Dancer wins Nikkei Asia Prize

Long Beach choreographer, dancer and teacher Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, one of the “killing field” survivors who have revived the class dance culture of Cambodia that was nearly obliterated during the Khmer Rouge years, has been awarded the 2006 Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture. The prize is sponsored by the publisher of Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper.

Cheam Shapiro, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1991, co-founded the Khmer Arts Academy in Long Beach, a city of roughly 55,000 Cambodian expatriates, the largest population outside the country itself. She will receive the $26,000 prize in Tokyo on May 24.