Abstract(5) SAM Sam-Ang
“Cambodian Performing Arts Projects: International Collaboration with Minpaku”
The dark chapter of Cambodia’s history, which unfolded for three years, eight months, and twenty days (April 17, 1975-January 7, 1979) took a heavy death toll of over two millions of lives just within such a short period. Following the unspeakable human tragedy of the Killing Fields, the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime was deposed, their leaders arrested, and the atrocious iron-grip rule was brought to an end. Since then, efforts have been made to restore and revive the Cambodian performing arts which were almost completely uprooted and demolished by the regime.
There have been programs and projects created and implemented by the government, the NGOs, the academic institutions, and the Japanese government, among others, to try to restore, revive, maintain, and improve Cambodia’s tangible and intangible heritages. For the interest of this presentation, I shall examine only the Cambodian performing arts.
On various levels and capacities, I have been collaborating with the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka, Japan through my personal and professional relationship and through visiting residencies (2001-2002, 2009) for collaboration and research on Cambodian performing arts, namely, music, dance, and theater. Through such relationship and facilitation, we have collaboratively produced a book on musical instruments of Cambodia and several audiovisual performing arts on DVD format readily available for interested academic and the public at large.
This time around, 2015-2016, I have the opportunity, for the third time, to come to Minpaku for a full-year research, writing, and producing seven complete audiovisual Reamker (Ramayana) episodes of sbaek thomm, the Cambodian large-sized puppet theater.
In this presentation, I shall allude to the spirit of international effort and collaboration in general while focusing on Cambodia-Japan (Minpaku) partnership in particular. I will use specific audiovisual examples, when appropriate, to materialize my statements.
