The Times Of India
21 Dec 2008,
CHENNAI: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro (41) vividly remembers the day her father died of starvation under the Khmer Rouge regime. "My father was very hungry. He asked my mother for some food but before she could finish cooking, he passed away," Shapiro recalls.
She was only eight when she saw two Khmer Rouge men wrap the frail body of her father in a sheet and carry him away at night. "It was the saddest moment of my life," she says.
The Khmer Rouge party, under its leader Pol Pot, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after which it was forced out of power by the invading Vietnamese Army. The regime was infamous for its killing fields' where it forced Cambodian people to work in collective agrarian farms.
One of the foremost classical dancers of Cambodia, Shapiro is visiting Chennai for the first time to take part in the annual Natya Kala Conference that takes place during the Margazhi festival. She is here to demonstrate the role of the epic Ramayana' (or Reamker' as its known in Cambodia) in performing arts.
It is this love for art that helped Shapiro regain her identity and gave her a sense of purpose after her experiences as a child survivor of the regime. "Since the officials banned any culture other than theirs, I used to sing the Khmer Rouge songs, though I did not know the meaning. I was hungry all the time but I needed art to get me through," she adds.
And it was a tough journey. "We were forced to leave our homes in the city. We had to settle where they told us to and start working on the fields," says Shapiro, who also lost her two brothers and grandmother. "Everyone, including children, worked from dawn to dusk. As a child, I was asked to collect cow dung and plants to make fertilizers," she says, adding that they were served only two meals a day.
Shapiro and the other children had no chance to go to school. Instead, she was separated from her mother and six sisters to be sent to a youth organisation where they had to work under the hardest circumstances.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, 12-year-old Shapiro was reunited with her family and began rebuilding her life. She started learning Cambodia's classical dance form Robam Boran at the age of 14 when she enrolled in the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in 1981 at Phnom Penh. "My uncle, then minister of cultural affairs, suggested I learn dance," she says.
Shapiro was inspired by her teachers who were rebuilding Cambodian culture. It is estimated that 90% artistes had died during the regime. "Dance gave me a sense of purpose, pride and brought beauty and hope back into my life," she says. "And it helped me connect with my heritage and who I am," she adds.
Though Shapiro gradually brought her life back to normalcy she married John Shapiro in 1991 and is now a mother of twin sons she confesses she was tormented by the experience for years. "My ordeal lasted three years, eight months and 20 days but the nightmares continued. I dreamt that I was still working in a field, hungry and shivering or a soldier was chasing and shooting me. I would wake up screaming," she says.
Shapiro is still trying to understand what she faced as a child, and that often takes shape in her works. "I am very angry that none of the leaders ever took responsibility for their actions. I try to convey through my works what Khmer Rouge meant to me, because it is a past that no Cambodian can erase," she says. Now, with the Khmer Arts Academy that she and her husband oversee, she hopes to preserve the dance form. "I love my country and to continue our rich legacy is my calling," Shapiro adds.
21 Dec 2008,
CHENNAI: Sophiline Cheam Shapiro (41) vividly remembers the day her father died of starvation under the Khmer Rouge regime. "My father was very hungry. He asked my mother for some food but before she could finish cooking, he passed away," Shapiro recalls.
She was only eight when she saw two Khmer Rouge men wrap the frail body of her father in a sheet and carry him away at night. "It was the saddest moment of my life," she says.
The Khmer Rouge party, under its leader Pol Pot, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 after which it was forced out of power by the invading Vietnamese Army. The regime was infamous for its killing fields' where it forced Cambodian people to work in collective agrarian farms.
One of the foremost classical dancers of Cambodia, Shapiro is visiting Chennai for the first time to take part in the annual Natya Kala Conference that takes place during the Margazhi festival. She is here to demonstrate the role of the epic Ramayana' (or Reamker' as its known in Cambodia) in performing arts.
It is this love for art that helped Shapiro regain her identity and gave her a sense of purpose after her experiences as a child survivor of the regime. "Since the officials banned any culture other than theirs, I used to sing the Khmer Rouge songs, though I did not know the meaning. I was hungry all the time but I needed art to get me through," she adds.
And it was a tough journey. "We were forced to leave our homes in the city. We had to settle where they told us to and start working on the fields," says Shapiro, who also lost her two brothers and grandmother. "Everyone, including children, worked from dawn to dusk. As a child, I was asked to collect cow dung and plants to make fertilizers," she says, adding that they were served only two meals a day.
Shapiro and the other children had no chance to go to school. Instead, she was separated from her mother and six sisters to be sent to a youth organisation where they had to work under the hardest circumstances.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, 12-year-old Shapiro was reunited with her family and began rebuilding her life. She started learning Cambodia's classical dance form Robam Boran at the age of 14 when she enrolled in the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in 1981 at Phnom Penh. "My uncle, then minister of cultural affairs, suggested I learn dance," she says.
Shapiro was inspired by her teachers who were rebuilding Cambodian culture. It is estimated that 90% artistes had died during the regime. "Dance gave me a sense of purpose, pride and brought beauty and hope back into my life," she says. "And it helped me connect with my heritage and who I am," she adds.
Though Shapiro gradually brought her life back to normalcy she married John Shapiro in 1991 and is now a mother of twin sons she confesses she was tormented by the experience for years. "My ordeal lasted three years, eight months and 20 days but the nightmares continued. I dreamt that I was still working in a field, hungry and shivering or a soldier was chasing and shooting me. I would wake up screaming," she says.
Shapiro is still trying to understand what she faced as a child, and that often takes shape in her works. "I am very angry that none of the leaders ever took responsibility for their actions. I try to convey through my works what Khmer Rouge meant to me, because it is a past that no Cambodian can erase," she says. Now, with the Khmer Arts Academy that she and her husband oversee, she hopes to preserve the dance form. "I love my country and to continue our rich legacy is my calling," Shapiro adds.
