FESTIVAL DANCERS

NATIONAL/ETHNIC IDENTITY: Cambodian
MASTER DANCER/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Charya Burt
First Appearance in SF EDF: 1997
Email: robandcharyab@earthlink.net

Like many Asian dance forms, Cambodian classical dance was established as a bridge between the heavenly gods and human kings. Believed to have been born in the ancient Hindu temples of Angkor, the dance was a form of ritual prayer. It was embraced in the royal courts and performed as an appeal to the heavens for protection during crisis such as, floods, droughts, famines, diseases and wars. The dance was a conduit in which the prayers of kings were answered; the dance affirmed the connection between heaven and earth.

Dance has always been important in Cambodian society because it was used to inspire and promote the intrinsic morals and ethics of the culture. The dance is a stylized expression of the mythology, and spiritual and aesthetic values of the Cambodian people. Looking at the elegant, ethereal beauty of the form, one would never guess the fearful history that it encountered. Cambodian classical dance nearly became extinct during the Khmer Rouge holding during the mid-1970s, as over 80 percent of traditional artists perished. The few surviving artists who had the courage to reveal themselves sought each other out to form troupes for the purpose of reviving the dance tradition. By 1981, with the support of the new government, the distinguished Royal University of Fine Arts was reopened in Phnom Penh.

Charya Burt immigrated to the United States in 1993, and a year later she established a group of young Cambodian dancers at the Cambodian Community Center, in Santa Rosa.