Dance illuminates bullying at Bryn Mawr College

via CAAI

Published: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Khmer Arts Ensemble's "The Lives of Giants" at McPherson Auditorium, Goodhart Hall, Bryn Mawr College 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, Friday, Oct 22 at 8 p.m. Tickets: $20, general admission; $18, seniors; $10 for students; $5, children 12 and under; Free for Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore students. Info: 610-526-5210 or www.brynmawr.edu/arts

By Tara Lynn Johnson

Dance is universal and so are some topics the art form can bring to life. In a time when bullying is in the news in the U.S., a Cambodian dance troupe explores violence and the effects it can have on culture in a world premiere titled “The Lives of Giants.” The Khmer Arts Ensemble, an internationally-acclaimed classical dance and music troupe, takes the stage at Bryn Mawr College for one night only, Oct. 22.

“The Lives of Giants,” created by co-founder and artistic director Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, tells the story of Akheang Khamaso, a much-mistreated giant in Shiva’s heavenly temple who seeks a weapon to protect himself from the taunts of mischievous angels. But when Shiva grants him a magic finger that can make anyone disappear, he can’t help dishing out abuse in return.

Once Vishnu finds out about the chaos raging through heaven, he transforms himself into a beautiful dancer and seduces Akheang Khamaso, tricking the giant into turning his magic finger on himself. Then Akheang Khamaso vows to be reborn with even more power in order to continue the cycle of abuse and violence that is his fate in this life and the next.

As Akheang Khamaso’s demonic nature surges, Cheam Shapiro’s depiction of heaven devolves. Layers of elaborate traditional costuming and the formal vocabulary of the classical Cambodian dance form are stripped away to reveal the sadness and frustration of a bully and a resonant message about the tragic effects of violence on a culture.

Thirty dancers and musicians tell the tale created by Cheam Shapiro, a choreographer, dancer, vocalist and educator of classical Cambodian dance. Raised in Phnom Penh, she studied dance at the University of Fine Arts there and became a teacher in 1981. She moved to California in 1991 and studied dance ethnology at UCLA from 1997 to 1999.

According to a press release, Cheam Shapiro maintains the core of traditional Cambodian dance while adding contemporary content, such as the role of women in traditional cultures and working with contemporary composers.

Cheam Shapiro feels that Cambodians have not yet come to terms with the extraordinary cruelty and suffering of their recent history and would rather avert their eyes. In her works exploring morality and identity, giants (an archetypal figure in Cambodian dance) are a vital and complex resource for addressing the issues that resonate within her life and culture.

Like many of her fellow Cambodians, Cheam Shapiro loves folklore and mythology.

“Myths and stories have the capacity to draw us into another world that allows us to reflect on our own,” she said.

To her, dance is a way to transcend poverty, hopelessness and loss. She learned to dance in the aftermath of genocide and amid civil war. As an adult, she’s used dance as a way to understand the root causes of failed societies and to explore alternative paths.

In the grander scheme of things, dance (and art in general) is important to the world because it helps people transcend the mundane and reflect on their world from different points of view, she said.

In Cambodia, there are many forms of dance — it can be for celebration, courtship, ritual or stage performance, she said. Cheam Shapiro works in classical dance, which has been associated with spirituality and authority. In recent times, it has served as a symbol of cultural rebirth.

“I hope through my work, dance is becoming a way for the culture to explore the future while keeping a close eye on its past,” she said.

Cheam Shapiro hopes that audiences will be “seduced by the fantastic story, movements, sets and costumes, which inhabit a highly stylized and unfamiliar depiction of heaven, and, at the same time, become more acutely aware of the very real issues the story explores — specifically self-perpetuating cycles of bullying, violence and abuse that exacerbate human suffering and destroy the sublime.”

She hopes dance will bring people together and make them think. She knows the power it can have, even in the most unlikely circumstances.

When Cheam Shapiro was a teenager, she performed with a troupe of students in a remote Cambodian province during a civil war. The morning after one performance, a noodle seller in the market told them that Khmer Rouge guerillas had come to the performance armed with rocket launchers intending to kill them. The noodle seller told them that the guerillas liked the dancing so much they stayed until the end, clapped and went back to their jungle base.

“It’s not every day that art will save your life,” she said, “but if dance can bring out the humanity in the most hardened warriors, it can do almost anything.”