Keo Kuntearom, Chao Socheata in Khmer Arts Ensemble's "The Lives of Giants," about a Giant who gets a magic weapon for self-protection but turns into a bully himself.
By Nancy G. Heller
Posted on Thu, Oct. 21, 2010
For The Inquirer
Dressed in slender columns of shimmering silk topped with headdresses like tiny golden pagodas, young women with backward-curving fingers and toes glide slowly across the floor, accompanied by the unearthly music of pipes, drums, and a bamboo xylophone.
It seems impossible to imagine that the same society produced both the exquisite beauty of classical Cambodian dance and the Khmer Rouge, the brutal Communist regime that slaughtered 2 million citizens, including 90 percent of its dancers, during the late 1970s.
Yet, through her Khmer Arts Ensemble, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro has found a way to honor the traditions in which she was trained, while helping fellow Cambodians heal from the ravages of recent history and introducing the rest of the world to an extraordinary art form that was very nearly destroyed.
Friday night, as the climax of its monthlong series of events celebrating aspects of traditional Cambodian culture, Bryn Mawr College will host the world premiere of Khmer Arts Ensemble's The Lives of Giants.
Like the ensemble's other programs, Lives was created by Cheam Shapiro, a dancer, choreographer, vocalist, scholar, and teacher whose life story is as remarkable as the intricate tales her performers tell through their highly stylized gestures and poses.
Born in Phnom Penh, Cheam Shapiro was part of the first generation to graduate from that city's Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. She toured with the university's dance troupe through India, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the United States, and was on its dance faculty from 1988 to 1991. Her life changed dramatically when Cheam married American novelist John Shapiro and moved to Southern California.
In 2002, she and her husband founded Khmer Arts, a nonprofit organization based in Long Beach (which reportedly has the largest Cambodian population outside Southeast Asia) and Phnom Penh.
Both branches offer regular classes and related activities, but the Phnom Penh school produces the professional dancers, musicians, and mask- and costume-makers who form the Khmer Arts Ensemble. While serving as the ensemble's artistic director, Cheam Shapiro also lectures and teaches throughout the world; her choreography has been seen at prestigious venues from New York to Hong Kong, Venice, and Amsterdam, and she has received many honors, including a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The technique employed by her dancers, who typically begin training at age 5 or 6, remains substantially the same as that used for centuries by Cambodian court dancers, and as depicted in the famous stone carvings at Angkor Wat. But Cheam Shapiro makes a point, in her pieces, of using traditional Cambodian movement to explore universally recognizable themes, often from unlikely sources. For example, Pamina Devi is a Cambodian version of Mozart's Magic Flute; the Khmer Arts Ensemble also has performed works based on Shakespeare's Othello and the biblical Song of Songs.
On the surface, at least, The Lives of Giants adheres much more closely to the ensemble's geographical and spiritual roots. Based on an episode from the Reamker (Cambodia's version of the Hindu Ramayana) and performed by 30 dancers and musicians, Lives tells the cautionary tale of a much-bullied Giant who persuades the god Shiva to give him a magic weapon for self-protection. However, once empowered, the Giant turns into a bully himself, repeating the cycle of abuse and violence that is all too common throughout human history.
In a recent telephone interview Cheam Shapiro discussed the importance, and the challenges, of balancing old and new elements in her work. "The traditionalists have issues," she said, with her explorations of Western music and themes, yet at the same time "many people prefer to see [exclusively] new ideas and new pieces." Cheam Shapiro understands and honors the former's concerns, but she's also committed to trying new things.
Thus, she describes The Lives of Giants as a classical Cambodian dance-drama with some modern touches. Her interpretation of Lives gives the dominant roles to female characters who, she notes, are not so important in the original Reamker episode. Peter Sellars, the innovative theater director who commissioned Pamina Devi, calls Cheam Shapiro a "feminist," and she agrees: "I like to bring the woman's voice into my pieces."
Dressed in slender columns of shimmering silk topped with headdresses like tiny golden pagodas, young women with backward-curving fingers and toes glide slowly across the floor, accompanied by the unearthly music of pipes, drums, and a bamboo xylophone.
It seems impossible to imagine that the same society produced both the exquisite beauty of classical Cambodian dance and the Khmer Rouge, the brutal Communist regime that slaughtered 2 million citizens, including 90 percent of its dancers, during the late 1970s.
Yet, through her Khmer Arts Ensemble, Sophiline Cheam Shapiro has found a way to honor the traditions in which she was trained, while helping fellow Cambodians heal from the ravages of recent history and introducing the rest of the world to an extraordinary art form that was very nearly destroyed.
Friday night, as the climax of its monthlong series of events celebrating aspects of traditional Cambodian culture, Bryn Mawr College will host the world premiere of Khmer Arts Ensemble's The Lives of Giants.
Like the ensemble's other programs, Lives was created by Cheam Shapiro, a dancer, choreographer, vocalist, scholar, and teacher whose life story is as remarkable as the intricate tales her performers tell through their highly stylized gestures and poses.
Born in Phnom Penh, Cheam Shapiro was part of the first generation to graduate from that city's Royal University of Fine Arts after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. She toured with the university's dance troupe through India, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the United States, and was on its dance faculty from 1988 to 1991. Her life changed dramatically when Cheam married American novelist John Shapiro and moved to Southern California.
In 2002, she and her husband founded Khmer Arts, a nonprofit organization based in Long Beach (which reportedly has the largest Cambodian population outside Southeast Asia) and Phnom Penh.
Both branches offer regular classes and related activities, but the Phnom Penh school produces the professional dancers, musicians, and mask- and costume-makers who form the Khmer Arts Ensemble. While serving as the ensemble's artistic director, Cheam Shapiro also lectures and teaches throughout the world; her choreography has been seen at prestigious venues from New York to Hong Kong, Venice, and Amsterdam, and she has received many honors, including a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The technique employed by her dancers, who typically begin training at age 5 or 6, remains substantially the same as that used for centuries by Cambodian court dancers, and as depicted in the famous stone carvings at Angkor Wat. But Cheam Shapiro makes a point, in her pieces, of using traditional Cambodian movement to explore universally recognizable themes, often from unlikely sources. For example, Pamina Devi is a Cambodian version of Mozart's Magic Flute; the Khmer Arts Ensemble also has performed works based on Shakespeare's Othello and the biblical Song of Songs.
On the surface, at least, The Lives of Giants adheres much more closely to the ensemble's geographical and spiritual roots. Based on an episode from the Reamker (Cambodia's version of the Hindu Ramayana) and performed by 30 dancers and musicians, Lives tells the cautionary tale of a much-bullied Giant who persuades the god Shiva to give him a magic weapon for self-protection. However, once empowered, the Giant turns into a bully himself, repeating the cycle of abuse and violence that is all too common throughout human history.
In a recent telephone interview Cheam Shapiro discussed the importance, and the challenges, of balancing old and new elements in her work. "The traditionalists have issues," she said, with her explorations of Western music and themes, yet at the same time "many people prefer to see [exclusively] new ideas and new pieces." Cheam Shapiro understands and honors the former's concerns, but she's also committed to trying new things.
Thus, she describes The Lives of Giants as a classical Cambodian dance-drama with some modern touches. Her interpretation of Lives gives the dominant roles to female characters who, she notes, are not so important in the original Reamker episode. Peter Sellars, the innovative theater director who commissioned Pamina Devi, calls Cheam Shapiro a "feminist," and she agrees: "I like to bring the woman's voice into my pieces."
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