Creator

Sisowath Kossamak

ស៊ីសុវត្ថិ កុសុមៈ

Cambodian queen credited with choreographing the modern apsara dance and sustaining the royal dance troupe.

Sisowath Kossamak (ស៊ីសុវត្ថិ កុសុមៈ) was a Cambodian queen who revived the royal dance troupe and shaped its modern repertoire.[1] She took personal charge of the troupe and is credited with choreographing the apsara dance, drawing its poses from Angkorian temple reliefs.[2][1] She reigned with her husband from 1955 to 1960, and after his death she reigned as "Supreme Guardian" until the 1970 coup abolished the monarchy.[3][4] She died in 1975.[1][4]

Royal dance

A woman in a white blouse and dark sampot stands between palace pillars, holding an offering, with seated women nearby.
Queen Sisowath Kossamak in a 1965 United States Information Agency film on the Royal Ballet of Cambodia.

After Norodom Sihanouk's coronation in April 1941, Kossamak, then a princess, set out to keep the ballet troupe alive and restore its former prestige.[1] Apartments were built in the Royal Palace for seven elderly women, former principal dancers, who agreed to pass their traditions and skills on to younger dancers. Training resumed, a troupe of 48 dancers came together, and women of the palace sewed replacements for at least 14 worn-out costumes.[1] By 1965 the company had 300 classical dance teachers and 500 students, drawn from all walks of life and not only from palace families. She also invited and supported the private troupes that had formed in the provinces and the city.[1]

Kossamak personally oversaw the removal of foreign influences from the costumes, props and choreography. She moved performances that had used one or two characters in small rooms onto the scale of a theater, and she divided the all-night performances of the Khmer epic, the Reamker, into sequences that could be danced on their own.[1] The ballets Ream Leak-Chhup Leak and Makara were fully revised in 1950. For Apsara, in which five dancers step down from an Angkorian bas-relief, she reproduced the hairstyles, jewelry and poses on the walls of Angkor Wat with strict care.[1] Accounts date the apsara dance differently: Wikipedia places her choreography in the 1940s, while the Angkor Database booklet dates Apsara to 1962.[2][1] She took a personal hand in training her granddaughter, Princess Norodom Bopha Devi, who became the troupe's principal dancer and danced the lead role in Apsara.[1]

Some popular performance forms may also owe their survival to her, since she had them recognized by the University or the Conservatory.[1] The architect Vann Molyvann credited her with gradually renewing traditional dance technique and with modern staging and lighting. The booklet calls her "the savior of the choreographic tradition and the inventor of modern ballet."[1]

Queen

In 1955 she took the throne alongside King Norodom Suramarit under the name Sisowath Kossamak Nearyrath, and she shared royal duties with him until 1960.[1][3] King Norodom Sihamoni's website gives her name as Preah Sisowath Monivong Kossamak Nearyroth Serey Vaddana.[5] As queen she received foreign guests. In November 1958 the King and Queen received a Chinese delegation with Zhang Xi and gave a banquet to welcome it, as the papers of Marshal Chen Yi record.[6][7] After 1960 she served as the ceremonial monarch while Norodom Sihanouk was chief of state. Time magazine gives her title in that decade as "Supreme Guardian."[2][4] She held that place until the 1970 coup ended the monarchy.[4]

After the coup she was held under virtual house arrest for three years, her health failing, before she was allowed to join Sihanouk in exile in Beijing.[4] The Angkor Database booklet dates her departure to November 3, 1973, and Encyclopedia.com to November 5.[1][3] She died there on April 27, 1975, of apparent heart disease.[1][4]

Honors

  • Czechoslovakia: First Class of the Order of the White Lion (1963)
  • Laos: Grand Cross of the Order of the Million Elephants and the White Parasol (1963)
  • Singapore: First Class of the Order of Temasek (1963)
  • Malaysia: Honorary Recipient of the Most Exalted Order of the Crown of the Realm (1964)
  • Yugoslavia: Grand Star of the Order of the Yugoslav Star (1964)
  • Indonesia: Adipurna First Class Star of the Republic of Indonesia (1968)
  • Ethiopia: Knight of the Order of Solomon (1968)
  • France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour[2][8]

Works


See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Angkor Database, Le Ballet Royal (The Royal Ballet)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Sisowath Kossamak, Wikipedia
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Encyclopedia.com, Kossamak (r. 1955–1960) (2025)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Time, Milestones, May 12, 1975
  5. ↑ Website of King Norodom Sihamoni, Memorial Service to Her Majesty Preah Kossamak (April 9, 2009)
  6. ↑ Fudan University Library Special Collections, Marshal Chen Yi papers, subject Cambodia (items dated November 1958)
  7. ↑ Fudan University Library Special Collections, photograph record of the banquet for the delegation (November 1958)
  8. ↑ Wikimedia Commons, Category:Sisowath Kossamak
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This page was last edited on 9 October 2026, at 06:52.