Cyber Subin

The opening performance of the Holland Festival 2025 is Cyber Subin, which will also mark its European premiere. In Cyber Subin, choreographer Pichet Klunchun (Thailand, 1971) combines traditional Thai dance with technology. Together with MIT researcher Pat Pataranutaporn, he has created an AI that deconstructs traditional movements and generates new poses, resulting in a fascinating interaction between human and machine. 

The movements of both the people and avatars in Cyber Subin are based on “Mae Bot Yai” (59 poses from a traditional Thai masked dance, Khon), but will be reinterpreted through digital processes. The dancers are invited to react, resist or dance together with the avatars.

For more than two decades, Klunchun has studied the movements of Kohn dance, looking for ways to reinterpret these. He developed Cyber Subin in four phases: capturing the movements, codifying them according to six principles, developing an interface for interaction with avatars, and experimenting with dancers and AI.
Cyber Subin at the Holland Festival is the European première.

Khon has been performed since the 14th century and was added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2018. As such, the piece is not just about the interaction between human and machine, but also offers a new approach for cultural preservation. Cyber (derived from cybernetics) Subin (‘dream’ in Thai) shows how tradition need not be static, but rather lives and evolves.