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 The Thai Cultural Center of the San Francisco Bay Area (TCC) is located at Wat Mongkolratanaram Thai Buddhist Temple in Berkeley, CA, and offers music and dance lessons to Thai and Southeast Asian youth. Students attend Sunday afternoon lessons and more intensive classes during the summer session. All instructors are volunteers who are either permanently settled in the Bay Area or visiting summer and year-long teachers from the Rajabhat Institute at Ban Somdej Chao Phraya in Bangkok.
Though lessons have been taking place at Wat Mongkol since 1988, TCC was officially founded in 1989 by the center’s current director, Plearnjai Kundhikanjana.  As the Thai and Southeast Asian communities significantly grew in the 1970’s, she recognized the need for more formal instruction.
During the center’s early years, TCC collaborated with Chulalongkorn University to host summer and yearlong instructors. In 1994, through Thailand’s Ministry of Education, the center partnered with the Rajaphat Institute at Ban Somdej Chao Praya, which began sending its performing arts students and graduates as visiting instructors at TCC.
The center performs for a variety of cultural shows, fundraisers, Thai Buddhist holidays, festivals, and private functions throughout the Bay Area, including events at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco City Hall, the California Culinary Academy Greystone Campus and the Chinatown New Year’s Street Festival. The center has also produced a number of Thai classical dramas; each performed in the Bay Area to benefit the Thai Temple and in Thailand to fundraise for the Crown Princess’s Orphanage Foundation.
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Thailand Performance Tour 1997 |
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Plearnjai Kundhikanjana
Director
Plearnjai, or Nancy, has been teaching Thai classical dance to Thai-American youth for over 30 years. She began learning Thai classical dance at the age of five, and as a young adult, she performed professionally with Thai TV Channel Four. A few years after immigrating to the US in 1965, she wanted to provide Thai-American youth with a structured summer and weekend activity, so she first began teaching dance at the temple in South San Francisco, CA before it relocated to Berkeley in the 80’s. In 2006, she received an honorary doctorate in liberal arts from the Rajabhat Institute at Ban Somdej Chao Praya for her work and dedication to the Thai Cultural Center. She and her husband, Visut, have owned and operated Plearn Thai Restaurant in Berkeley, CA since 1981. |
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Atchara Wongsaroj
Assistant Director
Atchara began her work at TCC in 1988 as a volunteer dance instructor. She has since served the center in a variety of capacities, as dance instructor, performer and singer for TCC productions. With our director, she also helps advise instructors and selects performance content. Atchara started dancing at the age of nine at her primary and secondary schools at Santa Cruz Convent in Bangkok, Thailand. While studying travel industry and tourism at Borpitpimook College, she continued to pursue her love of Thai dance by performing at school functions. Atchara came to the US in 1983. She currently owns and operates Amarin Thai Cuisine in Alameda, CA. All her daughters, Nicha, Anna and Nina, are currently students at TCC. |
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Somprasong Loakimpongswat
Music Instructor
Somprasong was raised in Samut Songkram, Thailand. He grew up in a musical family that managed its own Thai classical music ensemble and began learning the Thai circular gamelan from his father when he was seven years old. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in music education from Rajabhat Institute at Ban Somdej Chao Phraya, and afterwards taught at the secondary school level in Bangkok. In the summer of 1998, Somprasong taught Thai music at the San Diego Thai temple and another summer at TCC in 2000. He became a permanent teacher at TCC in 2001. He coordinates and conducts all musicians for performances in addition to singing vocal narration during dramatic productions. |
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Nicha Kittitanaphan
Dance Instructor / Performance Coordinator
Nicha was born in Bangkok, Thailand and came to the United States at the age of two. She has been performing since 1988, and more recently, began teaching and coordinating performances. In 2004, she co-produced the center’s production of Phra Apai Manee and the Spell of Nang Laweng. Nicha has her bachelor’s degree in political science and mass communications from UC Berkeley. She currently works in special productions at Macy’s West and manages her family’s restaurant, Amarin Thai Cuisine, in Alameda, CA. |
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Virada Chatikul
Dancer / Outreach and Publicity
Virada was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, and started dancing with the center when she was fifteen. Virada graduated from Smith College with a BA in sociology and also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She currently coordinates YouthCares, a youth development program connecting high school students with immigrant senior citizens. In 2006, she completed a short documentary on the Thai Cultural Center. |
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Artawood Chitamitara
Musician
Art was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his
Thai cultural education at Wat Thai of Los Angeles. He has been
playing music and performing dances since he was seven. In 2003, he
moved to Berkeley to attend UC Berkeley, and joined the Thai Cultural
Center in 2004 during the end of his freshman year. He graduated in
December 2006 with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and
Psychology |
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