Cambodia's art of survival

Kate Hodal - guardian.co.uk 28 Mar 2012

Dancers from the Children of Bassac troupe rehearse the krama dance. Photograph: Kate Hodal for the Guardian

Down a dusty road littered with motorbikes and tuk-tuks, past the charred red monument to independence and through a leafy courtyard populated by stray dogs, there stands a derelict-looking, 1960s cinderblock school in Phnom Penh where, on weekends, the atonal sounds of Khmer opera waft out of its shuttered windows.

In this ad-hoc dance studio, 15 pairs of feet are pointing delicately upwards, in geometric contrast to the checkered tiles on the floor. As the partners twirl side by side, their fingers bent backwards, shy smiles on their young faces, repeated patterns emerge in their footsteps. "Cambodian folk dance is a visual form of storytelling, about religion, nature, weddings and funerals," whispers Neang Visal, 21, a dancer who is looking on. "This dance, the krama dance, is about farming."

The peerless Ms Ros Serei Sothea

It is hard to imagine a paean to agriculture that would have the same clout in the west today. But in a nation that lost 90% of its artists, musicians, dancers and intellectuals to the brutal Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-79, remembering the past is a vital aspect of safeguarding the future. Now that a UN-backed war crimes tribunal is investigating past atrocities, studios such as this one – part of the American not-for-profit Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) organisation – as well as government-run art and music courses, international funding and determined local artists, are helping Cambodians to embrace their cultural heritage once again.

Long known for its artistic traditions – most famously demonstrated by the temples of Angkor Wat – this nation of 14.8 million was once home to a vibrant contemporary art and music scene that saw psychedelic rock groups, led by Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea, take south-east Asia by storm.

ទឹកអូរយ៉ាដាវ - "Water of Oyadav" - Ros SereySothea

But when the Khmer Rouge took power – with their slogan "To keep you is no gain; to lose you is no loss" – many artists were a direct target of the new order that killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians within four years. Twenty years of economic hardship followed, preventingCambodia from regenerating itself artistically. Now the nation's cultural future depends on organisations such as the CLA, which was founded by a Khmer Rouge survivor. It teaches classical Cambodian dance and music to some 300 students, aged five to 30, relying on "masters" – those few dancers and musicians who survived the Khmer Rouge – to instruct students in a circular education programme where students become teachers once they have learned their trade.

Most artists earn just $50 (£31) a month, so it is unsurprising that many would-be musicians and dancers look for more lucrative trades. Yet Khmer artists must pursue their art, says Long Oun, 48, a roneet (xylophone) teacher who doubles as a musician for the ministry of culture and fine arts and regularly performs for the king in royal ensembles for less than $2 a day. "Cambodia is a developing country, so we focus on healthcare and education, but we need to cultivate the arts sector, and the government has a lot to do," he says. "But as individuals we also need to work hard to make a viable future for ourselves."

That, however, requires a capable government, says an insider with close ties to the ministry, who requests anonymity. "The reality is that the ministry of culture and fine arts is one of the poorest in Cambodia and has very limited power. They focus on keeping Cambodian arts alive, but there's simply not enough money to do that."

Consequently, much of Cambodia's artistic regeneration is left to NGOs and large international funders, he says, which "inherently puts a neocolonialist edge on the art that's created. But if you gave artists a living salary, then you wouldn't have to cater to what the west wants to see."

Contemporary performing arts group Amrita recently faced a similar dilemma after funding cuts from their main donor, the Rockefeller Foundation, says project coordinator Kang Rithisal. "We had to rescale: instead of having lots of different projects in both contemporary and traditional arts, we decided to stick to what we were really good at – the contemporary," he says.

Amrita's shows focus on modern-day issues: in Breaking the Silence, Khmer Rouge victims are forced to face the soldiers who killed their families. The play toured Cambodia to rave reviews and is now heading to Rwanda, another victim of genocide.

But, like many contemporary art groups, Amrita faces a "cultural barrier" in getting Cambodians interested in an essentially very new art form. "People come to see us and they wonder what we're doing, but the more they see it, the more they'll get used to it," Rithisal says, admitting that money is an issue. "Cambodians say they like going to performances, but they're not willing to pay the money to sustain a performance or dancer's salary."

That's why some organisations are now targeting the Cambodian middle-class to create a sustainable, local culture scene that transcends those "neocolonialist" tendencies. At Romeet Gallery, on Street 218, Kate O'Hara exhibits contemporary work from up-and-coming Khmer artists from Phare Ponleu Selpak, an NGO in Battambang in the north-west of the country. Here, huge black-and-white watercolour portraits of Khmer Rouge prisoners hang next to moody, Rothko-like abstracts. "Our buyers are definitely international right now – some are visitors to Phnom Penh, others are working here on the UN [war crimes tribunal] case," she says. "But we're trying to encourage local buyers by capturing the middle-class, fashion-week market, showing them that art is worth investing in."

On the international art scene, at least, Cambodia is becoming increasingly popular. From April to May next year, New York City will host the first-ever Season of Cambodia, which will see 200 Khmer artists perform across an interdisciplinary platform. The date already has culture hawks talking. "There's a buzz about what's going on here," says contemporary art-buyer and director Andrew Fitzgerald of the Toronto-based pop-up gallery East. "With the Season of Cambodia show coming up, we want to include more peripheral countries in south-east Asia in our gallery. What's interesting about Cambodia particularly are these common themes of self-identity and memory."

Bands such as Dengue Fever, with their Khmer-surf rock influences, andKrom Monster, which mixes traditional Khmer music in an electronic format, have helped to create a new sense of Cambodian identity and memory. But not everyone is ready to deal with such themes, it seems, particularly the government, which some say could strike against artist or gallery at any time. "This fear of being shut down at random, of threats against artists – one was recently told he'd have his hands cut off – terrifies me," says one gallery owner, requesting anonymity. "People here just disappear. It's not about the law, it's about what goes unsaid. That's why self-censorship is so rampant."

Photographer Lim Sokchanlina, who co-founded the conceptual art space Sa Sa Bassac to explore themes such as sexual identity, social justice and urban development, says the only way around that is by being sneaky. In his series My Motorbike and Me, he poses on a motorbike as an illegal country doctor, selling bogus medicine; as a policeman, asleep on the job. "There's a saying in Cambodia, 'Flow with the river'," he says. "You can say what you want, but you have to be clever about it – and for me that means being funny."

However hard things may be now, they are a welcome break from the past, says Ros Veasna, 63, a classical Khmer singer who trained withSinn Sisamouth before the Khmer Rouge marched to power in 1975. "I could have done any other work when I left the work camp," she says. "But it was, and still is, only singing that makes me happy."