Film
Dancing Through Death: The Monkey, Magic & Madness of Cambodia
Dancing Through Death: The Monkey, Magic & Madness of Cambodia is a 1999 documentary about dancer Thavro Phim and the survival of Cambodian classical dance.[1] Janet Gardner made the film. Phim dances Hanuman, the magical white monkey of the court repertoire.[2]
Synopsis
Thavro Phim came of age under the Pol Pot regime and lost his father, brother and grandfather while the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.[3] His Buddhist faith and his devotion to classical dance, above all the role of Hanuman, carried him through those years.[3][4] The film gives the scale of the loss to the art: nearly 90 percent of Cambodia's court dancers were executed or died of starvation or disease between 1975 and 1979.[5] Educational Media Reviews Online puts the figures at about 80 percent of artists, dancers and musicians executed and another 10 percent dead from disease or starvation. With them went much of the oral tradition that passed the art from one generation to the next.[2]
The film also covers the Khmer empire of Angkor and the sacred role of Cambodian dancers, whose dances tell stories of good and evil, often from the Ramayana, with princes, princesses, giants and monkeys.[1][5] It includes rare footage of court dancers before the Khmer Rouge, and of dancers in prisons and refugee camps practicing without formal training, some of them having lost limbs.[5][4]
In 1998 Phim returned to Cambodia to reunite with surviving family and teachers.[6] He visited Angkor Wat, the Killing Fields, a prison museum and the Documentation Center of Cambodia, and he searched for information about his father.[2][5] In Phnom Penh, dancers at the University of Fine Arts keep court dance alive through performance and teaching.[2] The film also follows him to New Haven, Connecticut, where he joined the Cambodian Genocide Project at Yale, and to San Jose, California, where he taught dance in the 1980s.[1]
A second thread follows the teaching of dance to refugee children in the United States.[1] In Lowell, Massachusetts, home to about 20,000 Cambodians, court dance supports Khmer culture among young people who often learn English first.[2] The film features Lowell's Angkor Dance Troupe, including young monkey dancers Samnang Hor and Andrew Mam.[5]
Production and credits
Janet Gardner produced, directed and wrote the film for broadcast on WGBX-TV. Marlene Sanders was executive producer and narrator. Kevin Cloutier was director of photography, Dina Potocki edited the film, and Richard Fiocca created the music and sound design. Pham Quoc Thai was associate producer and Sophy Theam assistant producer, with Ruth Page as field producer in Lowell.[1] Cambodian music was performed by Sam-Ang Sam and Ensemble.[7]
Anthropologist Toni Shapiro Phim, who studied dance in the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border after the genocide, shared archival footage for the film.[1] Toni Shapiro, David Chandler, Sam-Ang Sam, George Morren and William Rieser served as consultants.[1] Those interviewed include Phim's mother Sithoeun Hang; Sam-Ang Sam, Ang Choulean, Dean Proeung Chhieng and Pen Sok Huon of the University of Fine Arts; teachers and survivors Yit Sarin and Pun Bun Chan Roth; Angkor Dance Troupe co-founder Tim Chan Thou and artistic director Phousita Huy; and Youk Chhang of the Documentation Center of Cambodia.[7] Yit Sarin, one of the oldest masters of the monkey dance, was about 75 at the time.[5]
Filmakers Library in New York distributed the film on VHS in a 56-minute version.[2] Another listing gives 52 minutes.[7]
Release and reception
The film received the CINE Golden Eagle Award in 1999 and screened that year at the Boston Asian American Film Festival.[1] It was broadcast on PBS stations in 1999 and 2000, including KOCE-TV in February 2000, and on the satellite channel STAR TV in Asia.[1][6] It was also shown at the Asia Society, the Newseum, and the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association and the Asian Studies Association.[1]
In the Boston Globe in 2000, Karen Campbell called it a powerful and poignant documentary that moves between the horrifying and the uplifting.[1] Gardner and Pham Thai screened and discussed the film at the University at Buffalo on October 9, 2002, where it was shown as an account of how court dancers used performance to keep their culture alive.[8][5] Educational Media Reviews Online recommended it for modern history and culture collections in academic and public libraries, and for teaching about cultural cleansing and heritage.[2] In 2024 the film was selected for the Cambodia International Film Festival.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Gardner Documentary Group, Dancing Through Death
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Penn State Libraries, Educational Media Reviews Online, Dancing Through Death
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gardner Documentary Group
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bryn Mawr Asian Students Association, screening notice (2010)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 University at Buffalo Reporter, Film documents plight of Cambodian dancers (October 17, 2002)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Los Angeles Times, Dancing Through the Dark (February 15, 2000)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Prevent Genocide International, Khmer Rouge Genocide Resources
- ↑ University at Buffalo, Documentary Films on Southeast Asia to be Screened (October 1, 2002)