The Royal Ballet of Cambodia

Description

Between the 1700 mythical sculptural Apsaras living in the architectural kingdom of Angkor and the present female dancers of the Royal Ballet from Cambodia, the border is so thin that the stone seems to have moved into flesh century after century to make the divine grace and the delicate and delicious sensuality of the sacred dancers alive. Though, the Royal Ballet has fighted against forgetting, civil wars (The Pol Pot period) and invasions to rise from ones ashes in the 50s-60s with the creation of a Royal Fine Arts University in Phnom Penh and with the considerable impulse blown by Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, both dancing star and director of the Royal Ballet. As a reward of many years of efforts and fight for freedom of art, the Royal Ballet has just been proclamed and recognized by the Unesco as belonging to the Immaterial Patrimony of Humanity. The Royal Ballet will present on its October/November 2004 tour a creation on the fabulous myth of the love story between the divine Monorea, half-bird, half-women, and Prince Preah Sothun. In the legend of Monorea (quite different from the Ramayana) the initation is also revelation of beauty, both for the heroe and for the audience. The marvellous is emphasized by the music of the Pin Peat Orchestra (made of glimmering gongs and drums and of a oboe) and the songs of the choir, by the perfection of the gesture, the refinement of the posture and the precious details of each golden costume which has been directly sewed on the <b>...</b>

Keywords

dance, cambodia, music, ballet, royal, tradition, Apsaras, Angkor, Kossamak, sacred

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