Drumming Tiger, Singing Hunter Rescued

The dancer, crowned and wrapped in gold, balances on one flexed leg, the other cocked in the air. She seems to be flying, gliding through clouds to earth. Her wrists, knees and ankles flex seamlessly. Her fingers and hands strike intricate, mannered poses.

This is Khmer dance--technical virtuosity combined with strength and discipline, transcendent and serene.

This week, a historic tour symbolizing the survival of the ancient art of Khmer movement, “Dance, the Spirit of Cambodia,” arrives in Long Beach. The 41-person troupe, organized by the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Phenh, is on a 12-city, coast-to-coast tour, which includes performances at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Mass., the Joyce Theater in New York, and in communities, such as Long Beach and Lowell, Mass., where large numbers of Cambodian Americans live.

The appearances are the culmination of a decade’s work to rescue Khmer culture.

Cambodian dancers last performed in the U.S. in 1990 in a heroic but troubled tour that reflected the legacy of Cambodia’s war-torn history, and the near destruction of its traditional arts. So many dancers had died during the 1975-78 Pol Pot regime, that few were alive to remember the ancient dances, let alone dance them. Historical records, photographs and films of dances had been burned by the Khmer Rouge. Traditional costumes were threadbare and the 1990 tour couldn’t afford decent lighting at every stop.

The tour was also marked by Cambodian American demonstrations against the authoritarian government that had overthrown the Khmer Rouge, protests sparked by Cambodia’s continuing political strife and economic desperation following the war and the Pol Pot holocaust. By the time the tour ended, five dancers from the troupe defected.

But a handful of Khmer dance enthusiasts persevered, among them Proeung Chhieng, the vice rector and dean of choreographic arts at the University of Fine Arts, Cambodian American Sam Ang Sam; patrons from Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival; the New England Foundation for the Arts (initiator of the 2001 tour); the Rockefeller Foundation; and consultants from UNESCO in Cambodia.

In the past 10 years, restoration efforts included rebuilding the dance program at the University of Fine Arts, recruiting students and the few surviving elderly Khmer dance teachers, videotaping traditional versions of the classical dances, which sometimes went on all night, and shaping shorter versions for performance in Cambodia and abroad.

It’s been a race against time. “In the past couple of years, the deaths of some of our remaining older teachers have pushed the younger ones to learn and record all they can, as quickly as possible,” says Chhieng, who is also artistic director of the 2001 tour.

A repertory of Khmer classical and folk dances will be presented in Long Beach. The evening will open with the most sublime of the ancient Khmer traditions, the “Robam Apsara” ( “robam “ means “dance”) with the central role of the goddess-ancestor Mera, danced by Sok Sokhoeun. She is regarded by Cambodians as one of the most exquisite dancers in the apsara tradition.

Legend holds that Cambodian classical dance began with an epic battle between armies of gods and demons who called upon nagas (snake-dragons) that lived beneath the earth. The nagas roiled an ocean of milk, and a legion of celestial dancers, apsaras , was born. Once created, the apsaras --spiritual go-betweens, a little like angels or mediums, for the gods and humans--taught dance to a troupe of earthbound women. Like all Khmer classical dances, the stylized movements and elegiac pace of the “Robam Apsara” seem more like mythic tableaux than dance in the Western sense.

Among the other classical dances on the program, which also includes folk music and cymbal-and-drum temple processionals, is an excerpt from “Reamker,” the Khmer version of the Ramayana dating from the 16th or 17th century. A complex tale of love and war, this excerpt picks up the story of Prince Rama, the heroic general of an army of monkeys who sets off for the land of the giants to rescue the captive Princess Sita. The dance features shadow puppetry, and an assortment of mermaids, candle dancers and ogres as well as the comic troops of monkeys.

“Robam Makaw” features Moni Mekhala, goddess of the sea, and her attendants, who use giant fans to depict the shimmering scales of the Makaw, a mythical sea serpent. “Robam Tunsaong” (Wild Ox Dance) features a singing hunter, a drumming tiger and two oxen that neither the hunter nor the tiger can bring themselves to kill.

In New England, where the tour began, and in New York, critical response has been glowing. The New York Times called the Joyce performances “cause for rejoicing,” singling out Sok Sokhoeun: “Sok Sokhoeun . . . . brims with a steady, almost unearthly glow.” Elizabeth Zimmer, in the Village Voice, wrote: “The project glitters with recovered grandeur . . . . These . . . artists have been through a lot en route to us; we are better for having met them.”

Besides the 28 performances, which will end at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., at the end of September, the troupe will hold workshops, master classes, demonstrations and lectures to help Cambodian Americans, and especially Khmer children, preserve their artistic heritage. A Web site, at https://www.asiasource.org/cambodia, went online April 16 with information about the tour and Khmer history and culture.

Ten years ago, as television and the arrival of 10,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops to run Cambodia’s first democratic elections brought American pop culture, Asian MTV, Thai discos and televised sports to Cambodia, many Khmer elders, including Chhieng, worried that their traditional arts might die out. But that has not proved to be the case, Chhieng said last week.

“Through nationwide tours in the schools to introduce young people to our ancient arts and because of the support by foreigners in rebuilding our dance and music schools, we’ve been able to revive our own traditions.”

Chhieng, Fred Frumberg, the tour’s manager and UNESCO consultant, and Sam Miller, New England Foundation executive director, all doubt that the political animosity that marred the 1990 tour will surface again. “Since the 1991 elections run by the United Nations, the political climate at home and with the refugees has quieted and Cambodians have some hope,” Frumberg says. To encourage cooperation, 14 master teachers and dancers visited Cambodian American communities last year, including Long Beach, to pave the way for the 2001 tour.

“This project is a unique collaboration between Cambodian Americans and Khmers who are committed to transcend political differences to save their dance and music traditions,” Miller says.

“There are not many Cambodians in the world,” says Chhieng, “but we are lucky to have our ancient dances to help us survive.” *

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“DANCE: THE SPIRIT OF CAMBODIA,” Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Cal State Long Beach, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach. Dates: Wednesday and Thursday, 7 p.m. Prices: $25-$30. Phone: (562) 985-7000.