With its distinctive spire and gold colour, the chada is a headdress meant to resemble the crown of the Thai king, a holy symbol of royalty and divinity. How might one relate to the chada if it did not represent a crown? Choreographer Thanapol Virulhakul presents a delicate and quietly subversive project in which four bodies explore the chada. Their movements respond not to its history but to the shape and weight, as if encountering it for the first time.

They trace its contours across their body parts, shaking them only to explore the trembling pendants. Building on his previous research on fetishism—where pleasure is guided by the object—Virulhakul opens a space to imagine other radical relations with a crown. It passes from hand to hand in a shared act of subversion, a hint of democracy; it becomes a bodily attribute, a tool, a megaphone. It leads the dancers into sensual gatherings or barricades, echoing Thailand’s recent coups and uprisings.

Performers become comrades, their shadows merge into a single mass, and the crown dissolves into one element among many in the social body. Invoking Lenin’s notion of revolution as a miracle, Virulhakul creates an unbelievable moment in which the chada is handled with both nonchalance and care, fully aware of the politically explosive gesture.