Contemporary dance

MAJ : 9 décembre 2023

Contemporary dance is still underdeveloped in Cambodia for several reasons.

Revolution. The Khmer Rouge genocide severely and permanently damaged the country's cultural fabric through the systematic murder of artists.
Economy. In 2015, Cambodia ranked 111^th in the world in terms of GDP (out of 198 countries).
Cultural attachment. The Khmers remain very attached to their traditional culture, with the UNESCO-listed Royal Ballet of Cambodia in pole position. Its symbolic dimension overshadows other initiatives, particularly on the international stage.
Training. There are few or no training opportunities within the country, and Cambodians lack the financial means to travel abroad. However, a number of outside initiatives have sprung up, mainly in Phnom Penh (Belle), Siem Reap (New Cambodian Artists) and Battambang (Phare Ponleu Selpak).

Water history

This contemporary dance, narrative and improvised, was created in 2019 by Sok Pheak based on an idea by Patrick Kersalé. Sok Pheak interprets it based on the gestural vocabulary of classical Khmer dance. Patrick Kersalé accompanies him on the Angkorian harp.

Four mythological characters are featured: Garuda, king of birds and guardian of Knowledge, Nāga, serpent guardian of Earth and Water, Neay Rong, a man, and an Apsara. A watering hole is at the center of all the rivalries, with everyone trying to monopolize it. The Garuda and the Nāga try to destroy it to prevent the Apsara they hate from accessing it. But Neay Rong loves the beautiful Apsara and comes between the two protagonists...

This dance represents a kind of synthesis of the history of Cambodian music and dance. In fact, both art forms are based exclusively on oral tradition. Like all Khmer dancers, Sok Pheak is the possessor of skills handed down by a line of dance masters whose origins go back to ancient India, via all Khmer masters since pre-Angkorian times. The four characters interpreted belong to both the founding myths of Hinduism and the Khmer spiritual imagination. This dance can be interpreted on several levels, depending on the degree of culture and initiation of those who watch it:

Level 1. For the uninitiated, the dancer's graceful spatial evolution flatters the eye and moves the soul.
Level 2. Those familiar with the formal canons of Khmer dance will distinguish the four characters by their respective attitudes.
Level 3. Those familiar with the regional geopolitics of China and Southeast Asia will perceive the tug-of-war between the nations crossed by the Mekong River, on which the Middle Kingdom has built hydroelectric dams.
Level 4. Well-versed in international geopolitics, you'll understand the illustration of the problem of access to drinking water and the sea for certain landlocked countries.

These levels of reading can be applied to all Indian and Khmer narrative dances, once you've got the keys. For centuries, classical dance has drawn its inspiration from the Reamker epic that shaped Khmer culture.

As for the Angkorian harp played by Patrick Kersalé, its use is not insignificant. This instrument, which originated in India but became Khmer in pre-Angkorian times, was reconstituted by Sounds of Angkor in 2012 after an absence of eight centuries; it has a symbolic link with the bird (peacock?) or Garuda among the Khmer Angkorians.

The soul of combat

In the temples of Angkor Wat, Bayon and Banteay Chhmar, warrior iconography reveals soldiers in positions that are both pure combat postures and martial dance positions. The performance featured in this video shows this unstable boundary between the two situations on stage (although the artists are not warriors!). For example, in Khmer fighting arts such as kun khmer គុនខ្មែរ or bokator ល្បុក្កតោ, there is, before the actual combat, a psychological combat using positions not directly assimilable to dance and not directly to physical confrontation either.

This show (Soul of Fighting, by Pres Pisnuka Nimet) was performed on February 20, 2016 at Siem Reap's Old Stadium as part of the "1st Friendship Festival". It exalts the patriotic fiber using pre-Angkorian (drums, horns) and post-Angkorian (oboe) instruments. Combat postures borrow from Angkorian temple iconography. The leather figurines are those of shadow theater, and some of the protagonists' attitudes mimic the behavior of the monkeys in Hanuman's army in the Reamker. This show was created by Sopheak Soun and Cambodian Living Arts.