Creator
Mann Kosal
Shadow puppet master who founded the Sovanna Phum Art Association in Phnom Penh and carved its Sbek Thom puppets.
Mann Kosal is a Cambodian shadow puppet master and performer, and the founder of the Sovanna Phum Art Association in Phnom Penh.[1][2] He carved the large leather puppets of Sbek Thom himself and ran the association's theater for 26 years, until it closed in 2020.[2][3]
Early life and training
His home town is in Takeo province.[2] In his own account to The Phnom Penh Post, he graduated in opera singing from the Secondary School of Fine Arts. He then took a job in the government's art department, where the carved leather of the Sbek Touch and Sbek Thom theaters drew him in.[2][3] By the 2005 account of The American Prospect, he studied at the Royal University of Fine Arts and was a National Theater performer when, in a back room, he came upon a shadow puppet that no one was using.[4] He taught himself to make the puppets: curing and tanning the hide, drawing the figure, then punching and cutting out its shape.[4] He learned the other parts of the art as well, from handling the puppets behind the lit screen to the songs and spoken narration.[3]
Sovanna Phum
In 1993 Delphine Kassem, a French woman who had taught at the Royal University of Fine Arts, opened Cafe De Art, a small cafe with Khmer performances in the evening. Mann Kosal was one of its performers.[2][4] In 1994 the two turned it into the Sovanna Phum Art Association.[2][1] Its first home was on Street 360, with masked dance, shadow theater, classical dance, circus, spoken drama, Bassac theater and Yike.[2]
In 2005 The American Prospect described him as the troupe's artistic director and head puppet maker, who also drummed, sang and worked the puppets on stage. The troupe's new works joined traditional forms to present-day stories; one, Iron Bamboo, showed a shackled prisoner like those photographed at Tuol Sleng.[4] He also performed in Lakhon Khol, the masked dance theater.[2] The Independent wrote in 2017 that he broke with tradition by including women among his performers.[1]
Kassem left Cambodia in the mid-2000s. Rising rent, small audiences and a lack of grants made the later years hard; in 2016 he came close to closing the theater, and the team behind the Bonn Phum festival launched a Kickstarter campaign and ran puppet-carving workshops to keep it open.[2][1]
Closure in 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic emptied the theater, whose audience was mostly foreign. In May 2020 the Sovanna Phum Theatre closed and its puppets and equipment went into the care of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.[2][3] The ministry took over the troupe under the same name and made Mann Kosal a technical adviser.[3] By late June the association was performing again at the Secondary School of Fine Arts.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Independent, Meet the sisters keeping Cambodia's dying art of shadow puppetry alive (November 10, 2017)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 The Phnom Penh Post, Curtains back up as Khmer art master eager to inspire youth (June 28, 2020)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Gulf Today (Reuters), Coronavirus brings the curtain down on Cambodia's shadow puppet artists (May 16, 2020)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The American Prospect, Noy Thrupkaew, Life theater (March 25, 2005)