding a position for a long period while the dance instructor corrected all 24 team members’ poses. This dance alignment consists of moving your feet, knee, hand, fingers, and head into proper position. On top of that, the moves need to be in sync with the music. If the musicians played faster, the dancers would need to keep up.
A year on and we had the opportunity to practice and perform at the Midtown Utica Community Center (MUCC), a former Episcopal Church. The space was abandoned, but my close friend Chris, an ESL (English Language Learning) teacher, who was teaching my grandparents English, founded a new purpose for the place in 2013. MUCC brings the world to Utica by providing a space for cultural dance and activities. Our traditional dance team and my Buddhist community had been sharing the space with other communities, such as the Western Swing dance, Napoli Bantu dance, Sudanese Bantu dances, and European tab dances. My focus moved beyond our annual traditional ceremonies. Our hard work paid off as we were the only team out of the whole country invited by the K’Nyaw community to perform in front of the capitol building to help bring awareness of the issues in Myanmar. I came to realize that dancing and embracing my culture was a sense of duty and obligation to bring awareness of the continued prosecution of K’Nyaw people by the Myanmar military dictatorship.
Around the same time in 2015, I co-founded a dance crew with my close high school friends called Toxik. On top of practicing for my traditional dance, I spent countless hours practicing with my six-member K-pop dance crew. Our crew choreographed dances from famous K-pop groups such as Bangtan Sonyeondan, aka BTS. We were invited to perform at different venues, including the Utica Zoo, Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute, birthday parties at Proctor High School, Varick Bar and Grill, Utica’s City Hall, Utica University, Hamilton College, Syracuse University, and Utica Karen New Year celebrations. Our dancing took us as far as Hartford, Connecticut, Washington, DC, and New York City. The most exciting and memorable performances were at the historic Fort Stanwix. We had the opportunity to perform with Native American group and share cultures through dancing. Fittingly, in 2018, my ceremony for becoming an American citizen was held at Fort Stanwix!
Beyond dance, Upstate New York offers many avenues for making friends and connections. Through my involvement with organization such as the Midtown Utica Community Center, On Point for College, NJROTC (Naval Reserved Junior Officer Training Corps), Upwards Bond, CSTEP, Johnson Park Center, the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties. I found a variety of volunteer opportunities, from cleaning up the city streets to planting trees. I am currently an eco-club coordinator with MUCC. Eco-Club spring cleanup started with a small number of people, now it has grown to 40 plus volunteers from all ages yearly. We recently held a city-wide cleanup to commemorate a close friend who was a great professor at Hamilton College, John Bartle. He was there cleaning parks in Utica with me since the club started and he also volunteers with Olmsted City of Greater Utica to help beautify Proctor Park in East Utica.
What am I doing now? I am a co-instructor for my traditional K’Nyaw dance team, and we recently celebrated our New Year in January 2023. Getting the group back together after the Covid pandemic was hard, but persistence paid off! I also recently began my career in finance as a portfolio administrator at Strategic Financial Services in Utica. I was drawn to Strategic by their culture. Our core values here are Serve Grow Live, which resonates with me. It is very consistent with the way I have lived my life. Our purpose is to help our clients live a great life, and we also want to ensure our employees are living their own great life. For me, that includes dance, and I have enjoyed sharing my progress as an instructor with my teammates at Strategic. I was excited that some of their families came to the New Year’s celebration to watch me perform.
One thing I discovered I had common with my Strategic teammates was a love of the outdoors. Upstate New York is an outdoor paradise. I enjoy kayaking, waterfall, cross-country skiing, hiking, and camping. Small hikes are easy to find near Utica, such as the Valley View and, the walk path between Oneida and Herkimer counties along the Erie Canal, I enjoy riding wagons and bikes in Potato Hill Farm, horseback riding in the Highland Forest, swimming in Delta Lake in Rome, hiking at Green Lake near Syracuse, kayaking in Glimmerglass Lake near Cooperstown, watching the Fourth of July firework on the water in Sylvan beach in Verona, Scuba Diving in Skaneateles, exploring Finger Lakes, and all seven chain lakes in and around Old Forge. Old Forge, it is an hour north of Utica up in the Adirondacks. I enjoy going there to see movies in the Strand Theater, hike Bald Mountains, and eat at the local restaurants. My family enjoys the town as well, particularly the Water Safari.
It has been an incredible journey from Thailand to Utica, and the common thread for me has been dance. Dancing is a way for me to share and embrace my cultural identity, and the people of this area have been a wonderful audience. I have also come to realize that the people I have met along the way have greatly helped shape my life in Upstate New York. I’d like to thank my friend Chris for opening many doors that led to meeting great people and having memorable experiences.
