Organization

Cambodian American Girls Empowering (CAGE)


Cambodian American Girls Empowering (CAGE) is a Philadelphia performing arts nonprofit, founded in 2015, that teaches and performs Cambodian classical and folk dance.[1][2] Its stated mission is to create courageous spaces for exploring Cambodian American arts, culture and identities.[1] It offers free and low-cost classes, workshops and performances in Philadelphia and beyond, and it runs its dance classes with the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia.[1]

History

CAGE was founded in 2015 by second-generation Cambodian American young women, trained Cambodian classical dancers from Philadelphia, to give Cambodian American girls and women safe spaces to express and explore their identities.[3][2] Lanica Angpak began it as a personal project. She meant it as a safe space for young Cambodian women to talk about subjects they were not comfortable raising with their families, and the group added traditional Cambodian dance when the women she mentored asked for it.[4] One 2024 profile calls her a co-founder.[5] CAGE began at a dining table and later moved to a studio in the Bok building in South Philadelphia.[1][4] It grew out of immigrant and refugee families who came to the Philadelphia region during the Cambodian refugee resettlement of the 1980s, and all of its founding members took part in the Cambodian Association's arts and culture programs as children.[2] The group later opened its cultural activities to anyone interested in Cambodian American culture, and its volunteer members have built their own artistic, teaching and knowledge-sharing practice through it.[2]

By 2018 CAGE held traditional Cambodian dance workshops for women and girls ages six to 72 and averaged about 14 performances a year. That summer it gave free workshop performances at Bok Bar in South Philadelphia.[4]

Before 2020 all of CAGE's programs were in person. During the COVID-19 pandemic it stopped its regular classes and moved online: in 2020 and 2021 its volunteers ran weekly stretching sessions on Facebook, dance classes on Zoom, games on Instagram and celebratory events.[2][6] Its online classes in 2020 also carried information about the census and encouraged people to take part.[6] It started a YouTube channel with Cambodian classical dance basics and an archive of its performances and events.[2]

In 2021 and 2022 CAGE worked with the Philadelphia business Ps & Qs on T-shirts celebrating the Cambodian community. In fall 2021 it resumed its in-person Khmer Language & Arts program with the Cambodian Association.[2] That year's classes included workshops by Cambodian American artists from across the country: Peter Veth on Cambodian classical dance and Seri Chao on Cambodian food. Alina Hing's beginner class finished eight months of weekly classes despite pauses during COVID-19 surges.[2] In 2022 the Annual Cambodian Dance Recital returned for the first time since 2019. It featured the program's students, CAGE's professional troupe (Alina Hing, Kamryn Sacksith and Kiara Ros) and a demonstration by Khmer Performing Arts & Culture.[2]

In spring 2025 CAGE performed at the Confluence Film Festival at the Academy of Natural Sciences with the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, at the Khmer New Year Parade at Preah Buddha Rangsey Temple and Mifflin Square Park, and at Drexel University's Asian American Philadelphia Advocacy Conference on April 26. It also gave crown-making sessions and solo performances at three Camden County Library System branches in May.[7] Its events page that year listed the 5th Annual Cambodian Dance Recital, held with Bok Open Studios.[7] By 2026 CAGE counted, over ten years, more than 120 performances, more than 400 dance classes, more than 70 arts and culture workshops, more than 350 students and five dance recitals.[8] In 2022 it counted more than 100 public events across the Philadelphia region since 2015.[2]

Programs

The Khmer Language & Arts program (KLA), run with the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, is CAGE's most popular program by its own account. Its weekly classes cover beginner, intermediate and advanced Cambodian classical dance, the Khmer language and cultural immersion.[8] CAGE's website gives the class season as September through May, ending in a recital and projects; its 2026 fundraising page gives October through May.[1][8] Classical dance instruction starts at age five.[5] In 2026 CAGE said it employs teaching artists for an average of 558 hours a year.[8]

CAGE gives public and private performances of Cambodian classical and folk dance, and it performs at community organizations, City Hall and schools across Philadelphia.[1][5] It favors public events, especially those organized by communities of color.[4] Its workshops, for all ages, cover Cambodian arts and culture, community organizing, self-care and other themes, and it offers arts and crafts, speaking engagements and cultural lessons to schools and local groups.[1][2] The annual recital is a stage for students, the professional troupe and other local Cambodian American artists and culture bearers.[2] With the Cambodian Association, CAGE also organizes an annual banquet attended by about 600 people.[5]

The professional troupe is made up of second-generation Cambodian and Lao Americans of all ages, trained in Cambodian classical and folk dance and in costuming, choreography and storytelling. Its members volunteer their time to create, rehearse and perform across the Philadelphia region, and the troupe works both to conserve and to renew Cambodian American arts.[3][9] CAGE also has a junior troupe.[8] Its dancers wear traditional costumes that Angpak and her mother brought from Cambodia; in 2026 CAGE said its costume stock was 15 to more than 20 years old and needed replacing.[5][8] Participants include Cambodians, mixed Cambodians and people of Lao and Puerto Rican backgrounds.[5]

CAGE accepts donated Cambodian fabrics, jewelry, artwork and books, and it is building an archive of Cambodian and Cambodian American arts and culture from them.[10] Its fundraising is fiscally sponsored by CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia, a charitable trust administered by CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia.[8]

People

  • Lanica Angpak, founder and director; a youth development practitioner and teaching artist with more than 25 years of experience in Cambodian classical and folk dance and digital photography[3][9]
  • Alina Hing, lead teaching artist; teaches beginner Cambodian classical dance in the Khmer Language & Arts program (2021 to 2022)[2][9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cambodian American Girls Empowering
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Member Spotlight (2022-06-22)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 CAMBODIAN AMERICAN GIRLS EMPOWERING, About CAGE (2021-09-29)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The Philadelphia Inquirer, Cambodian dance in Philadelphia (July 20, 2018)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Cambodianess, There's No Wrong Kind of Asian (January 2, 2024)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Diverse Elders Coalition, SEARAC 2020 Census: Voices from the Cambodian community (June 23, 2020)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cambodian American Girls Empowering, Events (2025)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 FundRazr, Cambodian American Girls Empowering - FundRazr (2026-02-05)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Global Philadelphia, Cambodian American Girls Empowering (CAGE) (2022)
  10. ↑ Cambodian American Girls Empowering, Give

Sources

Retrieved from "https://dev.khmerconnection.com/w/index.php?title=Cambodian_American_Girls_Empowering_(CAGE)&oldid=7755"
This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:18.