East meets West

via Khmer NZ News Media

Sunday, June 13, 2010

(Source: New Haven Register)By Donna Doherty, New Haven Register, Conn.

Jun. 13--NEW HAVEN -- When Fred Frumberg went to Cambodia in 1997 as a UNESCO consultant, it was to offer his experience in theater and opera to aid in the revival and preservation of Cambodian traditional and contemporary performing arts.

It was supposed to be a one-year assignment. But, as he puts it, "It's one of those stories -- I never left."

His temporary stint stretched into founding Amrita Performing Arts in 2003, which will be performing one of its most successful collaborations, the world premiere of Emmanuele Phuon's dance "Khmeropedies I & II," starting Wednesday for five performances at the Iseman Theater as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

The Brussels-based French choreographer's work is the epitome of what artistic administrators such as Frumberg and artists like Phuon have been working to do in the war-ravaged country: blend the classic Khmer court dance technique with contemporary Western movement.

"This is one of our first efforts in our ongoing mission to work with Cambodian artists to come up with a contemporary vocabulary of their own ..., " said Frumberg by phone from the capital city of Phnom Phen, where he has lived since 1997.

"Emmanuele was very cautious because of her classic Cambodian technique, not to superimpose those, but give Cambodians a chance to free themselves up. It gives them a chance to step out of their box."

That box to which Frumberg refers is the distinct movements anyone who has seen some Asian dance may recognize.

"Elbows rigid and fingers extended. They start at age 6, and have to train their muscles to make these moves. They're extremely rigid, and the masters enforce that ...," he said.

What audiences in New Haven will see for the first time is a melding of the first work, which Phuon created for a solo dancer with a work for her quartet of Khmer dancers, the II of the title.

Phuon developed II with Frumberg after they were brought together in 2008 by The Howard Gilman Foundation at Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project in Florida, where Phuon was dancing. What started as a workshop funded by the Asian Cultural Council, turned into a full piece. With additional ACC funding, Phuon went to Cambodia to work with Amrita, where the quartet work premiered in March 2009.

The name "Khmeropedies" comes from the words "Khmer" and "Gymnopedies," a reference to the composer Satie -- what Frumberg said is "about manipulating and changing a classical vocabulary into a new style, but still with recognizable elements of traditional Khmer."

The hour-long work has elements that have never been done together in one evening.

From here, it will be performed at New York's Baryshnikov Dance Center.

The quartet piece explores some of the "issues in the handing down of traditional elders to younger masters and the conflict they find in trying to find a new vocabulary and keep their roots," described Frumberg.

Phuon has the perfect resume for the task: Trained in classical Cambodian dance from childhood, she went on to study in Bangkok, France, Montreal and New York. In addition to performing and working with White Oak Project, she has also worked with Elisa Monte Dance Company, Martha Clarke, Joachim Schloemer, Meg Stuart and Yvonne Rainer, among others.

Amrita is based in Phnom Phen, but the hope is "that some of the dancers will move out to other parts of the country and train in the provinces," said Frumberg.

When Frumberg first arrived in Cambodia, he was a little nervous about how he would be received. After all, to many Cambodians, the United States was just another in a long line of warring factions that had come in and bombed the country, making refugees out of millions of its citizens.

What he found were a people anxious for some semblance of normalcy, which is why he's still there.

"Cambodians in general are very hospitable people," he said. "They want to move on, to get over their tragic past, and whatever it takes to make that happen, they embrace it, especially in the performing arts. They're excited when Western people come here and want to work here."

He added that, "Their only issue was to make sure I wasn't here for some glorified project, because there are a lot of people who come here, do the project, then move on. That's all they look for -- sustainability and continuity. Once you do that, you are part of the family. ... This is my life."