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Who is your favorite dancer and why?

This is my essay for a blog mentoring project for African Women.  Since I'm writing about a Cambodian dance --thought I'd share it here.

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My answer to the question is Leng Sopharaht - the young woman in the photograph above.

Leng Sopharath lives in Cambodia which is locoated in Southeast Asia.  As you can see on the map, Cambodia is closer to Africa than it is the United States where I live with my husband and two children who we adopted from Cambodia.   Our family is also sponsoring her for college study through the Sharing Foundation (you can view more photos from her and our correspondence here and here)

Leng Spoharath is twenty years old and grew up in the same orphanage where my daughter lived for two years.  It is located in an area named Kampong Speu outside the capital city of Phnom Penh.   She had an opportunity to study classical Cambodian Dance at her orphanage.  She loves to dance.

I think that dance has the power to capture our imagination and emotions.  As we watch a dance or start to move our bodies, dance movements have the ability to transport us to other times and places.  Dance can be enchant us, make us dream, tell stories, and have a spiritual meaning.   In Cambodian classical dance, this is so very true.   It has been said that Dance is the Spirit of Cambodia!

Classical Cambodian dance movements are very slow.  Dancers are trained for many years to learn the different hand gestures, facial expressions, and bows.  When I watch a classical Cambodian dancer hands,  sometimes I see flowers or sometimes butterflies or birds.  Sometimes the dancers - moving across the stage, are telling a myth from ancient times in Cambodia, illustrating a legend, or enacting a spiritual blessing.  (If you are on a fast enough connection, you can view this video clip from YouTube)

Classical Cambodian dance traces it roots back to the carvings of asparas (angels in Cambodian) on Cambodian's oldest temple, Angkor Wat.  These dances were created more than a 1,000 years ago and have been passed down from mother to daughter for many, many generations.

These traditional dances tell stories and they are populated with princes and princesses, giants, monkeys, peacocks, and other mythical figures.   While many works are tell stories or famous legends of love and war and magic, others are considered "pure" dance -- or dancing for the joy of dancing without telling a story.

I found a beautiful slide show of Cambodian Dance here on YouTube.  It begins with a poem:

We dance for laughter
We dance for tears
We dance for madness
We dance for fears
We dance for hopes
We dance for screams
We are the dancers
We create the dreams

Dance is an important part of everyone's culture no matter where they are from or what they do.  What does dance mean to you?  What is special the art of dance in your culture?  What dance artists do you love and why?

Cambodian New Year's Greeting Cards

Andrew Page who is the photographer for the Angkor Dance Troupe in Lowell is offering some greeting cards and prints of Cambodian dance and culture.  There are also some 2006 New Year's cards.  Portion of the proceeds helps support the Angkor Dance Troupe's documentation and website gallery fund. 

I know it will be past New Year's, but will be doing a classroom activity for both Sara and Harry about Cambodian New Year's.    I expect to be in Harry's class on April 28th.  Is there anyone in Cambodia who would like to talk to his class via skype or Yahoo IM Talk?

That week is also National Dance Week, so will also include an activity around dance.  Lots to think about and do in the next few weeks.

Break Dancing in Bassac

This is second reference to the Bassac district I've come across today.  It's an article on the Phnom Penh Post titled "The Break dancers of Bassac."  The article is by Phatry Derek Pan who blogs from Cambodia and I've stumbled across before (see his response in the comments.)

The other mention of this area came from the Dengue Fever report about their tour in Cambodia.

then we hooked up with a group of kids who perform traditional song and dance from the ghetto, they gave us a private show of dance and singing in the projects 1:30pm...so touching and beautiful...then we rehearsed a bunch of songs with them to play in the Basaac district in the shanty town... then we played at the shanty town stage 6pm...it was insane and way out of any of our elements. comunication was minimal...raw wires and crazy lights, generators and trash...naked kids and crazy security dudes....sound was like we were coming out of a giant telephone...the pa was an assortment of about 50 different speakers..it was great.

What I'm wondering is about is whether or not Bassac is the place I photographed when in Cambodia?  My driver pronounced it Bouring.   If not, are there photos online someplace? 

Technorati Tags: cambodia

Water Festival in Lowell, MA

While the kids were napping and has access to the Internet, he's a montage of the opening ceremony of the Water Festival in Lowell, MA.  The film is two minutes long.  My fastest editing job ever .... I got a lot more footage, but no time to edit yet ...

Download Movie.wmv

 

Village Girl can Dance!

When I taught ESL in Cambodia, at the end of every class I sang "Aprayah yah" and the kids loved it.   The first time I did it, I got Khmer dancing lessons.   I have my own DVD at home and dance with the kids.   But today, I came across two wonderful video blog posts from Village girl showing the khmer dance.

#1  Village Girl Can Dance
#2  The Children Dance

Keep in dancing Village Girl!   

Angkor Dance Troup: Monkey Dance Hip Hop

My virtual friend Wanna, a Cambodian in Vietman, translated the Vietmanese Break Dance Cartoon.
The comic reminded of the performance of the Monkey Dance by the Angkor Dance Troupe in Lowell where they combined the traditional monkey dance with hip hop.  The photos above are from Andrew Page, but you really need to see it live.

Technorati Tags: cambodia

Vietnamese Break dance comic

  Vietnamese Break dance comic 
  Originally uploaded by [email protected].

I know it isn't Cambodian.  I have no idea what they are saying.  I just thought it was an interesting cultural fusion.

Khmer Traditional Dance

Khmer Traditional Dance
Originally uploaded by Gini..

Today I found another flickr user who is interested in Khmer Dance.   Very funny, but I think I know her from various Internet lists and Khmer dance performances! 

Technorati Tag: khmer 

Seasons of Migration

Last night, we attended the RI performance of "Seasons of Migration" and took the kids.   They did great for staying up way past their bedtime. They enchanted with the dancing.   Harry has Monk Mekuni dance on video, but seeing live with all dancers was very exciting.   Afterwards, we stayed for a little bit of the Q&A with Sophiline Cheam Shaprio.  By this time, both the kids were asleep -- we learned a lot more detail about the traditional dance.   I loved her description of classical Cambodian dance as "moving mediation."

The New York Times: A Snake Dance for a Nation Where Few Dancers Survived

Here is New York Times article about the Season of Migration, a dancer created by Cambodian-American Choreographer, Sophiline Shapiro, founder of the Khmer Arts Academy, a center for Cambodian traditional arts.

According to the article, feeling the pull of two cultures, Ms. Shapiro began expanding the reach of Cambodian dance, fusing its stylized elegance with nontraditional subject matter and ideas gleaned from Western choreographers she admires, like George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham.

An earlier work, "Samritechak," was a risky but well received adaptation of "Othello," told in classical Cambodian style.

We met  Ms. Shapiro at the Royal University in Feb. 2000 when she was working on that earlier pieceShe demonstrated some of the traditional Cambodian dance gestures.   Her photo is part of Harry's lifebook.   We are planning to take Harry and his sister to the RI Providence.