Creator
Chey Chankethya
Cambodian dancer and choreographer trained in classical dance, the first artistic director of Amrita Performing Arts.
Chey Chankethya, known as Kethya, is a Cambodian dancer and choreographer who works in both classical and contemporary dance.[1] She was the first artistic director of Amrita Performing Arts.[2]
Early life and training
Chey Chankethya was born in Phnom Penh.[3] She started learning Cambodian classical dance as a young child, dancing the female role. The Mekong Cultural Hub and Georgetown University give her age as five; a 2009 performers' page for Khmeropédies II gives six.[1][3][4] At nine she toured Europe, and she later performed with the Cambodia Royal Ballet Troupe in Europe and Asia.[3]
She finished dance school in 2000 and earned a bachelor's degree from the Royal University of Fine Arts in 2005.[4][5] She also holds a bachelor's degree in English from the Royal University of Phnom Penh.[3]
Classical and contemporary work
Her early choreography includes Dilemma (2002), Falling in Love (2003), Golden Deer (2004), Preah Khan Reach (2005) and Water and Thunder (2006).[5] She performed for the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts at events such as Millennium 2000 and the 2006 Angkor Wat Exposition.[5] She taught classical dance at the Secondary School of Fine Arts and led Trey Visay (Compass), a group of nine young dancers exploring contemporary dance.[5][4]
The Southeast Asian dance project Realizing Rama was her first meeting with contemporary dance.[3] In 2006 she held a three-month fellowship in choreography and arts management at the University of California, Los Angeles.[5][3] She danced in Emmanuèle Phuon's Khmeropédies, which Amrita took to the United States in 2010.[6] She has also been a featured dancer in works by Peter Chin and Arco Renz. Renz's CRACK won the ZKB Patronage Prize in Zurich in 2012.[1]
In 2009 she created Teav for the Dansez Roam! program at Chenla Theater in Phnom Penh. The piece follows a girl torn between traditional duties and modern life, with seven dancers and video projections.[7] She told The Cambodia Daily: "Please don't try to only see the movements, go beyond the movements."[7]
Graduate study and Amrita
Grants from the Asian Cultural Council supported her at the American Dance Festival in 2009 and in a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in dance at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 2011 to 2013.[8] She studied there as a Fulbright scholar and received the MFA in 2014.[1][3] She won the Mo Ostin Performing Arts Award in 2013.[1]
Amrita Performing Arts named her its first artistic director in August 2014.[2] She held the post until 2018.[1] From 2017 to 2019 she was a fellow of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University.[1][3] She now teaches at the Royal University of Fine Arts.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Mekong Cultural Hub, Chey Chankethya (undated)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Japan Foundation, Extending the Frontiers of Cambodian Performing Arts through Contemporary Dance (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Georgetown University Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, Chankethya "Kethya" Chey (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Khmeropédies II, info (2009 production page on jiras.se, undated)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Ausdance, Chey Chankethya (undated)
- ↑ Voice of America Khmer, In Khmeropédies, an exercise of Cambodian dance style (June 9, 2010)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Cambodia Daily, Tradition and the contemporary fuse in new Cambodian dance (October 14, 2009)
- ↑ Asian Cultural Council, Chey Chankethya (undated)