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Beyond the Apsara
10
Beyond Revival and Preservation:
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia
Fred Frumberg
Ask any well-seasoned traveller to describe Cambodian dance,
and the answer might allude to the celestial nymphs that adorn
the Angkor Wat temples known as the Apsara that today remain
an icon of Cambodian classical dance. Or one might think of the
graceful figures immortalized on canvas by Rodin when the Royal
Ballet made their first tour to France during the World Expo in
1906. Others might even wonder if Cambodian dance had not been
entirely obliterated as a result of the atrocities committed by the
Khmer Rouge during the brutal Pol Pot regime from 1975–79 when
approximately 90 per cent of all Cambodian classical performers
were either killed or died of starvation or disease because of their
links to what was considered a decadent class.
Cambodian classical dance is very much alive thanks to the efforts of the few artists who survived the genocide either by sheer
luck or by hiding their true identities. Great masters such as Ms
Em Theay, one of the great court dancers and singers, survived
because the leader of her labour camp harboured a dangerous and
unspoken love of Cambodian dance. Em Theay would sing for
him at night, and sing lullabies to children too young to join the
workforce when she became too weak to work. Now in her 70s,
Em Theay, born in 1935, continues to work tirelessly at instilling
a rigorous discipline to young dancers and musicians, fearful of
further loss once she is gone. Thanks directly to her perseverance,
two new generations of dancers and musicians have emerged; her
two children and six grandchildren are all respected, established
performers.
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 141
Mr Proeung Chhieng, the current Vice Rector of the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) and formerly one of the great interpreters of the ‘monkey role’, was studying in North Korea at the
onset of the Pol Pot regime. Not wanting to abandon his colleagues
and unaware of the extreme atrocities, he returned to Cambodia
where he too was assigned to work camps and eventually escaped
over the Thai border. He returned immediately after the fall of
the Khmer Rouge and was instrumental in re-establishing the
Royal University of Fine Arts where he taught a new generation
of Kaol monkey dancers, later becoming a very proactive dean of
the faculty of choreographic arts.
Background
Immediately following the fall of the Khmer Rouge, these and
other artists put out a call throughout the country to identify
their surviving colleagues and in 1980, many artists reunited
for the first time in a performance that was both an agonizing
recognition of the loss of life, while serving as testimony to the
eternal endurance of Cambodia’s great performing arts heritage.
Initial efforts by the artists and government included attempts to
re-establish small provincial troupes. Lakhaon Kaol, Cambodian
classical male masked dance, once had over 30 troupes throughout
the country. As of 2008 there are only six, but the very fact that
they exist is a direct result of these efforts. The National Theatre
was re-established as the Department of Performing Arts of the
Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts with satellite departments set
up throughout the country. The department had originally been
established in 1966 and reopened soon after the fall of the Khmer
Rouge in its previous home at the Tonle Bassac Theatre in Phnom
Penh but with only 10 per cent of its former members.
The School of Fine Arts reopened towards the end of 1980 in
an abandoned rice silo several miles outside of Phnom Penh. The
school had enjoyed a rich history that began in 1919 as a conservatory that was revered as one of the foremost arts institutions
in Southeast Asia. The conservatory was established as the University of Fine Arts in 1965 under King Sihanouk. As with all other
educational institutions in Cambodia, the university was closed
down at the onset of the Pol Pot regime and reopened its doors in
1980 as The School of Arts. In 1988, the school was re-established
as the University of Fine Arts and in 1993 renamed the Royal
University of Fine Arts. The international community recognized
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Beyond the Apsara
Name of Show: Khmeropédies II
Performers: Dancers — Penh Chunmit and Hem Linda, Rap Singer — Vy
Chamroeun; choreographed by Emmanuèle Phuon (2009)
Photographer: Anders Jiras
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 143
these efforts and stepped forward to help. Crucial funding and
logistical assistance gradually trickled in by major foundations
such as Rockefeller, the Asian Cultural Council, the Ford Foundation and Toyota, among others, forming vital relationships that
continue today. It was a slow and arduous process with the various organizations trying to monitor where the needs were and
establish priorities in what was precariously unknown territory.
There are 20 forms of Cambodian dance, theatre and music, most
of which were represented by the small community of surviving
artists, all of whom were obviously committed to resurrecting
the remnants of their particular area of expertise with little or no
resources, within an infrastructure that was in utter shambles.
In 1984, the government gave the school a piece of land in the
north of Phnom Penh that had previously been an army barracks.
It was entirely inadequate as a campus but it provided the means
for artists to regroup in a central location as attempts continued
to form some semblance of order. The new location of the school,
together with the newly established department of performing
arts at the previously abandoned Tonle Bassac Theatre, provided
two crucial gathering points for artists who were still finding their
way home from the chaos that ensued after the fall of the Khmer
Rouge. Various non-government organizations, embassies and
private donors did what they could to improve the new campus
by constructing new buildings, repairing old ones and securing
essential material such as musical instruments, practice costumes
and office equipment. In 1993, a significant new partnership was
formed with the Rockefeller Foundation in collaboration with the
Asian Cultural Council in establishing the Mentorship Program, a
project devised by a small community of devoted artists who were
committed to placing classical dance and music at the forefront
of the revival process. The programme was designed to help the
ailing University of Fine Arts begin to establish and sustain a
realistic curriculum in which a new generation of practitioners can
benefit from the knowledge retained by the few surviving masters.
It provided the means by which the elder masters could pass on
their knowledge to the young teachers in a formal, structured
classroom situation. The program grew to include other forms
of performing arts such as Bassac opera, Yike traditional music
theatre and others as well as providing funds needed to improve
the administrative infrastructure.
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UNESCO had a strong presence in Cambodia since the early
1960s but closed its doors in 1975. During the 1980s, it continued to initiate small-scale projects mostly through existing
organizations. In 1989, it was given the task of monitoring the
Angkor temples but it was not until 1991 that it formally reopened
its Phnom Penh office. In the mid-1990s, the Phnom Penh office
recruited a number of UN volunteers to initiate programs in the
intangible cultural sector including the performing arts, with
some projects being supported in close collaboration with
the University of Fine Arts through its Japan ‘Funds in Trust’
programme. It continues today as a major partner to the Cambodian Ministry of Culture, but with limited projects in the performing arts.
Throughout this period, numerous performing arts-related
international non-government organizations have been established
to join in this cultural renaissance including Amrita Performing
Arts, Sovanna Phum Arts Association, Khmer Arts, Cambodian
Living Arts, Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture, the Canadian
sponsored Cambodian Support Group, the French Cultural Center,
and others.
There have also been a number of non-government projects
initiated entirely by Cambodians such as the Apsara Arts Association which was created by Vong Metry, a classical dancer who
recognized the need to bring the revival and preservation process
to the poorest of citizens who would never have the chance to
access larger government institutions such as the University of
Fine Arts. Metry’s programme began in 1997 in her backyard
with approximately 20 students and volunteer teachers from
the university. Her efforts were observed by the director of the
Tokyo-based Kasumiso Foundation who, in 2000, was so moved
by her commitment that he built a proper school and dormitory
attached to Metry’s home. The school continues to be supported
by private donors and contributions from public performances
and today boasts over 100 students and a substantial staff of
teachers and administrators.
In 2002, RUFA was divided into two different schools. Until
then, students only studied until the age of 18, at which point they
received a baccalaureate degree, mirroring a system rooted in the
French colonial period. In its new incarnation, a proper BA programme was established and the younger students became part
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 145
of the new Secondary School of Fine Arts. In 2005, the campus
fell victim to a land deal and was moved to a remote area outside
the city. The student and faculty population dropped dramatically
as few could afford the additional petrol needed to drive the extra
distance. The situation improved somewhat in early 2007 when
HM King Norodom Sihamoni donated several school buses.
Despite the ongoing challenges facing the university, today there
is a new generation of classical dancers with over 400 students
enrolled at RUFA and SSFA (as of fall 2008). The young teachers
have taken up the reins previously held by their masters in an
ongoing process still overseen by the surviving elder masters who
continue to teach and supervise rehearsals and classes with tireless
commitment well into their 70s. With a teaching style that may
seem to border on cruelty, it, in fact, represents desperation to
pass on their valuable knowledge before they are gone. To watch,
for example, master dancer Em Theay conduct a rehearsal, is
testimony to the profound commitment and determination of all
masters to maintain the accuracy and detail of the classical dance
and music repertory. They also seek to instil in the new generation
a profound respect and appreciation for the royal roots of their
dance heritage and their responsibility to uphold its values to the
Cambodian public.
As an oral heritage passed down through a system of mentorship,
there was little documentation of Cambodian dance and that
which was recorded was mostly destroyed during the war. Numerous projects have been initiated over the years to support the
living masters in recording their memories and nurturing back
to life much of the lost repertory from the court, the Reamker and
folk traditions. These three forms represent the full range of Cambodian dance. The Reamker is the legend most often recounted
by Cambodian classical dance Robam Boran (the female form) and
Lakhaon Kaol (the male form) and the stories most loved by the
general public. Court dance is interpreted through a myriad of
repertory based on Cambodian legends such as that of the renowned
Apsara. Up until the 1960s, classical court dance was mostly
confined to the palace and the form most known to the general
public was folk dance which continues to be a very popular form
especially in the provinces where folk dance repertory represents all
major holidays, changes of season and annual harvests. This task
of documentation has been one of the major components of the
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previously stated Rockefeller Mentorship programme. In addition,
a two-year research and documentation project (1998–2000) was
funded by the Toyota Foundation in which 12 RUFA teachers
worked in close collaboration with masters both at RUFA and
from the provinces to create the beginnings of a notation system
for the thousands of gestures that make up the vocabulary of classical court and Kaol dance. Several preliminary teaching guides
resulted from that programme, with more comprehensive versions
later published through support from a UNESCO/Japan Funds in
Trust programme and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Beyond Revival and Preservation
The ultimate acknowledgement of this painstaking process came
in 2003 when Cambodian classical dance was awarded World
Heritage Status by UNESCO. That honour was repeated in 2005
when Cambodian large shadow puppetry was awarded the same
status. Such an honourable recognition has mixed blessings as
one might ask the question: What is the next step once the process
of revival and preservation of a nearly annihilated dance tradition
has taken on its own momentum? How does one keep the dance
form from becoming a precious gem hidden within a glass museum
showcase? UNESCO’s prestigious proclamation has kept some
dancers and cultural leaders from addressing these issues. Instead
of allowing it to become a living, breathing part of Cambodia’s
contemporary performing arts scene which responds to an everchanging social and political landscape, it remains vulnerable to
stagnation and being permanently frozen within the process of
revival and preservation.
Young artists in Cambodia have begun to ask these questions
and the road to finding the answers is fraught with obstacles.
Cambodian dancers who have had the opportunity to practice
their craft outside of Cambodia, mostly in the United States and
Europe, have been the first to respond to these questions.
Ken Kunthea, an outstanding young dancer specializing in the
female role, relocated to Belgium in the mid-1990s. Confronted
with extreme cultural shock, Kunthea was even more determined
not to lose connection with her dance roots. She met Emmanuèle
Phuon, a choreographer and dancer who was born in Cambodia
but moved to France as a child, later relocating to Belgium. The
two artists began to collaborate in work that was rooted in their
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 147
mutual classical dance backgrounds while breaking new ground
through Emmanuèle’s extensive experience in contemporary
dance with such artists as Martha Clarke and Joachim Schlemer.
The merging of their diverse backgrounds and aesthetics provided
the framework in which both were able to further develop their
individual vocabulary while giving each the opportunity to reaffirm
their commitment to the Cambodian classical form. Through
this experience, Kunthea created her first contemporary dance in
a piece called Frames of Life, in which she explored her classical
dance training as to how it relates to nature — the basis of many
of the basic gestures of the extensive Cambodian classical dance
vocabulary. Emmanuèle then choreographed a work for Kunthea
entitled Khmeropédies Part I, in which the dancer explores the conflict between honouring her masters and the natural, yet tabooed,
desire to break with tradition.
Chiem Yiphun fled Cambodia with the surviving members of
her family at the age of three and resettled in Belgium. Now in her
early 30s, Yiphun is reconnecting with her Cambodian heritage
through an entirely different medium. Enthralled by European
pop culture and inspired by the video images of Lara Croft, Yiphun
has made an enormous impact locally by rediscovering her Cambodian roots though a medium she is more familiar with — hip
hop. Her work Apsara revisits the ghosts of her family’s tragic
past through a combination of mime, breakdancing, traditional
Cambodian dance, and Brazilian caper. The work created a sensation with both public and press in Paris in early 2008 at the
Tarmac tête a tête hip hop festival.
One of the first pioneers of this process was Sophiline Cheam
Shapiro, a member of the first class to graduate from RUFA
when it was reinstated after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. She
later moved to the US where she and her husband established the
Khmer Arts Academy in the Cambodian enclave of Long Beach,
California. In 2007, they returned to Cambodia where they set up
a permanent base with a troupe of over 30 dancers and musicians.
Sophiline is classically trained and utterly faithful to her dance
legacy while infusing it with new ideas and energy. Her works
have included a Cambodian classical dance interpretation of
Shakespeare’s Othello entitled Samritechak, and Pamina Devi, based
on Mozart’s The Magic Flute that premiered in December 2007
in Vienna as part of Peter Sellars’ New Crowned Hope Festival,
commemorating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.
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Using Shakespeare or Mozart as a cultural bridge is of course
not new. Their works have proven adaptable to virtually every
culture, time and place, as is the case with many classical art forms.
However, for Cambodia, such initiatives have provided crucial
links towards establishing a fully contemporary dance language.
One can argue if these particular works are contemporary dance
or not. If you are new to classical Cambodian dance and were to
walk unknowingly into a rehearsal of either of the above mentioned
works, you might think you were observing a rehearsal of a scene
from the Reamker. So faithful is the work to the classical form that
only the most seasoned connoisseur will notice the nuances in the
choreography. However, when viewed in its entirety, the bridge
it creates between the classical and contemporary worlds are at
once very new, subtle and significant and by the very definition,
contemporary, yet, at its heart, faithful to the classical form.
Nonetheless, the groundbreaking and innovative aspects of this
work has provoked untold conflict and rifts in the Cambodian
dance community among teachers, students, practitioners, and
ministry officials, in particular among elder masters who remain
apprehensive and protective of their still unfinished task of fully
reviving Cambodian dance.
Many of these arguments echo the sentiments that emerged
from the UNESCO classification of world heritage status on
Cambodian classical dance. The fears and anxieties are based on
a misconceived notion that creativity and innovation contradict
tradition. One immediate contradiction to this commotion is
the fact that the treasured Apsara is, contrary to popular belief,
by no means a classical iconic dance handed down from King
Jayavarman’s Angkorian period but rather, a contemporary interpretation of the temple engravings choreographed in 1962 by the
late Queen Kossomak for her granddaughter Princess Buppha
Devi, the Royal Ballet’s prima ballerina of the time. The classical
style in general has been constantly evolving and few of the old
repertory predate the colonial period.
This discourse is not an attempt to define what contemporary
dance is or to make comparisons between contemporary dance,
modern and postmodern trends. Cambodia is by no means the
first country to have nearly lost its culture as a result of genocide
or other forms of political upheaval. My argument is strictly in
the context of modern-day Cambodia, and what I can say with
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 149
absolute certainty is that Cambodia is ready to be included in
the international contemporary dance community and young
Cambodian dancers are seeking tools with which they can create
their own contemporary dance vocabulary. Several examples
of this trend will be highlighted later in this article. Revival and
preservation of still lost repertory will remain an urgent priority
for many years to come but the remarkable resilience and international recognition of Cambodian classical dance indicates that
the mindset currently consumed by the notion of ‘revival and
preservation’ must now shift to include one that emphasizes
creativity and productivity. The two paths can and must continue
to evolve in harmony side by side, as they do in many of the world’s
great dance traditions.
Unlike our regional counterparts in such countries as Thailand,
Indonesia and Malaysia who have sought for years to strike a
balance between preserving their traditions and developing their
own contemporary dance styles, Cambodian dancers are, for all the
reasons I have indicated, far behind in this process and are consequently extremely vulnerable to outside influence. Numerous
contemporary and modern dance practitioners from the West
have offered to visit Cambodia to ‘teach’ their craft to young
Cambodian dancers. These efforts have been met with various
degrees of success; some never materialize as it becomes clear to
all involved how much more groundwork needs to be laid in both
practical and pedagogical approaches before we can possibly begin
to discuss the techniques of the likes of Merce Cunningham and
Martha Graham.
Amrita Performing Arts (derived from the Sanskrit word
meaning ‘eternity’) an international non-government organization
based in Phnom Penh, with US non-profit status’ was established
in July 2003. Its mission since its inception has been to promote,
preserve and sustain Cambodia’s ancient performing arts heritage
while developing contemporary creative expression in dance,
music and theatre. Amrita Performing Arts has been an active
player in helping to lay the groundwork for the delicate process
in the ongoing dialogue on the development of contemporary
dance in Cambodia. Amrita has tried to identify practitioners from
the region whose own contemporary dance styles have grown
from similar struggles between preservation and creativity and
whose work is deeply rooted in their own ancient traditions. Our
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first substantial attempt was in March 2005 with a work titled
Revitalizing Monkeys and Giants, a contemporary interpretation
of Cambodian classical male masked dance known as Lakhaon
Kaol that we created in collaboration with Pornrat Damrhung,
Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok. Pichet Klunchun, an established Thai dancer and
choreographer with a strong background in both Thai classical
Kaol and contemporary dance, worked with six Cambodian Kaol
dancers and five Cambodian classical musicians in creating a
new work that grew out of two months of exchange and intense
dialogue. We invited two Kaol masters to be part of the workshop
as advisors. The process was fraught with conflict as the masters
looked on in great apprehension and the dialogue was often
charged with accusations of pilfering the Kaol tradition. In the
end, it was extremely successful as both an artistic endeavour and
as a study in cross-cultural collaboration between two nations
known for their ancient cultural conflicts. Young dancers and
elder masters alike united in praising the work for succeeding in
finding a new voice for Cambodian dance while respecting and
honouring the classical form. The work went on to tour to Kuala
Lumpur and Singapore, where it received much critical acclaim.
At the 2007 TARI Dance Festival in Kuala Lumpur, reviewer
Lim How Ngean wrote:
… Cambodian dancers were dressed in simple black T-shirts and
maroon fishermen pants, but were wonderfully differentiated by the
physical characterizations of monkeys and giants. Although couched
as contemporary work, Klunchun’s dynamic choreography included
finer details of the Khmer classical dance vocabulary. A much quicker
tempo in the movements signaled a departure from traditional ways
while characterization was purely manifested through the body
rather than fussy and elaborate costumes and masks. APA’s excerpt
from Kaol was a brilliant showcase of contemporary dance drama.1
In January 2006, we welcomed the Javanese dancer and choreographer Miroto Martinus to Cambodia to conduct several weeks of
workshops with young RUFA dancers as part of an Arts Network
Asia project. This culminated in a brief but provoking public
1
http://www.kakiseni.com.
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 151
showing of an untitled experimental work that brought together
the Javanese and Cambodian classical traditions with a striking
contemporary line. At the end of the workshop, in a discussion
between Miroto and the artists, one of our senior male Kaol
dancers, Soeur Thavarak, the only elder master to participate in
that contemporary dance workshop, asked Miroto how his elder
masters in Java reacted to his groundbreaking choreography.
Miroto replied that his teachers are mostly supportive and in fact
pleased to see how the traditions have inspired such innovation.
To this, Thavarak voiced his deep frustration that Cambodian
dancers cannot yet dare to do this kind of work on their own initiative. Young dancers are still under the shadow of masters who
shun experiments which break from tradition and his hope is that
with more such workshops, young dancers might eventually find
the courage to trust their own creative sensibilities and finally
realize that creativity is not intended to contradict or threaten their
ancient dance heritage but rather to give it a context in which it
can live and flourish well into the future. This would allow their
own contemporary dance style to live in tandem with the traditions
of the past.
This declaration was all the more extraordinary and poignant
for the fact that it came from one of the very elder masters who
had previously shunned contemporary deviation from the classical
path. Soeur Thavarak was one of the six dancers in Revitalizing
Monkeys and Giants — a role he accepted as a means of challenging
his own doubts about the merging of these two worlds, out of
which he has become an unstoppable force and spokesperson
for this movement.
One of our most significant steps so far in these efforts took place
in January 2006 when several members of the World Dance Alliance
(WDA) from Malaysia, Australia and India visited Cambodia to
conduct contemporary dance workshops for approximately 30
of our most enthusiastic young dancers. On that occasion the
president of WDAAP, Professor Anis Md Nor, gave a presentation
on the significance of the WDA and officially welcomed Cambodia as a new member. This was an exciting day for the young
dancers as the occasion clearly marked the beginning of many
new opportunities, reinstating the belief that more members of
the international modern dance community would join our efforts as the borders continue to break down not only within the
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region but across them as well. Through the WDA network, our
burgeoning community of young contemporary dancers has had
the opportunity to travel and interact as well as perform with many
of their counterparts in Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, and
Singapore, to name only a few. These efforts have given the artists
the confidence needed to begin to embark on their own initiatives,
creating work that is entirely their own — entirely Cambodian.
Phon Sopheap is one of our great lead monkey dancers; he has
collaborated with Pichet Klunchun, Peter Chin and Emmanuèle
Phuon and taken part in numerous contemporary dance workshops in the US, Indonesia and Thailand. He created his first solo
work as part of the 2007 International forum for young choreographers in Surabaya Indonesia. Out of the 20 new works created
at the workshop, Sopheap’s was one of the seven selected to be
presented at the Indonesian Dance Festival in Jakarta the following
week. The work, A Monkey’s Mask, based on the dancer’s struggle
between his own identity and that of his traditional mask, has also
been seen at festivals in Singapore and Thailand.
Chumvan Sodhachivy is one of the great young interpreters of the
male role of the all-female classical court dance form. Sodhachivy,
also known as Belle, has performed in contemporary works under
the guidance of choreographers from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, France, and the US and has participated in workshops
in situations as extreme as the Asia–Europe Foundation’s Point
to Point dance workshop in Poland and Bob Wilson’s Watermill
Center in New York. After this intense period of external artistic
saturation, Belle is now creating her own work including the
premier in October 2008 at the French Cultural Center’s Phnom
Penh theatre festival of The History of Preah Kongkea, an inspired,
original work that combines classical Cambodian dance with
cutting edge contemporary reinterpretation of the classical gestures
as well as numerous forms of traditional Cambodian theatre
including shadow puppetry.
Chey Chankethya is a young master of the female role and a
teacher at Phnom Penh’s Secondary School of Fine Arts. Kethya
was part of a three-month dance management program at UCLA
in 2006 and since then has emerged as one of the strongest leaders
in Cambodia’s dance community. Having been exposed to many
contemporary dance workshops, performing extensively around
the world and giving lectures on dance education in Cambodia,
Contemporary Dance in Cambodia 153
Kethya recently founded her own contemporary dance company
in Phnom Penh called Compass dance ensemble consisting of 10
of her colleagues. Though unable to sustain the ensemble on a
full-time basis, they meet regularly at Amrita’s studio, exchanging
ideas and creating new works that are presented on an ad hoc
basis, entirely funded from their own salaries from other dance
performances or as teachers and ticket revenue from previous
performances.
These are only a few of the more vivid examples. The list goes
on and despite all the odds, the trickle down effect to the larger
community of young dancers is truly inspiring. The process
remains slow and the general situation precariously fragile. The
success must be measured on a scale very particular to this country’s
circumstances and yet by anyone’s standards, the sheer resilience
and determination is remarkable.
I have been in Cambodia since June 1997. As an American
schooled in Western theatre and opera, it has been a humbling
challenge to discover with the encouragement and blessing of
my Cambodian colleagues how best to represent and support
this amazing culture without falling into the obvious colonialist
traps of superimposing what one might think is best onto a rather
vulnerable community. Based on the reactions we have seen so
far, both locally and internationally, we seem to be heading in the
right direction; we can only hope and trust and continue to
ask these pertinent questions on a daily basis. In my earlier
days, whenever I campaigned to raise funds and awareness for
Cambodian performing arts, my rationale was based on tapping
into the huge well of support and empathy following Cambodia’s
genocidal history. In this article I have chosen to give only limited
information on the atrocities of the 1970s as crucial background to
my argument. It will be many years before the wounds inflicted
by the Khmer Rouge are erased or even begin to fade into the
background, but the development of Cambodian dance cannot
continue to fall victim to its own tragic legacy. Today, young artists
in Cambodia, teachers, students and performers alike, are taking
responsibility for their own cultural destiny. They are also at a level
whereby they can compete with the world’s best and want to be
judged accordingly. They still need support and encouragement;
however, that support must not be born out of pity but rather out
of celebration for one of the world’s great cultural revivals.
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Note: This article is based on a shorter work presented at the Toronto
WDA Global Assembly in July 2006 and later printed in Dialogues in Dance
Discourse — Creating Dance in Asia Pacific, published by the Cultural Centre
of the University of Malaya, Malaysia. I wish to acknowledge Robert
Turnbull 2 for his support and insightful views in the original writing of
this text.
Fred Frumberg moved to Cambodia in June 1997 as a consultant
with UNESCO, to assist in the revival and preservation of Cambodian
traditional and contemporary performing arts. His task has been to built
capacity in all aspects of theatre management, from the staging of public
performances to research and documentation and organizing international
tours and exchange programmes throughout Asia, Europe, the US, and
Australia. In July 2003 Fred founded Amrita Performing Arts, a nonprofit organization based in Phnom Penh, to continue these efforts and
introduce an element of contemporary creativity. Prior to working in
Cambodia, Fred spent 15 years working in opera houses and theatres
throughout the USA and Europe, assisting stage directors such as Peter
Sellers, Francesca Zambello and Deborah Warner. He was Head of
Production at the Paris Opera from 1994–97, a staff stage director
for the Netherlands Opera in the late 1980s and production manager
for two World Festivals of Sacred Music in Los Angeles in 1999 and
2002 produced by Judy Mitoma of UCLA’s Center for Intercultural
Performance.
u
2 Since moving to Cambodia in 1997, Robert Turnbull has written extensively on culture and travel in Southeast Asia. His writings include the
chapter ‘A Burned-out Theater’ in Leakthina Chau-Pech Ollier and Tim
Winter (eds), Expressions of Cambodia: The Politics of Tradition, Modernity and
Change, London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2006.