Cambodia’s Siem Reap reclaims its culture
Khmer resurgence restores traditions and national pride
SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA— The mask — it’s nothing short of sinister, skeletal and terrifying. A rough-hewn cudgel in hand, its wearer — bash! — smashes the stick to the ground and, as the actors on stage fall to the side, I actually recoil a little.
Just minutes later, the lights come up and bright blues, pinks and yellows replace the horror. Young men and women skip and flip across the stage, to the delight — and relief — of everyone packed in tightly on simple risers under this big top.
This is Phare, Cambodia’s answer to Cirque du Soleil, a circus in Siem Reap that uses song, dance and acrobatics to tell the stories of this formerly war-torn nation.
This city of about a quarter million people is famous for the sprawling complex of Angkor Wat, a Hindu temple built in the 12th century in the heyday of the Khmer Empire, which once ruled much of Southeast Asia. Located in the northeast of the country and home to several magnificent temples, it’s Cambodia’s biggest tourist draw. It’s also the epicentre of a Khmer resurgence that’s restoring ancient traditions and national pride.
The man in the mask in Phare’s production of Sokha, the story of one young woman’s journey from a sunny youth through the horrors of the Khmer Rouge to recovery and personal redemption, represents Cambodia’s darkest hour.
Led by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated a genocide that took the lives of up to two million people over four years in the late 1970s. Guerrilla warfare continued until 1999. Scars remain.
Intellectuals, including artists, had been singled out for the Killing Fields (simply wearing eyeglasses sometimes warranted a death sentence) and traditional Cambodian art forms have suffered ever since.
Peace doesn’t always come with prosperity, but the tourist dollars flowing through Siem Reap are helping. Based in Battambang, about a three-hour drive away, Phare’s primary performances (which are regularly sold out) nonetheless take place in Siem Reap. Its shows integrate traditional dance, and music, too — Sokha includes original songs composed and performed on instruments such as the roneat, a sort of Khmer xylophone.
Phare cultivates the visual arts, as well. The circus supports an arts school with 1,200 students and Sokha includes paintings, created live on stage, on canvas, to reflect the shifting scenes of the show.
Chhoeun Channy, a Phare graduate, shows me his work, displayed (and priced for sale) on two floors of a local boutique hotel. While each of the half-dozen paintings have an aviary theme, the links to Cambodia’s past and future are unmistakable.
“This is an amazing life for me,” Channy, long-haired and clad in linen, says emotionally. “Before, I could only be a farmer. In my life, I could only follow the cow.”
Channy grew up impoverished in a small village near Battambang. Naturally artistic, but without the resources to buy art supplies, he would sketch in the dirt in front of his home with a stick. Being presented with canvas and watercolours at Phare’s art school, which he joined as a teen, marked a seminal moment in his life.
The taste of the Khmer can now be found in Siem Reap, too. While visiting Westerners often dine on pizza and burgers at the fast-food outlets that line Pub St., other restaurants, such as the recently opened Spoons, feature Cambodian street food in upscale form. Here, I dine on coconut chicken and forest sausage (a mix of beef, pork, mung bean and mint), and learn that the restaurant, run by an NGO, partners with local hotels to train young men and women from local villages in Khmer cuisine.
Mork Mengly, the 27-year-old executive chef, explains most of his recipes come from his mother, who, for the record, isn’t impressed. “She tells me that my food, it’s not the same as hers,” he says, with a smile.
On my last day in town, I travel to Theam’s House, an atelier, studio and open-air garden, all rolled into one. An oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city, the place was founded by Lim Muy Theam, who spent time in a Khmer Rouge concentration camp before fleeing to France as a 9-year-old in1980. Classically trained in Paris, he returned to Cambodia in 1994.
Theam’s modern studio consists of his Buddha statues and lacquerware and hyperrealistic paintings, all modern and unique, drawing on Khmer traditions. Theam also trains 55 artisans to help finish the work and learn the craft.
“They find it easy to understand because it’s in their blood,” Maddy explains. “And it’s an education in history, too. They now realize that we were a great civilization. They’re now proud to be Khmer, to be Cambodian. They see that people come from all over the world to see this work.” Tim Johnson was a guest of Raffles, which didn’t review or approve this story.