NEW YORK/PHNOM PENH - Barefoot, Noun Sovitou opened the door of a
large apartment building in Manhattan’s Little Italy, on the edge of
this city’s bustling China Town. New York City, the 24-year-old dancer
from Kandal province said, is very different from home.
“It’s busy, and a bit chaotic, and everything’s very big and modern,”
Sovitou said last week, as he passed the shiny front desk to enter the
elevator leading to a spacious two bedroom apartment, which he was
sharing with four more artists during the Season of Cambodia festival.
Organized by Cambodia Living Arts to showcase the country’s cultural
heritage at major venues in New York, the Season of Cambodia festival
began at the start of April. The two-month-long festival for the first
time brought 125 Cambodian artists to New York, including Chapei
musician Kong Nay, visual artist Sopheap Pich and artist Leng Seckon.
Photo exhibitions, rattan art, Cambodian documentaries, shadow puppet
plays and dance performances by Amrita Performing Arts were showcased as
well as the Royal Ballet. The festival has been acclaimed in U.S.
media, which highlighted Sovitou and his colleagues at Amrita Performing
Arts, describing their performances as “breathtaking.”
As one of Sovitou’s roommates slurped noodle soup for breakfast, the
dancer, a specialist in the monkey role in the classical male dance of
Lakhaon Kaol, talked about his experiences over the past few weeks.
“There’s such a routine here. On the weekdays, the streets are busy
and everybody seems stressed, and there are just so many people,” he
said.
A major change comes with Friday evening, Sovitou said, as people are
more relaxed, walk slower, and flock the parks with their friends to
enjoy the spring weather.
Last month, Sovitou performed in the contemporary “Khmeropedies III”
by choreographer Emmanuele Phuon and Peter Chin’s “Olden New Golden
Blue,” both productions of Amrita Performing Arts. But he has also found
some time in recent weeks to explore the city with fellow Cambodian
dancers and artists.
Wrapped in warm jackets, thick scarves and beanies, they have crossed
the Brooklyn Bridge, taken a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and
stood in the middle of Times Square, amazed by the bright and ubiquitous
advertisements.
“It’s not that hard to get around because we always got a map, or we
ask people for the way. Usually they are very friendly. If we do get
lost, we just see it as a detour,” Sovitou said.
Coming from a family of rice farmers with four children in Kandal
province’s Kien Svay district, Sovitou didn’t always have the
self-confidence he showed in New York.
“Growing up, there was little money and a lot of constraint,” he
said, recalling how he was sent to live with his grandmother in Phnom
Penh at a young age.
To help support their living, after school Sovitou would balance a
big basket on his head filled with his grandmother’s cakes and walk the
city’s dusty roads to sell them. He worked hard and studied, but never
thought that he’d be able to better his life—or get the chance to travel
abroad, to stand on the world’s biggest stages and bow to the applause
of hundreds of people.
“Before I moved to Phnom Penh, I didn’t know anything about the arts.
I didn’t know what it was, or how people could make a living through
it,” he said.
It was his uncle, a dancer and musician, who got him interested, and
in the little spare time they both had, they studied dance together,
until Sovitou was accepted at the Secondary School of Fine Arts in 2000.
From then on, his confidence grew, and he realized that dance held many opportunities.
In 2009, he had to get his first passport to perform in Taiwan. “I
was on this plane, and I was so excited, but I calmed myself down,” he
said. After visiting Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and
Germany to dance, taking a plane to showcase Cambodian culture abroad
has become a routine that he sees as a service to his country.
“The older I got, the more I realized how important my work is. Just
like the military protects our country’s borders, artists protect our
culture,” Sovitou said.
Traveling abroad also gave him the chance to experience other cultures, which has helped him progress as an artist.
“I dance traditional Khmer monkey dance, but a lot of it is
contemporary, and by watching artists from other countries, I can learn
from them,” he said.
In New York, however, people were eager to learn from Sovitou.
The Royal Ballet and other dancers held workshops around New York,
among them the Mark Morris Dance Group, where Sovitou and eight others
taught a Khmeropedies III workshop. Usually, students at Mark Morris
practice ballet or contemporary Western dances in a translucent tower in
Brooklyn. But last week, they had to adopt the movements of monkeys.
As an introduction to the Khmer monkey dance, Sovitou ran through the
studio on all fours, stopped and rested his straight upper body on his
legs before wildly scratching his head. The about 25 Americans who had
joined the workshop started to giggle. Undeterred, Sovitou continued,
and it soon became clear that even if the motions looked haphazard, the
dance was structured and coordinated.
Over the following two hours, Sovitou fought against inflexible
fingers and awry backs, and clearly enjoyed his role as teacher and the
interest the students from all age groups showed.
“The workshops are fun, and I think people really enjoy them, but of
course in the little time we have, they can only learn basics,” he said.
The work is rewarding for Sovitou, but even more so for the intrigued
questions of New Yorkers who had paid up to about $40 to see dance
performances at the Guggenheim Museum and the Abrons Arts Center.
“During the receptions, I met many Americans. They all came to say
hello and ask so many questions. Some ask how hard it is to train,
because it requires so much energy, and they ask personal questions,
about my experience and background, or how hard it is to switch from
traditional Khmer dance to contemporary,” Sovitou said, adding that the
interest made him feel proud and appreciated as an artist.
The dancers and singers performing on streets, subways and in parks,
the sights and the cities’ massive buildings and the mix of cultures and
languages were inspiring, he said, and just days before leaving late
last week, he made up his mind about his future.
“I want to find a school to study dance in New York,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Mech Dara)
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