Creator

Hun Pen

Cambodian classical dancer in the neang (female) role, choreographer and researcher of the post-1979 dance revival.

Hun Pen is a Cambodian classical dancer in the neang (female) role, a choreographer and a researcher of the revival of classical dance after 1979.[1][2] She is Deputy Director of the Department of Performing Arts at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, where her work covers safeguarding cultural heritage, documenting endangered art forms and leading the national performing arts system.[1][3]

Training

Hun Pen first danced with Master Chea Samy. In 1990 she began formal training in classical dance at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, where she specialized in the neang role under Cambodia's masters.[4][1] From 2002 to 2003 she studied dance, theater and music for ten months as a special student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, on an Asian Cultural Council fellowship. In 2003 a second fellowship took her to an internship at the New England Foundation for the Arts and to the Bates Dance Festival.[5][2] She completed a bachelor's degree in choreography at the Royal University of Fine Arts in 2003.[2]

In 2004 she studied ballet, modern dance, jazz, African dance, contemporary dance and arts management in Paris.[2] An Asian Cultural Council grant that year let her observe performing arts in Los Angeles and New York and take part in the council's 40th anniversary conference in New York on November 10, 2004.[5] In 2006 the council funded her to begin a master's program in Southeast Asian Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok that fall, with a place in the summer fellowship program of the Center for Khmer Studies in July and August. The council renewed the grant in 2007 and funded a third semester in 2008, and she received the degree that year.[5][2][4]

Career

In 2000 Hun Pen received the Most Outstanding Dancer and Student award from the Royal University of Fine Arts, and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports named her a Cultural Ambassador.[4] In 2001 she toured the United States as a dancer in Dance: the Spirit of Cambodia, and she danced in Robam Apsara.[6]

In 2004 Amrita Performing Arts sent her, with Sam Sathya and Suon Bun Rith, to observe the seventh Indonesian Dance Festival. Invited to join the festival's choreography workshop in Surabaya, East Java, she made a seven-minute solo inspired by the Garuda, the companion of the Hindu god Vishnu. It was her first contemporary work, and she presented it at the festival's main event.[7]

In 2004 and 2005 she was co-director of the Living Arts Festival Project at Cambodian Living Arts and taught art history and dance part time at the Royal University of Fine Arts. In 2005 she worked as a choreographer and dancer with the Gallota Company in Grenoble, France. From 2006 she coordinated the Royal Ballet Project for the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and UNESCO, and from 2007 she was Deputy Chief of the Choreographic Department.[4] On March 22, 2008, she interviewed the dancer Em Theay outside the National Museum in Phnom Penh for the Khmer Dance Project.[8] She later became Deputy Director of the Department of Performing Arts.[2][3][1]

Research

Her master's thesis at Chulalongkorn University, The Revival of Cambodian Classical Dance after 1979 (2008), traces how classical dance was rebuilt after 1979, including the revival work of 1980 to 1991. The Asian Cultural Council supported the research.[4]

The Krud Dance

The Krud Dance (Garuda), dated 2015, joins classical motifs with contemporary dance. It debuted on Cambodia's Got Talent.[1][3] In 2025 Chhum Chandara, Miss Supranational Cambodia, was unable to arrange for Hun Pen to teach her the dance. She learned the choreography on her own, filmed herself performing it and sent the recording to the selection committee in Poland for the Miss Supranational finale. After a public dispute, the copied version was removed.[3]

Works


  • Solo inspired by the Garuda, Indonesian Dance Festival, Surabaya (2004)[7]
  • The Revival of Cambodian Classical Dance after 1979, master's thesis, Chulalongkorn University (2008)[4]
  • The Krud Dance (Garuda) (2015)[1]
  • The One Voice Project (សំឡេងខ្មែរតែមួយ), an arts peace movement she founded in 2021 to bring together artistic voices across Cambodia through performance[1]

Recognition

  • Most Outstanding Dancer and Student award, Royal University of Fine Arts, and the title of Cultural Ambassador, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (2000)[4]
  • Asian Cultural Council grants for study at Wesleyan University (2002) and Chulalongkorn University (2006 to 2008)[5]

Sources

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Hun Pen, official site
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Center for Khmer Studies, Panel discussion: Archive and documentation of the Cambodian dance (December 2021)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Campuccino #91, by Darathtey Din (June 25, 2025)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Chulalongkorn University, Hun Pen, The Revival of Cambodian Classical Dance after 1979 (2008)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Asian Cultural Council, Hun Pen, grantee database
  6. ↑ Asia Society, Dance: the Spirit of Cambodia program notes (2001)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Amrita Performing Arts blog, A contemporary dance platform, by Dr. Sal Murgiyanto (November 15, 2013)
  8. ↑ Michelle Potter, Khmer Dance Project (2009)
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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:39.