Saturday dance class

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This trail starts with young dancers in Lowell and an apsara in New York poems. It goes to the court dance of Cambodia and the Apsara Dance, one of its national symbols, back to the dancers carved at Angkor, through the years when most court dancers died, and forward to the survivors and teachers who carried the dance on in Cambodia.

Start at stop 1: Monkey DanceFollow in the Explorer

Illustration inspired by a weekend dance class: the Apsara Dance crown and costume laid out before practice.

Here

1. 1

   Monkey Dance

   Three teenagers in Lowell, Massachusetts, dance with the Angkor Dance Troupe, and the dance ties them to their parents' culture.

2. 2

   Apsara in New York

   Sokunthary Svay writes of the apsara, which decorates most Khmer temples, dropped into the rush of New York as an image of her heritage.

There

3. 3

   Cambodian classical dance

   The court dance of Cambodia, bound to the Khmer court for more than a thousand years and inscribed by UNESCO in 2008.

4. 4

   Robam Tep Apsara

   The Apsara Dance, a national symbol, created in its modern form under Queen Sisowath Kossamak, in costumes modeled on the apsaras of Angkor Wat.

Then

5. 5

   Bayon

   Jayavarman VII's state temple, from the end of the 12th or start of the 13th century, where groups of apsaras, celestial dancers, stand on lotuses on the pillars of the entry towers.

6. 6

   Dancing Through Death: The Monkey, Magic & Madness of Cambodia

   The dancer Thavro Phim and the court dance's survival: the film puts the loss at nearly 90 percent of court dancers between 1975 and 1979.

7. 7

   Royal Ballet of Cambodia

   Before the war the troupe had nearly 300 dancers, musicians and singers; Princess Buppha Devi later said 40 dancers survived, and troupes re-formed after 1979.

8. 8

   Norodom Buppha Devi

   Prima ballerina of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia in the 1960s, she returned from exile in 1991, led its revival and oversaw the training of a new generation.

Now

9. 9

   Cambodian Living Arts

   Founded in 1998 by the musician Arn Chorn-Pond, a genocide survivor, it trains artists and offers them paid work through regular performances and festivals.

End of the trail

The dance on a weekend stage abroad is the court dance carved on Angkor's temples, which nearly ended in the 1970s and was carried on by the few dancers and teachers who survived. Dance troupes and other arts groups are listed in the directory.

Follow in the ExplorerStart again at stop 1: Monkey Dance

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