Look At Us Now

Sovanna Phum has performances every Friday and Saturday night, playing to both the local Cambodian population, as well as foreigners. Typically, the performance is from the theatre's cannon of ten or so traditional puppet, dance, and drum shows, rotating throughout the year. Last weekend, my first in Cambodia, was a special treat. It was the premier of Look At Us Now, a contemporary dance performance presented at Sovanna Phum by New Cambodian Artists, a project by young musicians and dancers in Phnom Penh. Look At Us Now was a co-collaboration between these Cambodian artists with a Dutch director and designers.

The piece explored the current situation of Cambodian artists, from where they started, to where they are now, tracking through the country's history and culture. The performance integrated traditional Apsara dance and contemporary dance with projections (rarely seen by Cambodian audiences), drums, and recorded music that helped tell the story.

Below are two videos from the performance. The first video is the women dancing in traditional Apsara style, in front of projections of Apsara carvings from Angkor Wat. Apsara (meaning, Angel Dancer) is a large part of Cambodian culture, and the iconic carvings from Angkor Wat are memorized by Cambodians around the world.





In the second video, the dancers perform the artist's position during the Khmer Rouge regime. The projections are of a photograph display at Tuol Sleng, the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. Easily recognized by anyone who has been in the museum, and any Cambodian, the photographs show every person who entered Tuol Sleng (a torture prison during the regime), most of whom never left. Much of this video is in silence (street noises are heard as the theatre is outside), with drums making the sound effects.




Look At Us Now was a stunning, exciting dance performance, that I was privileged to experience. It was a great introduction, coincidentally at the beginning of my time here, to contemporary Cambodian performance, showcasing the fusion of new and old. As I am studying classical performance techniques, it's a great reminder that Cambodian artists, like Cambodians in many other fields, are inquisitive and innovative, and as the country around them surges forward with continued development, they are ready to take the leap ahead.