Cambodia's Apsara Dancing

[Guest guest]

Britney who? Cambodia dances to an ancient tune

 

Reuters

 

PHNOM PENH: Like most of her classmates, Phuong Lina doesn't have

much time for Britney Spears.

 

Rather than bubble-gum American pop music, the 16-year-old prefers

the ancient Cambodian songs that have endured more than 1,000 years --

from the magnificence of the Angkor temples to the horror of the

Khmer Rouge's "Killing Fields."

 

"I like most of the famous singers in the world, but not as much as

the Cambodian ones," she said during a quick break from her daily

lessons of Cambodia's measured and graceful apsara, or "angel"

classical dance.

 

"And of those, I prefer the traditional, slow songs. With the old

singers, their voices and songs sound so sweet, whereas nowadays it

just sounds as though they are shouting."

 

Phuong Lina is one of many youngsters putting a fresh spring in the

step of Cambodia's ancient arts, which were nearly destroyed by the

ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge in their genocidal attempt to build an

agrarian utopia in the southeast Asian nation.

 

Every day, some 700 pupils file into Phnom Penh's Royal University of

Fine Arts, an oasis of calm and serenity amid the hustle and bustle

of the Cambodian capital.

 

After the obligatory national anthem in front of the red and blue

Cambodian flag, they embark on grueling yoga-like stretches to shape

their growing bodies for the twists and turns required for the dance.

 

At the completion of four years training, an apsara dancer will be

able to bend her fingers backwards until they touch her forearm, in

accordance with the strictly observed tradition.

 

Many of the other postures -- such as balancing on one leg with the

spine arched backwards and rear leg curled up toward the shoulder

blades -- would be impossible for all but the most skilled and

lissome professional gymnast.

 

"I've been dancing for three years now, and even though it's hard

work, I really enjoy it. I like the slow dance and music best," said

Au Somali, an 11-year-old apsara hopeful.

 

CULTURAL NIHILISTS

 

Apsara dancing, which traces its roots back to primitive magic and

Hindu influences from the first century AD, reached its zenith in the

courts of the great kings who built Angkor Wat around 800 years ago.

 

After years of gradual decline, the 20th century threw up its two

greatest threats: the cultural nihilism of the Khmer Rouge and the

corrosive influence of Western modernism said to be undermining

traditions across all the developing world.

 

Apsara has proved more than a match for both -- although its survival

30 years ago was touch and go.

 

The Khmer Rouge genocide, in which some 1.7 million people are

believed to have died of execution, torture, starvation and disease,

singled out the educated elite before all others as enemies of Pol

Pot's new 'Year Zero' peasant society.

 

"Under Pol Pot I was a farmer living near Phnom Penh. I couldn't tell

them I was a teacher. I had to pretend I was an idiot," said Chhim

Sokha, a 50-year-old dance teacher.

 

As the teachers died and their books burned, the ancient dance was

nearly lost forever.

 

"When the school reopened in 1980, we were very lucky that some of

the teachers who had survived Pol Pot locked away the moves in their

minds and could remember them," said Preung Chean, the Royal

University's dean. "There were no books."

 

>From the collective memory of the survivors, as well as black and

white film footage shot before the Khmer Rouge overran Phnom Penh in

1975, the tradition was gradually rebuilt.

 

PRESERVING ASIA'S SOUL?

 

Sandwiched between heavily Westernized Thailand and rapidly

industrializing Vietnam, Cambodia is certainly not without its crop

of U.S. or European icons.

 

Britney Spears and English soccer hero David Beckham are on many a

child's T-shirt, and 'Camborap', espoused by the likes of the 'Phnom

Penh Bad Boyz,' is gaining ground with the capital's youth.

 

But now firmly re-established with top-level political backing as

well as a dedicated and popular television channel, the apsara

tradition appears capable of withstanding whatever Western media and

culture throw at it.

 

"The dancing is very hard but this school retains its traditionally

Asian culture and roots, and I love it," said Hitomi Yamanaka, a

Japanese student in her 30s who has been training in apsara for four

years.

 

PRESERVING ASIA'S SOUL?

 

 

Sandwiched between heavily Westernised Thailand and rapidly

industrialising Vietnam, Cambodia is certainly not without its crop

of U.S. or European icons.

 

 

Britney Spears and English soccer hero David Beckham are on many a

child's T-shirt, and 'Camborap', espoused by the likes of the 'Phnom

Penh Bad Boyz', is gaining ground with the capital's youth.

 

 

But now firmly re-established with top-level political backing as

well as a dedicated and popular television channel, the apsara

tradition appears capable of withstanding whatever Western media and

culture throw at it.

 

 

"The dancing is very hard but this school retains its traditionally

Asian culture and roots, and I love it," said Hitomi Yamanaka, a

Japanese student in her 30s who has been training in apsara for four

years.

 

 

"I grew up in a very traditional Japanese family but when I went to

school, it was very influenced by Western culture. Too much of Japan

nowadays is about business and industry and it has lost its spirit,"

she said.