Glenys Quick
Thirty members of a Cambodian dance group visited Manoora on the weekend as house guests of Deirdre and John McInerney.
A garden lunch was arranged for the visitors to relax and meet the Manoora community before their performance at St Michael’s Hall, Clare, on Saturday night.
The group arrived in Australia in March from the village of Tahen in northeast Cambodia which has encountered many adversities.
They are touring Australia performing “Dance Together for Peace” using the mystical language of dance to tell the story of their culture, traditions, life experiences and challenges.
Aged from 14 to 22-years, most are high school students while a few attend university, travelling up to 20km by bicycle every day to attend school.
Accompanying the group was tour organiser Sacha Goldman SJ and Bishop Kike Figaredo SJ who is very well known in various parts of the world for his humanitarian work, particularly in Spain where he has just received a distinguished award (while on tour) presented to his mother in his absence by Prince Phillip of Spain.
The dancers have previously performed for the Queen of Spain when she visited Cambodia in 2004, and are now planning a five-week tour of that country in October.
The dancers were a happy and friendly group with plenty of enthusiasm and are willing to interact experience in new environments and activities and share their country’s culture.
The toupe performed in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, and will wind up their 2008 Australian tour with two more performances in Melbourne this week before returning home.
The Kroma head dress, which is a symbol for Cambodia, has multiple roles such as a towel, in the Temples for prayer, carrying goods to and from market, protection when working in the rice fields, and a shirt to name a few.
A garden lunch was arranged for the visitors to relax and meet the Manoora community before their performance at St Michael’s Hall, Clare, on Saturday night.
The group arrived in Australia in March from the village of Tahen in northeast Cambodia which has encountered many adversities.
They are touring Australia performing “Dance Together for Peace” using the mystical language of dance to tell the story of their culture, traditions, life experiences and challenges.
Aged from 14 to 22-years, most are high school students while a few attend university, travelling up to 20km by bicycle every day to attend school.
Accompanying the group was tour organiser Sacha Goldman SJ and Bishop Kike Figaredo SJ who is very well known in various parts of the world for his humanitarian work, particularly in Spain where he has just received a distinguished award (while on tour) presented to his mother in his absence by Prince Phillip of Spain.
The dancers have previously performed for the Queen of Spain when she visited Cambodia in 2004, and are now planning a five-week tour of that country in October.
The dancers were a happy and friendly group with plenty of enthusiasm and are willing to interact experience in new environments and activities and share their country’s culture.
The toupe performed in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, and will wind up their 2008 Australian tour with two more performances in Melbourne this week before returning home.
The Kroma head dress, which is a symbol for Cambodia, has multiple roles such as a towel, in the Temples for prayer, carrying goods to and from market, protection when working in the rice fields, and a shirt to name a few.
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