Catherine Filloux, a French-Algerian American who wrote the popular musical “Where Elephants Weep,” told VOA Khmer recently that Cambodian theatre artists Chhon Sina and Ieng Sithul will also travel to New York for the Theatre and Peace Building in Cambodia Symposium at Fordham University.

The symposium will be held Sept. 20 and Sept. 21. Following that, the artists will take part in a conference held by Theater Without Borders, called Acting Together on the World Stage: A Conference on Theatre and Peace Building in Conflict Zones, from Sept. 23 to Sept. 26.

On Sept. 20, she said, “We are going to be having an open rehearsal of Chhon Sina’s new play…‘Phka Champei,’ about a sex worker and victim of domestic violence who lives in a slum in Phnom Penh.”

The following day, “there will be a panel in which will be discussed issues of theatre and peace building, and we will do an excerpt from Chhon Sina’s play, and we will also have Ieng Sithul perform,” she said.

Filloux has written four plays about Cambodia, in addition to “Where Elephants Weep,” which proved widely popular.

Her plays include “Eyes of the Heart, Photographs from S-21,” about a woman who suffers from psychosomatic blindness after the Khmer Rouge regime; “Silence of God,” about Pol Pot; and “The US Complicity in What Happened in Cambodia.”

The second conference will discuss how current Cambodian artists worked following the Khmer Rouge “and have used art as a way to express human rights and also as a way to heal,” Filloux said.

Other participants come from countries like Peru and Ireland, as well as Native Americans from the US. All will have a chance to discuss parallels in their rebuilding efforts.

Rithisal Kang, a Cambodian Fulbright scholar in the US, will also attend.

“We will discuss with the guidance of peace-building scholars and practitioners a range of questions about the relationship between the arts and conflict,” he told VOA Khmer. “I believe we will learn and gain understanding of the nature of conflict, causes of violence and the meaning of peace.”

Source: VOA Khmer

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Even more, it is the keystone of a movement to revitalize Cambodia through the arts.

The festival is also a way to encourage and honor Cambodian artists by recognizing their accomplishments and building hopes for the future.

CYAF increases awareness about arts revival in Cambodia among educators, students, artists and observers from around the world by providing opportunities for all participating groups to demonstrate the mastery of their art by leading workshops and demonstrations and participating in public performances.

CYAF was initiated in 2004 by Cambodian Living Arts as the “Mohaosrop Silapak Khmer Amatak” in Khmer or the “Cambodian Living Arts Festival” in English.

At the time, the participants were only the master artists, teachers and students of Cambodian Living Arts along with a troupe from the Department of Culture and Fine Arts of Siem Reap province.

Source: http://cambodianartsfestival.org/home

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The dance troupe will be guided by its director, Tes Sam Oeun, a National Endowment for the Arts heritage fellow.

“Under her direction, the dance troupe has performed in numerous venues, including events of the Smithsonian Institution, the White House, the Kennedy Center, the World Monument Fund, and numerous folk festivals,” Tes Saroeum, president of the Cambodian American Heritage, told “Hello VOA” Thursday.

Tes Saroeum, who is also Tes Sam Oeun’s husband, said the troupe will perform scenes from the mythical Vessantara Jataka, a Buddhist story.

“This story is very popular in Cambodia,” he said.

The story depicts the travails of a prince, Vessantara, who gives away his possessions and even his family in service to charity.

The troupe will also perform scenes from the Ramayana, Tes Saroeum said. All the performances will match the dual influences of both Buddhism and Hinduism in the “Gods of Angkor” exhibition.

Khmer classical dancing can be called Apsara dancing, he said, reflecting a belief that the style stems from the dance practiced in the courts of Angkorian kings.

“So when the Smithsonian asked us to perform something related to the ‘Gods of Angkor’…we decided to perform the story of Prince Vessantara, which is close to the exhibit’s crowned Buddha, and the story of Ramayana, which is related to the Hindu bronze sculptures.”

Source: VOA Khmer

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But the Cambodian music of yesterday took centre stage during the Universal Khmer Song Festival 2010, which started in April and culminated with a finals smackdown on July 22 and 23 at Diamond Island in Phnom Penh.

The competition divided contestants into two categories: those singing pop songs composed by Cambodians, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s; and those focusing on classical Khmer songs, which are mostly heard these days at traditional weddings.

The contest started in April in May with the selection of four candidates (two male and two female) from each province. Through provincial heats, the numbers were whittled down to 48 singers, who joined 20 Cambodian candidates living abroad for the semifinal competition in Phnom Penh from July 2 to 4.

From among these, 28 candidates were selected to take part in the finals, during which awards were given to the top five males and top five females in each of the two categories.

The first-place male in the pop song category, 31-year-old Thon Samut Sithun, said he never expected to win when he first entered the competition.

“I took part in the contest because I thought it would give me the opportunity to meet other Cambodian singers and song lovers, and help promote Khmer music,” said Thon Samut Sithun, who works as a chef in France.

He won the contest by singing Sin Si Samut’s famous song “Pruat Phnom Sampov” (“Separated from Sampov Mountain”). “I started singing when I was 12 years old and was only interested in Sin Si Samut, who was known as the Golden-Voiced Emperor of Cambodia,” he said.

Thon Samut Sithun said he enjoyed the support of his father, who, seeing his talent as a singer, bought him a cassette player and a collection of Sin Si Samut song cassettes so he could practice.

Thon Samut Sithun said he started working as a singer in Phnom Penh in 1998, at first earning US$2 a night but later doubling his salary.

“In 2003 I got my first chance to sing on Bayon TV,” he said. “It was at that point that I added ‘Samut’ to my name since I was singing the songs of Sin Si Samut.”

“By adding ‘Samut’ to my name, I don’t mean to compare myself to the Golden-Voiced Emperor,” he said. “I just regard him as my idol and like to remind people how grateful I am for his contribution to Cambodian culture and art.”

In 2004 Thon Samut Sithun moved to Paris and married Tang Srey Pich, who is also a Khmer song lover and owns a music production company in Paris called Ponlee Reachsey.

As a first-place victor in the Universal Khmer Song Festival, Thon Samut Sithun earned a winner’s certificate, a laptop computer, 6 million riels (about US$1,400) and other small gifts.

“The prizes were not important to me. The important thing was to meet fans of Cambodian music and help develop the music scene here,” he said.

He said his ambition is to eventually establish his own music production company in Cambodia.

“I plan to come back to Cambodia in 2014 with more experience and more knowledge about the music industry,” Thon Samut Sithun said.

Source: the phnom penh post

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The award ceremony was held at Java Café and Gallery on June 23, with more than 300 guests in attendance, including US Ambassador to Cambodia Carol Rodley, who distributed the awards to the winners.

The 12 awards included one first-place prize, one student prize and 10 honourable mentions.

First prize went to Doung Saree, 53, a painting teacher at the Royal University of Fine Arts and an internationally recognised artist. Her winning artwork, Woman Picking Water Lilies, is a painting in the traditional style characterised by natural colours and fine detail.

“The painting was inspired by my own memories of picking water lilies when I was a young girl,” Doung Saree said at the ceremony.

The student prize was awarded to 20-year-old Siem Reap resident Try Sophal for her photograph My Life and Dreams, which shows a young Cambodian dancer preparing for a performance.

The honourable mention prizes were awarded to Tith Kanitha, Noun Borina, Buth Chan Anochea, Hiem An Kannitha, Chhan Dina, Phin Sophorn, Tes Vanna, Khchao Touch, Ouer Sokuntevy and Two Sam Oun

According to press statement from Java Café and Gallery, the You Khin Memorial Women’s Art Prize was established as a collaboration between JavaArts and the US Embassy.

“The aim of the prize is to inspire and encourage Cambodian women in self expression, to recognise the power and importance of women in the arts and to build up their social value,” the statement said.

The award was named in honour of Cambodian impressionist painter You Khin, who passed away in 2009 and who had dedicated much of his life and art to highlighting the struggles of women.

Between the announcement for the competition at the end of March and the closing date for entries on May 23, 45 artworks from women artists in Phnom Penh, Battambang and Siem Reap were submitted.

Artwork was submitted in a variety of media, including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and installation.

The pieces were judged according to a scoring system based on technique, composition, content and materials.

Ms Rodley said in her speech at the award ceremony that Cambodians of all ages were becoming increasingly involved in expressing themselves through artistic activities.

“I believe it is this work that will allow the world to appreciate that Cambodia is not only about the wonder of Angkor Wat but also about a wide range of contemporary of arts,” she said.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

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Meas Sokhorn, who graduated in 2004 from the Royal University of Fine Arts with qualifications in decoration, came up with the idea while drinking coffee at a café in Phnom Penh to display works made with waste material.

On that afternoon, he observed dust being blown about as cars and motorbikes whizzed past. He used his hands to block the dirty plumes from entering his mouth, nose and coffee cup, but then a soiled plastic bag whirled in off the street, catching on his leg.

“It’s not a new story,” he said. “I’ve met the same situation many times already. But [objects like] this plastic bag seemed to inspire me to do something to change behaviour.”

Meas Sokhorn is concerned with the fact that rubbish is thrown arbitrarily on the sidewalks and empty areas of land. People don’t take the time to bundle their trash in bags, so vehicles and wind constantly blow the filth around the city. As such, the artist’s concept stems from how people’s actions affect those around them. In this case, how the constant presence of waste impacts the city’s residents, both physically and mentally, through the smells it creates and the threat of disease.

“That’s why I collect these pieces of rubbish to display. I want to use them as a mirror to reflect the activity of people in society,” Meas Sokhorn said.

The name of the exhibition, Trash Fix, reflects the notion that rubbish is not stagnant, but transitory, moving from place to place, just like the traffic that enables it to change locations. Meas Sokhorn’s message is simple: Wrap your garbage, put it in the bin and keep it all in one place where it can be collected easily.

Meas Sokhorn also noted that the amount of waste produced by restaurants is a worry. Speaking out against the practice of flippantly discarding napkins and uneaten food on the floor, he says it’s as though customers are sitting on a “dumpsite” while having a meal.

“People drop their waste on the floor under their table when they are eating, so it appears as if they are sitting on a pile of rubbish…. If we can abolish such behaviour, that will be good,” said Meas Sokhorn.

Having collected rubbish in the forms of plastic bottles, coconut shells, banana leaves, dresses, newspapers, aluminium cans, food wrappers and plastic bags over a period of time, Meas Sokhorn’s bounty eventually came to weigh over 600 kilograms. The artist refuses to wash the items, preferring instead to leave them as they were found to show the true reality of the pollution. He does, however, avoid using decomposable waste such as vegetables and other foods, so his sculptures don’t give off the smell he’d like the Penh’s residents to not have to encounter in the streets.

In one of his works, Meas Sokhorn displays bags upon bags of waste in a cart pulled by a bicycle, known in Cambodia as romork kang.

“When people see romork kang they think about [the amount of trash being produced]. In the exhibition, I hope that when people see rubbish in the cart, they will think about our environment,” he said.

Also included in the show is a water pipe and drain that Meas Sokhorn finds important as many people use this infrastructure to filter their waste, which leads to blockages and floods in parts of the city.

“I don’t want people to get ideas from this work and start using water pipes to dump their waste. Instead, I hope the exhibition will inspire them to change their attitudes. In the least to stop dropping rubbish everywhere,” he said.

Trash Fix opens tonight at 7pm at CCF (218 Street 184) and will be on show for three weeks.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

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None of the above.They were a group of five young Cambodians who one year ago formed their own band called Cartoon eMo with a commitment – rare in this country – to writing their own songs. Their live set at T&C was in celebration of the release of their self-titled debut album.

At the launch event on the weekend, lead guitar player Ny Noly said the band’s name was a play on the “emo” style of music and fashion that the group follows. “We are proud to use our own abilities to create new music, which we hope will help develop the arts scene in Cambodia,” he said. “We also hope young Cambodians will accept our original work.”

The album was produced by Svang Dara film production company with cooperation from Sabay technology company.

“Rock music is not popular in Cambodia nowadays, so our company is introducing this original Khmer-style rock music to the people of the country,” Meng Sok Vireak, the executive director of Svang Dara, said at the album launch.

Chi Seila, the director of Sabay, said he has been interested in Cartoon eMo since they formed a year ago.

“The formation of the band shows that our arts scene is developing, even if a little slowly,” he said, and added that his company plans to help spread the word about the band through its technology service such as websites and mobile phones.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

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Amrita performers will first bring Khmeropedies One and Two to the Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven Connecticut from June 16 to June 19, followed by four performances at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York from June 24 to June 26.

The performers in Khmeropedies are trained in Khmer classical dance and represent the next generation of Cambodian creativity. Contemporary Khmer dance is a brand new discipline that had to look abroad for its initial performance. Khmeropedies I was performed in New York in April 2007 at the Baryshnikov Art Center.

Emmanuele Phuon, the main choreographer, is a French-Cambodian who lives in Brussels. She started training with the Royal Ballet of Cambodia at age 5. In 1975 she moved to Bangkok with her mother and then to Avignon, France. She studied and graduated from the Conservatoire National de Dance in 1986. In 1987, Phuon went to New York and has performed with the Elisa Monte Dance Company and the Baryshnikov White Oak Dance Project.

“The main purpose of Khmeropedies is to share my experience as a dancer in the West, a very different technique with Cambodian classical dancers, and see if they can live together,” she told VOA Khmer.

“Khmeropedies is a play between the words Khmer and Gymnopedies, a reference to Erik Satie, a French composer and pianist in 1887, and could mean an exercise in Khmer style,” she said.

Phuon said the basic idea for the work was to take Khmer classical dance and apply it in different ways and to different themes and to push it as far as possible from its original form while keeping it recognizable.

Chey Chankethya, one of Cambodia’s best classical dancers, said Cambodia artists need to take part in festivals and other environments to develop their art.

“To me the Khmeropedies, a contemporary piece of work, is not just only about showing movement or beauty of the dance, but it reveals a new Cambodian thought,” she said. “The dance piece is able to tell the audience exactly how the traditional Cambodian dance transforms over time and how one culture acts together with others.”

Part Two of Khmeropedies is about the dialogue between an older star dancer and teacher, Sam Sathya, who is rooted in traditions, and her three young students, who are curious and want to experiment with other techniques.

The four performers in Khmeropedies are Sam Sathya, Chumvan Sodhachivy, Chey Chankethya and Phon Sopheab.

Chumvan Sodhachivy, a solo star in Khmeropedies I, began training in Cambodian classical dance in 1994. She was trained specifically in Neay Rong, the male role, folk dance and Sbek Thom, large shadow puppetry. She participated in many dance festivals and has participated in numerous workshops with international artists from India, Indonesia, the US and the World Dance Alliance.

“I think it is a great opportunity to bring the new face of Cambodian dance to US audiences who mostly have only experienced Cambodian classical dance,” she said. “It is important to share with the rest of the world the cultural transformation taking place in Cambodia.”

Source: VOA Khmer

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A collaboration between See Gallery – a forum for cultural, economical and political collaboration based in Germany – and the National Museum, the show took just two months to come to fruition, with photographers, designers and artists all represented and each participant submitting one to two works.

Jana Heilmaier, the founder and president of See Gallery, said the show’s aim is one not often seen to be tackled here in Cambodia, but stresses it is an important one to address.

“This show will open a bridge between young Cambodian artists and more established artists who can guide them and give them tips on things like how to network effectively,” Heilmaier said.

The native German, whose husband is a diplomat at the German Embassy in Phnom Penh, said another level of meaning is added to the exhibition by observing the interaction between works created by artists from the East and those created by artists from the West.

“I think it’s very important for these artists to be able to look at things from various perspectives and for them to be exposed to a new market in Europe. Plus, the show will add something exciting to each of the artist’s CVs,” Heilmaier enthused.

Among those whose artworks feature in the exhibition is well-known Cambodian photographer Lim Sokchanlina. Self-taught and extremely driven, Lim Sokchanlina is part of the small creative collective Art Rebel who hold four to five exhibitions per year in the artist-founded Sa Sa Art Gallery on Sothearos Boulevard.

In his untitled work included in Diversity in Gender and the Arts, Lim Skchanlina’s 60x90cm photograph explores issues of sexual identity through a uniquely Cambodian framework. A young man, half his face made up with gaudy cosmetics and the other half left in its natural, masculine state, gazes blankly at the camera, challenging the audience’s perspectives on gender and how it can often be ambiguous, and the struggle many individuals must go though when exploring this side of themselves.

Other creative people to keep an eye out for at the show include Leang Seckon, Pich Sopheap, Marine Ky, Em Riem, Vuth Lyno, Eric Raisina, Thomas Pierre, Ponita Reasmey Keo Norodom, Carlota Dachao-Noveira, Anastasia Krol and Ali Sanderson.

Heilmaier said that in choosing the artists to be represented, she got a helping hand from two of here closest friends in Phnom Penh – Waterlily’s creative chief extraordinaire Christine Gaultier and Fleur Buorgeois. Heilmaier added that this was just the beginning of the outpouring of support for the initiative.

Many of the Kingdom’s most influential people have had a hand in the exhibition, too. The Minister for Women’s Affairs, Dr Ing Kantha Phavi, will deliver the opening speech at the exhibition, while Australia’s ambassador to Cambodia, Margaret Adamson, will moderate a panel discussion.

Once Diversity in Gender and the Arts: What a Difference a Difference Makes wraps up at the National Museum on June 8, the works will be packed up and shipped off to Berlin for the exhibition to take up residence in the city’s See Gallery.

Tonight’s exhibition opening, which kicks off at 5pm, will include dance performances, music and an art installation by Leoung Seckon.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

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Organiser Anton Isselhardt, who will also play flute during the performance, said the Bach-Abel series will consist of four concerts a year over five years, for a total of 20 performances. The title refers to 17th century German composers Johann Christian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel, who spread their art to England by establishing the famous Bach-Abel concert series there.

Following the lead of these composers, Mr Isselhardt and the foundation have endeavoured to bring the art of western classical music to a wider Cambodian audience.

“We promote western classical music, western theatre, western philosophy, any kind of art,” he said. “It’s a world heritage. Like Angkor Wat, it’s not just for Cambodian people but also for the whole world.”

Mr Isselhardt said many Cambodians, especially those living overseas, have worked to share their art with other people around the world. “If you go to France, you can find performances like Cambodian pinpeat music, mohoury music or apsara dances in Paris. They don’t just do it for themselves but also for others,” he said.

He added that through art, people around the world can come to understand each other and learn to build a better world. “The more you know about other cultures, the more you can build bridges to other countries, to other cultures and to other people,” he said.

Friday’s concert will feature four musicians, including two Germans – Mr Isselhardt on flute and Matthias Diener on violoncello – and two South Koreans: Dahyun Kim on oboe and Hye Jin Lee on piano. They will play music by composers John Loeillet of London, William Corbett, Johann Christoph Pepusch and George Frederick Handel.

Mr Isselhardt said that although all the performers are foreigners, he hopes that the next concert will include Cambodian musicians who can show what they have learned at the western classical music workshops run by the Art Plus Foundation.

The concert will be held at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Centre (at Royal University of Phnom Penh, on Russian Boulevard) starting at 7pm. Tickets will be available at the door one hour before the concert. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted to support the Art Plus
Foundation’s music workshops.

Source: The Phnom Penh Post

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