I’ve tried to make a difference in the Thai dance scene. I wanted to give dance a context, sending information through my work rather than just focusing on the aesthetics and making beautiful movements. I had high expectations but I found I couldn’t do what I had set out to do, I think because the idea was very ambitious and at the same time I was scared of failing—so there was a period where I was going through ups and downs.

That was when I applied for the danceWeb Scholarship in Vienna. They only accept 40 people from 2,000 applicants and I was the youngest of the people accepted. It gave me courage because it made me think, ‘Actually, I can do this.’ Before I got the scholarship, I wanted to stop dancing because I was pressuring myself too much and I felt lost. When I applied, I didn’t write down what my forte was, I just wrote down what I was scared of and I think the honesty got through to them. It made me realise that if you are going to create work and present it, honesty is one of the most important elements.

After the festival I did some travelling around Europe, meeting people and trying to decide what I want to do with dance and myself. People like me who study dance abroad, they don’t usually come back to Thailand because there’s no platform for it. But I was lucky because my mother owns a dance school. The way I saw it, I could stay abroad developing myself or come home and spread the message of dance to Thai youngsters, showing them that dance can provide a viable occupation.