Pok Saran was 23 and a talented young dance student at the Royal University
of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh when, on April 17, 1975, revolutionary soldiers
of the Khmer Rouge marched into the streets of Cambodia’s capital and
changed his life for ever. Along with millions of his fellow citizens, Saran
was taken to a prison camp in the Cambodian countryside and put to work in
the forests and rice fields. The interns were cruelly treated, given very
little to eat and many were taken out to be shot. Large numbers died from
disease and malnutrition.
The murderous Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, had little regard for life — “To
keep you is no gain; to kill you no loss,” he famously said — and in keeping
with his so-called Communist ideals ordered that all professional and
educated people — particularly those with royal connections — should be
eliminated. The Cambodian Royal Family had been enthusiastic patrons of the
arts and 80 per cent of performing artists died during Pol Pot’s reign of
terror.
Saran knew that at any moment he could become one of them: he lied about his
past, claiming that he was a humble amateur, but it was his skill as a flute
player that probably saved his life.
“The commander of our camp was a Buddhist and had been the head man of a
pagoda,” Saran says. “He was brainwashed by the Khmer and forced to be in
charge of the killing fields. When he came back from supervising a killing
expedition, he would ask me to play the flute to ease the stress he felt. I
think this definitely gave me some protection.” Saran never dared to dance.
“I danced only in my head,” he says.
This week he will travel to London as a choreographer for a season of
Cambodian dance drama at the Barbican. This is something of a miracle:
before 1975, heads of state from all over the world came to watch the famous
national dancers of Cambodia, but Pol Pot destroyed his country’s vibrant
culture and it has taken a quarter of a century to recover.
In 1997 Fred Frumberg quit his job as an opera director in California and
travelled to Cambodia as a UN volunteer to help to rebuild the devastated
arts scene in Phnom Penh. Three years ago he formed a production company to
put on revivals of traditional dance repertory. “Classical court dance is
performed by women,” he explains. “The male form of classical masked dance —
Lakhaon Kaol — was not considered sacred in the same way and was not
receiving so much attention, so some of the dancers came to me and asked me
to find a way they could perform too.”
Frumberg managed to get a grant from the American Embassy — only $15,000
(£7,600), but in Cambodia a dollar goes a long way. “There was nothing
documented,” he says. “So many people were dead. We had to go to the
provinces and find the elder dance masters, bring them to Phnom Penh to help
us with their memories.”
The grant money subsidised the building of the troupe and paid for costumes
and sets. Two years ago they gave their first performance and were
immediately invited to Bangkok to perform there. It caused a sensation.
A tour to the Melbourne Arts Festival followed and then the invitation to the
Barbican. The presenters in each country pay for the dancers to come because
there is no government funding. “The Government won’t even pay for
passports,” Frumberg says. “A passport costs $100 — a lot of money for a
dancer who earns $22 a month.”
Lakhoun Kaol is a dance drama based on tales from the Indian epic of Ramayana
, in which gods and monkeys battle demons and ogres. Saran is responsible
for the choreography of the giants: “The dancers do not have any extra
height,” he explains. “They must represent their superhuman power, strength
and arrogance just with their movements.”
His colleague Proeng Chhieng is the artistic director and a monkey
specialist. “When I was a small boy I loved the monkey’s crazy antics,” he
smiles. “It was all I wanted to do, so I became an expert in the role.”
Chhieng’s grandmother had been a celebrated dancer at the royal palace. “My
sister and I lived with her and she would take us to the palace to watch
while she trained the young dancers,” Chhieng says. By then the Queen had
decreed that the monkey roles should be played by men as they required
special acrobatic strengths. The boy Chhieng was entranced. “When I was
eight years old I donated myself to the palace to be trained as a classical
dancer.”
From the age of 9 he was travelling abroad to perform with the company, and
in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge marched on Phnom Penh, Chhieng was studying
new dance techniques in Korea. When he returned to his native country, he
found that his family had fled the city and soldiers were in charge. “I
stayed in Phnom Penh with other students,” he says. “We grew vegetables to
stay alive and kept our heads down.”
When the Cambodian Army came to liberate the city in early 1979, Chhieng and
his fellow students were taken by the Khmer soldiers to hide out in the
forests; by the summer he had managed to escape and trekked to Kampong Thom
province, where he had heard that there was a small community of dancers,
survivors of the killing fields. They were led by the charismatic Chhang
Phon, an elder master and respected dance teacher who was determined to
rescue the traditional repertory that had once been his country’s pride and
joy. By the mid1980s Saran, Chhieng and others had returned to Phnom Penh to
the revived Royal University of Fine Arts to form a fledgeling dance
company. There was no money for culture from a crippled national economy —
the dancers were paid in kind — but they were back in business.
Twenty years on they have built up a company of 47 and a stunning repertory
that is placing Cambodia firmly back on the international stage. The full
piece lasts eight hours but Barbican audiences will be treated to an
80-minute episode called Weyreap’s Battle, in which the monkey
king Hanuman and his forces rescue King Rama from the evil tyrant Ravena.
“It is powerful, action-packed stuff,” says Frumberg, “full of acrobatic
flair, often comic with translated narration.”
Frumberg was speaking from Greece, where he is directing the opera Nixon
in China. He is gradually weaning himself away from his role as a
fundraiser and impresario for Cambodian dance. “They’re on the international
radar,” he says. “It was all about capacity building; they can fly by
themselves now.”
Weyreap’s Battle is at the Barbican, EC2 (020-7638 8891; www.barbican.org.uk),
from Friday to Sunday
Artists who fought the system
Maya Plisetskaya Her father was killed in Stalinist purges and her
mother imprisoned, but that didn’t stop the Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina
from defying the Soviet authorities, particularly when she refused to let
them ban her sensuous performance in Carmen Suite.
Bertolt Brecht Fled Nazi Germany for the USA, only to find himself up
before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities after the Second World
War. He ridiculed his interrogators and left for Communist East Germany.
Arturo Toscanini The conductor resisted Mussolini and refused to let Il
Duce’s portrait hang in La Scala. He absconded from the Wagner festival at
Bayreuth after Hitler had come to power and eventually left for the USA in
1937.
The Plastic People of the Universe Jailed for the combined sins of
having long hair, liking the music of Frank Zappa and using an English name,
the Czech rock band became a symbol of freedom.
Yungchen Lhamo The “Tibetan Madonna” fled her native country from
Chinese repression and crossed the Himalayas barefoot. Blessed by the Dalai
Lama, she has now performed with Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel and Annie
Lennox.
