Socially Networked Puppet Show

Last night we attended a performance of Sandglass and Sovanna Phum (Here too)- the culmination of these two artists working together from different cultures, puppetry traditions, and language.  What they produced was gorgeous, brilliant, and exceptional.  It was a fusion of khmer/American artistry like I haven't seen.  Oh I wish they would produce a CD of the music too, it was amazing! 

I just had to get that out before I connect to social networking ...

Our whole family attended the performance in Providence, RI.  We took Mongkol, a Cambodian blogger, now studying in Boston.   I met Mongkol via his flickr photos and then found his blog. (BTW, he captured some beautiful photos from last night. And just for giggles, I made a flickr slide show out them here.)

My husband picked up Mongkol in Boston and drive him out to our place where we all drove down to Providence, RI and grabbed a quick dinner at Whole Foods.   We were in such a rush to leave, that I forgot the google map for the location.  So as we were wandering around near the RISD campus, we heard some Khmer drums and Mongkol exclaimed, "Cambodian music!  That must be it!"

I went to pick up our tickets from the box office and as I'm waiting in line, a man came up to me and said, "You must be Beth!  I recognize you from your flickr photos!"  When I mentioned that we came with Mongkol, he said that he knew that!"  Anyway, it turns out that he reads both my Cambodian blog and Mongkol's blog.  Nice to finally meet you Decker!

I also discovered that he knew Jinja (John Weeks) and Jinja has a link to Sovanna Phum on his site.  After the performance, I spoke with the artistic director of Sovanna Phum who also knew Jinja.

In addition, we did some social networking with some local Cambodian folks who came from Lowell, Cranston, and Revere to attend the performance.   Mongkol discovered that one of them lives near him in Boston!

All this to say, that when Mongkol heard the Khmer drums, he told me he was home sick.  But through the power of socially-networked Web, he can experience some of his homeland and native culture being thousands and thousands miles away and hopefully fine some comfort!

Enjoy the video, I'm experimenting with moment capture and quick editing techniques.

Comments

[tuesday]

wow, enjoy the fame =)