Cambodian Dreams, Far From Home

via Khmer NZ News Media

By GIA KOURLAS

Published: June 25, 2010

The French-Cambodian choreographer Emmanuèle Phuon, fondly known as Manou during her time as a dancer with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, digs into her past in “Khmeropédies I & II.” She began training at 5 at the Royal Ballet of Cambodia; in her new two-part work, which opened on Thursday night at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, she applies Western ideas to traditional Cambodian dance.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
Chumvan Sodhachivy in "Khmeropédies I & II," Emmanuèle Phuon's work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Ms. Phuon explores the idea of prayer in “Khmeropédies I,” a solo for Chumvan Sodhachivy. An agile dancer who maintains a sensual dreaminess in contrast to the rigidity of her positions, she performs in front of a grainy image that, over time, appears to be the stone face of a deity. She is also a mesmerizing actress and assumes different characters to tell a story, as a program note explains, “to amuse the gods.”

Hunching her back while coughing excessively, Ms. Chumvan Sodhachivy is suddenly elderly; a sweeter voice, yet somehow insincere, transforms her into a coquette. Dialogue is not translated — Ms. Phuon relies on the language of the body. As Ms. Chumvan Sodhachivy plays with dynamics, darting across the floor with her long hair flying or holding a pose, you begin to see how the merging of Western and Cambodian dance could work — at least kinetically — within a more potent concept.

In the second part of “Khmeropédies,” the idea starts to crack. Sam Sathya, as a teacher, finds herself at odds with her students — Chey Chankethya and Phon Sopheap join Ms. Chumvan Sodhachivy — who are eager to push the boundaries of Cambodian dance. She leads her three dancers in a series of exercises; eventually Mr. Phon Sopheap breaks away to practice his signature role, the monkey.

This time Ms. Phuon uses subtitles. As the women stand, swishing their arms backward and forward with hypnotic efficiency, Mr. Phon Sopheap, literally bouncing off the floor in his effort to flip like a silky animal, says: “Look at the women. They have it so easy.”

Within this strict world, Ms. Phuon shows the struggle between generations by staging a mini-rebellion. After Ms. Sam Sathya reaches into the folds of her purple pants to answer a pink mobile phone and leaves the stage, the others are free to jazz up their Cambodian dancing with a bit of funk.

What they come up with is watered down: movement that hints at little beyond the flash of a music video or filtered hip-hop. Instead of showing us how Cambodian dance can live in a contemporary world without losing its power, as Yasuko Yokoshi did with Japanese traditional dance in her luminous “Tyler Tyler,” Ms. Phuon creates a story about such possibilities.

It’s unsatisfying: the potential, as we see, isn’t as riveting as the real thing. Ms. Sam Sathya, ravishing in her airiness — her back forms a graceful base, her fingers arch like leaves in a windstorm, and her delicate feet hold everything in place — shows how, along with natural talent and resilience, training is everything.

Performances of “Khmeropédies I & II” continue through Saturday at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street, Manhattan; (212) 868-4444, bacnyc.org.