Film
Monkey Dance
Monkey Dance is a 2004 documentary by Julie Mallozzi about three Cambodian-American teenagers coming of age in Lowell, Massachusetts.[1][2] All three dance with the Angkor Dance Troupe, and the film follows how dance links them to their parents' culture.[3]
Synopsis
The teenagers' parents survived the Khmer Rouge. They made their way through the jungles to refugee camps in Thailand, and in the early 1980s they resettled in Lowell, a historic New England mill city.[4] For them, Lowell held the hope of safety, work and a chance to rebuild some of what the Khmer Rouge had shattered.[5] Their children grow up in a tough, working-class world shadowed by those memories. Traditional dance ties them to their parents' culture, but fast cars, hip consumerism and good times often pull harder.[3]
Samnang Hor, 16, was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. He is an athlete who is driven to succeed, and he receives his college acceptance letters in the film. Sochenda Uch, 16, is lanky and fashion-conscious and works a series of part-time jobs. His grades slide, every college he applies to turns him down, and he keeps working to get in. Linda Sou, 17, has danced since the age of three, when her father founded the Angkor Dance Troupe to preserve Cambodian culture in America. She struggles to overcome the shame cast on her family, and a trip to Cambodia brings her a new awareness of her parents' losses and sacrifices.[3][2]
The parents speak Khmer, while the teenagers speak American teen slang.[6] In interviews, the parents talk about long hours in nearby electronics factories, about raising American teenagers and, finally, about their lives under the Khmer Rouge.[1] Over time the three teenagers come to value their parents' sacrifices and begin to make good on their parents' dreams.[2][5]
The dance
The Angkor Dance Troupe is a demanding performance group that preserves Cambodian dance traditions. The film's makers state that the tradition was almost lost when 90 percent of its practitioners were killed in the violence of the Khmer Rouge.[3] The troupe's signature piece is Swa Pol, the Monkey Dance. It comes from a story in the Reamker, the Khmer version of the Indian epic the Ramayana, about monkey soldiers celebrating a victory on the battlefield. The troupe has added hip-hop choreography while keeping the characters true to their nature as wily, acrobatic monkeys.[7]
Dance, both traditional and modern, gives the three teenagers confidence, a sense of their roots and a way to express themselves.[2][7] By making the dance their own, they forge a link with the past while finding their way in America.[2]
Production and credits
Mallozzi directed, filmed and edited the documentary over nearly four years, shooting most of it herself as a one-person crew. She began by filming rehearsals, performance tours and team-building workshops. She also gave each of the three teenagers a small video camera to record their own lives.[1][2] It was her second film.[7]
Julie Mallozzi and Rebecca Sherman share the writing credit, with Sherman credited as writing consultant.[5][3] Shondra Burke was editing consultant, and Jorrit Dijkstra composed the music.[3] The film was produced in association with the Independent Television Service, the Center for Asian American Media and WGBH-TV. Support came from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the LEF Moving Image Fund.[3] The film is in Khmer and English. It runs 65 minutes, and a 56-minute television version also exists.[5][7]
Release and reception
The film premiered on public television in May 2005.[1][8] It won the Audience Favourite Feature Award at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and an Insight Award from the National Association of Film and Digital Media Artists.[2] It screened at the Santa Fe International Film Festival, the Wisconsin Film Festival, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Film Festival and the San Diego Asian American Film Festival. It was also shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Natural History in New York.[2] New Day Films, Berkeley Media and the Center for Asian American Media distribute it for educational use.[3]
In 2017 Mallozzi made Dance Family, a 12-minute follow-up. In it Linda, Sochenda and Samnang have returned to the Cambodian-American community in Lowell, where they help the next wave of immigrants and refugees.[3]
Watch
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 New Day Films, Monkey Dance (2024-05-14)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Julie Mallozzi Productions, Monkey Dance
- ↑ Monkey Dance, The Story (2023-08-18)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Cambodia Film Commission, Details (2019-09-23)
- ↑ MIT Admissions, Monkey Dance
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 New Day Films, Monkey Dance Viewer's Guide
- ↑ Julie Mallozzi