Thailand – Dance
The beauty and elegance of the Cambodian Royal Ballet has to be seen to be believed. The writer Somerset Maugham was fortunate enough to witness a performance at Angkor in the 1920s, and enthused that ‘the beauty of these dances against the dark mystery of the temple made it the most beautiful and unearthly sight imaginable. It was certainly more than worthwhile to have travelled thousands of miles for’. The dancers had an even greater impact on Auguste Rodin, who exclaimed on seeing a performance at Paris in 1906: ‘These Cambodian women have given us everything antiquity could hold. It’s impossible to see human nature reaching such perfection. There is only this and the Greeks’.
It is amazing and incomprehensible, then, that this delicate and sophisticated art form suffered particularly badly under the Khmer Rouge regime. Under the psychopathic Pol Pot–who had relatives at the Royal Ballet and spent some time their in his youth–an attempt was made to destroy the ballet completely, which almost succeeded. Instruments were smashed, costumes and books burned, whilst musicians and dancers were systematically and brutally killed.
Fortunately one or two dancers survived, as did Princess Bupphadevi, a favourite daughter of King Sihanouk, who was in exile in France. In the two decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge the Royal Ballet has been painstakingly rebuilt, and today performances can be seen at the Hotel Cambodiana and elsewhere as advertised in Phnom Penh. Classical Khmer dance or lamthon as performed by the Royal Ballet bears a striking resemblance to that of the Thai royal court, and indeed the two traditions influenced each other in turn until they have become practically a shared art form. Training takes many years, and sumptuously elaborate costumes and headdresses are worn. It’s a real spectacle that should not be missed. Cambodian masked theatre, known as khaul, is very similar to the Thai khon. Classical dances are often performed depicting incidents from the Buddha birth cycle stories, or Jataka.
Music
Cambodian music flourished in both court and village settings, some associated with specific functions, others with entertainment. In villages weddings are celebrated with kar music, communication with spirits is accompanied by arakk music, and entertainments include ayai repartee singing, chrieng chapey narrative, and yike and basakk theatres. At the court, dance, masked play, shadow play, and religious ceremonies are accompanied by the pinn peat ensemble and entertainment is provided by the mohori ensemble. Temples–urban or rural–often possess a pinn peat ensemble as well, but also a korng skor ensemble for funerals.
Traditional Cambodian music probably reached its zenith during the Angkor period. Carved on the walls of the great temples of Angkor and vicinity are the apsara (celestial dancer) figures along with musical instruments: the pinn (angular harp), korng vung (circular frame gongs), skor yol (suspended barrel drum), chhing (small cymbals), and sralai (quadruple-reed flute). These are believed to have developed into the present pinn peat ensemble used to accompany court dance, masked play, shadow play, and religious ceremonies.
In 1431, Angkor was looted by conquering Siamese armies, abandoned, and overrun by vegetation. The Cambodian king and his court musicians fled. Subsequently the capital was moved to Lovek. Once again, in 1594 Lovek was sacked by the Siamese. Little is known of this period, the most obscure in Cambodian history. This second debacle shocked and weakened the Cambodians. After this Cambodian defeat, music and its functions were deeply affected, and a new style of melancholic and emotional music is said to have emerged. The period from 1796 to 1859 was a period of renaissance for Cambodian music. King Ang Duong, the greatest of the monarchs of this period, ascended the throne in 1841 in the capital of Udong. Under his rule, Cambodian music and other art forms were revived and began to flourish again.
There are two types of traditional orchestra in Cambodia, the all male pip hat and the all female mohori. Both comprise eleven traditional musical instruments. These include stringed instruments, flutes, gongs, xylophones and three-stringed guitars. Music is sometimes accompanied by song, either improvised ballads or more usually formal court chants. At some festivals a traditional orchestra known as phleng pinpeat will give performances of royal court music. Yet another type of orchestra is the phleng khmer, which usually performs at weddings. Popular music has been strongly influenced in recent years by both Thai and Chinese pop culture.
Shadow Puppets
Like the Malay world and southern Thailand, the Cambodians have a tradition of shadow puppetry which they call nang sbaek thom, or ‘shadow plays’. Generally performed during festivals, weddings and funerals, the plays are narrated by actors concealed below the puppet screen. A light behind the screen casts images of the puppets on the screen for the audience to watch. The puppets are made of cow or buffalo hide, and can be very intricate. Siem Reap in the north-west of the country is considered by many the home of this art form.
