Wat Svay Andet
Wat Svay Andet (វត្តស្វាយអណ្ដែត) is a Buddhist Wat on the east bank of the Mekong in Lvea Aem district, Kandal province, about 10 kilometers east of Phnom Penh.[1][2] It is the home of a village troupe of Lakhon Khol, the Khmer masked dance drama. In 2018 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) placed the troupe's tradition on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.[3][4]
The Wat and its villages
The writer San Phalla describes the Wat as both a place of worship and the home of Lakhon Khol. Two villages belong to it: Ta Skor in Sarika Keo commune and Peam Ta Ek in Peam Oknha Ong commune.[2] The English entry for the troupe in Cambodia's inventory of intangible heritage counts more than 1,100 families in the community. The inventory's 2004 page spells the name Wat Svay Angdet.[5] Khmer sources spell the name both វត្តស្វាយអណ្ដែត and វត្តស្វាយអណ្តែត.[2][6]
A theater hall built with help from UNESCO's Phnom Penh office could no longer be used once landless villagers built houses around it. San Phalla writes that a new theater, paid for from the national budget, had its foundation stone laid inside the Wat grounds on April 28, 2018.[2] Focus magazine wrote in 2023 that the troupe had moved its practice to the Wat after the old building began to collapse into the river.[7]
The Lakhon Khol troupe
Before the 1960s the main Lakhon Khol troupes were in Battambang and at Wat Svay Andet.[2] San Phalla writes that the royal court invited the Svay Andet troupe to perform at palace ceremonies from the reign of King Norodom to the Sangkum years. The same essay says that in the 1940s the Queen Mother called its monkey dancers to dance the monkey roles in the royal troupe, which is why men dance those roles there. The palace also supplied the troupe's costumes until 1970. It danced at the 1957 celebration of 2,500 years of the Buddhist era, and its performances went out on national radio.[2]
The troupe plays only episodes of the Reamker (រាមកេរ្តិ៍), the Khmer version of the Ramayana. The performers are men, the music comes from a pinpeat orchestra, and narrators tell the story.[4][5] The dancers wear masks, except those playing Preah Ream and Preah Leak, who at Svay Andet dance with bare faces.[4][2] The narrator usually directs the show and decides which scenes to shorten or drop.[4]
The yearly performance
The village stages Lakhon Khol each year soon after Cambodian New Year.[5][7] UNESCO describes it as an offering to the neak ta (អ្នកតា), the guardian spirits of the place and its people. Spirit mediums attend, and when the spirits are pleased they bless the villagers; when they are not, the dancers stop and the music plays on while the audience listens in silence for the spirits.[1] The villagers ask for happiness and good fortune, protection from disaster and disease, and above all rain and a good rice harvest.[3] The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts says the episode in which the giant Kumbhakarna dams the water is always chosen, since it is believed to bring the village peace and rain for the coming season.[4] San Phalla writes that the performance once lasted seven nights and has been cut to four, including the day of the ceremony that honors the teachers.[2]
The performers are villagers rather than professional artists, and taking part is a duty shared by the whole village.[5] Focus reported weekly practice at the Wat on Sundays, with boys starting as young as five and often learning the role their fathers played.[7]
Decline and revival
UNESCO records a fourteen-year break in teaching, from 1970 to 1984, caused by war and the Khmer Rouge regime.[1] The 2004 inventory and the AMS Khmer Civilization site both state that the Wat Svay Andet troupe is the only one of the older Lakhon Khol troupes to have survived that period.[5][6] In the years after, the Ministry of Culture lent costumes, and UNESCO's Phnom Penh office gave an orchestra, costumes and masks.[2]
UNESCO's committee found the form at risk in 2018. It named five aging masters, most over seventy and each the keeper of one character; the departure of working-age men for jobs elsewhere; and a lack of money for costumes, masks and a place to perform.[3] The head monk and a retired school principal began extra weekend classes and started writing down the scripts of chosen episodes.[1]
UNESCO listing
Cambodia sent its nomination to UNESCO in March 2017.[2] On November 28, 2018, at its thirteenth session in Port Louis, Mauritius, the Intergovernmental Committee inscribed Lkhon Khol Wat Svay Andet on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The committee noted that the form had been in Cambodia's national inventory since 2004 and praised a safeguarding plan built around the community.[3][4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, Lkhon Khol Wat Svay Andet (inscribed 2018)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 San Phalla, ល្ខោនខោល ៖ មរតករស់នៃសហគមន៍ស្វាយអណ្តែត, Khmer Renaissance, Yosothor (about 2018)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Decision 13.COM 10.A.3 (November 28, 2018)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Lkhon Khol Wat Svay Andet (undated)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and UNESCO, Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Cambodia (2004, entry updated 2016)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 AMS Khmer Civilization, ល្ខោនខោល (undated)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Focus, Samantha McCabe, Like Father Like Son (July 5, 2023)