Kenneth Sein

Kenneth Sein (Burmese: ကက်နက်စိန်, 1916–1973) was a Burmese dancer of the twentieth century under the label of Sein Maha Thabin dance troupe.[1] He was considered one of the three most skilled zat pwe performers of his days, along with Shwe Man Tin Maung and Sein Aung Min.[2] His dancing skill gave rise to the Burmese saying "Dancing like Kenneth Sein."

Wunna Kyawhtin

Kenneth Sein
Born
Khet Sein

19 September 1916
Rangoon, Burma
Died28 November 1973(1973-11-28) (aged 57)
Rangoon, Burma
NationalityBurmese
Other namesKanak Sein (ကနက်စိန်)
OrganizationSein Maha Thabin (စိန်မဟာသဘင်)
Known forBurmese dance
Spouse(s)Daw Ngwe Kaing
ChildrenYe Sein
Nyi Win Sein
a daughter
Parent(s)Po Sein and Daw Kyin Yone
AwardsWunna Kyawhtin

Early life

Khet Sein, eldest of seven siblings, was born on 19 September 1916 to the Great Po Sein and Daw Kyin Yone at Rangoon.[3]

When he went to Saint John's school, his name became Kenneth Sein.

Career

Later, he joined his father Po Sein's dance group, Sein Maha Thabin. His stage name Kanak Sein was inspired by the Kanakkadan of the Burmese royals. But he was also known as Kenneth Sein since the Burmese pronunciation for both Kanak and Kenneth are mostly the same.

He was invited to the United States, Japan, China, and India to perform Burmese dance in the 1950s.

In 1959, he and his brother Tathet Sein performed an opera "The Exile" which was very popular at its time.[4]

For his contributions to the field of zat pwe, he became to receive the title of Wunna Kyawhtin from the Burmese government.

Kenneth Sein was died of cardiovascular disease on 28 November 1973, 4:40 pm at Rangoon.

Family

He and his wife Daw Ngwe Kaing had two sons–Ye Sein and Nyi Win Sein– and a daughter. Like father like son, his two sons were also the famous dancers.

Publication

Kenneth Sein published a book named "The Great Po Sein: A Chronicle of the Burmese Theater" with the help of J. A. Withey in 1965.[3]

References
  1. "ဇာတ်မင်းသားကြီး ဂရိတ်ဦးဖိုးစိန် မျိုးဆက်များစီစဉ်တဲ့ ရသစုံဇာတ်သဘင် ဖျော်ဖြေပွဲ". 7Day News - ၇ ရက်နေ့စဉ် သတင်း.
  2. ""မာလာမြိုင် ဟေမာန်ရာသီ သဘင်ပွဲ တော်" တွင် သရုပ်ဆောင် ဦးဝင်းဦး ကွယ်လွန်ခြင်း ၃၂နှစ်ပြည့် အစီအစဉ် ပါဝင်မည်". lotaya.mpt.com.mm.
  3. Sein, Kenneth Maung Khe; J. A. Withey (Spring 1966). "The Great Po Sein: A Chronicle of the Burmese Theatre". Antioch Review. The Antioch Review. 26 (1): 140–142. JSTOR 4610749.
  4. "၂၅ နှစ်ကျော်ကြာမှ ပထမဆုံးအကြိမ် ပြန်လည်ကြည့်ရှု ရတော့မယ့် ပါတော်မူဇာတ်တော်ကြီး". The Myanmar Times. 13 August 2014.
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