Tradition
Pailin peacock dance
របាំក្ងោកប៉ៃលិន
The Pailin peacock dance (របាំក្ងោកប៉ៃលិន, robam kngork Pailin) is a Cambodian folk dance that comes from the Kola people of Pailin in the west of the country.[1][2] The ethnomusicologist Patrick Kersalé calls the Kola its first keepers.[2] A stage version made in 1965 is taught at the Royal University of Fine Arts.[1]
In Pailin
CambodgeMag ties the dance to a legend of a magic peacock that came to bring good word to a king. The bird is a sign of happiness, and the dance is said to bring villagers happiness and prosperity.[1] It was danced at the New Year and in rites to call for rain in times of drought.[1] The Irrawaddy retells a Pailin folk tale in which people built the pagoda on the hill of Phnom Yat and danced a peacock dance on the hilltop to thank the local spirit, who had helped them find gemstones.[3]
The Khmer heritage website Khmer Civilization writes that before the war and the Khmer Rouge years, villagers in Pailin danced it at the Cambodian New Year and on other occasions as needed.[4] In the early 1960s the Kola played their drum band, o-si, for the peacock dance.[4]
Stage version
A research document of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts from the 1960s, cited by both Kersalé and CambodgeMag, says the first dance had a single peacock and was danced only at the Khmer New Year.[2][1] CambodgeMag writes that it then showed the nature, customs and way of life of the Kola.[1]
The teachers Chheng Phon and Pol Som Oeurn choreographed the stage version in 1965. It was performed until 1975, taken up again in 1979, and is part of the course in the dance department of the Royal University of Fine Arts.[1][2] The dance grew to two peacocks. CambodgeMag describes them as a male and a female, while Kersalé writes that the two costumes are the same and that the birds' movements may show a fight rather than courtship.[1][2] CambodgeMag adds that hunters were later put into the dance to show misfortune, but that this version was dropped.[1]
Khmer Civilization lists the band that plays for the dance on stage: one long drum, a pair of drums, one Pailin oboe, two pairs of cymbals, a gong and a singer. It compares each instrument with one in the old Kola o-si band.[4]
Performance
Kersalé writes that the dance is performed for foreign visitors and at festivals of the Khmer calendar. He filmed it on March 7, 2020, danced by artists trained at the university on the stage of Cambodian Living Arts at the National Museum of Cambodia. Until the COVID-19 pandemic they performed there six days a week.[2] He also filmed a pair of peacocks in a Kathina procession at Wat Aranh Sakor in Siem Reap on October 12, 2020.[2]
Cambodia's national news agency lists the Pailin peacock dance as a dance of the Kola community, among the arts of the country's minority peoples.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 CambodgeMag, Arts & Tradition: Robam Kngork Pailin ou la Danse du Paon de Pailin (April 10, 2024) (in French)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Patrick Kersalé, Sounds of Angkor, Folk dances (undated)
- ↑ The Irrawaddy, The Kola of Cambodia (January 9, 2015)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 AMS Khmer Civilization, The music of the Kola people in Rottanak Mondol, Pailin province (edited March 23, 2022; in Khmer)
- ↑ Agence Kampuchea Presse, Lim Nary, Efforts intensify to preserve indigenous traditional dances in northeast highland provinces (March 11, 2026)