Creator
Voan Savay
Khmer classical dancer and teacher who carried the royal dance repertoire through the refugee camps and into diaspora schools.
Voan Savay (វ័ន សាវ៉ៃ) is a Khmer classical dancer and teacher who was prima ballerina of the Khmer Royal Ballet from 1965 to 1970.[1][2][3] She carried the dance through the refugee camps on the Thai border and later taught it in France and Cambodia.[4][2]
The Royal Ballet years
Voan Savay began dancing in the palace in 1960, after Queen Sisowath Kossamak Nearirath opened weekly public classes, and she learned at Chan Chhaya in the palace.[3][5] Her teachers soon noticed her talent and wanted her in the company. From the age of 12 she toured Cambodia with the Khmer Royal Ballet.[3]
In 1965, at 15, she was crowned prima ballerina, the principal dancer, and at times replaced Princess Norodom Buppha Devi.[3] She kept the role until 1970.[1] In 1971 she was the star Apsara (អប្សរា) dancer when the National Dance Company of Cambodia, which by then had taken the Royal Ballet's place, toured the United States.[3]
The border camps
Under the Khmer Rouge, Savay stopped practicing her art and hid her background and identity to survive.[3] After the regime fell in 1979 she returned to Phnom Penh.[3] She later said that after the Khmer Rouge she was deeply traumatized and decided to flee. When she reached the border she changed her mind and stayed there to gather children and teach them to dance.[4] "I can die and be reborn, but the art form cannot die," she said.[4]
In 1981 she reached Site II, a refugee camp on the Thai border, and chose to stay and teach the children there to dance.[3] For several years she moved around the border area to organize dance classes in other camps, and her dancers were invited to perform across Thailand.[3]
Touring, exile and return
In 1991, after nearly ten years in the camps, Savay led a large company of dancers, musicians and costume makers to the United States for three months of performances.[3] Later that year she went back to Cambodia, where she and her troupe became part of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.[3]
In 1998, after political turmoil, she fled Cambodia again and found asylum in France.[3] There she taught Cambodian traditional dance for two decades to the Cambodian community of the Paris region.[3][5] From 2005 she helped Cambodian associations in the Paris region and in Montreal, among them Selepak-Khmer and Cabaret des Oiseaux. Together with Princess Vichara Norodom and Prince Tesso Sisowath she helped restore the Ballet Classique Khmer de Paris (BCK).[5][2] From November 2015 to January 2016 she taught dance at Centre Khemara in Montreal. For that short course she taught 17 Chha Banchos movements as a base for students, and she chose excerpts of Khmer classical music from the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh for practice.[5]
In 2016 Princess Norodom Buppha Devi and Prince Sisowath Tesso invited her to settle again in Cambodia and help pass on the heritage of classical dance.[3] She became artistic director of Earth and Sky, a production of Experience Cambodian Living Arts (ECLA).[1] Since then she has lived partly in France, where she is based, and partly in Cambodia.[3]
Legacy
She has said she is in a hurry to hand on everything she knows to the next generation, because so much has already been lost.[1] She says Khmer ballet has 4,500 formations, of which only 1,000 are still known.[1]
She appears in La beauté du geste (Tep Hattha in Khmer), Xavier de Lauzanne's documentary on the Royal Ballet, which was shown at the 12th Cambodia International Film Festival in 2023.[4]
Works
- Cambodian classical dance (Tradition)
- Robam Tep Apsara (Tradition)
See also
References 5
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Pulitzer Center, Ingrid Olivia Norrmén-Smith, Unbroken Courage (August 14, 2020)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Voan Savay, Wikipedia (2022-02-22)
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 La Beauté du geste (The Perfect Motion), the film
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 CambodgeMag, 12e Festival International du Film au Cambodge: La beauté du geste (May 31, 2023)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Centre Khemara, Mme Voan Savay à Montreal en 2016
Know something we're missing? Send a tip