Creator
Norodom Buppha Devi
នរោត្តម បុប្ផាទេវី
Cambodian classical dancer, choreographer and cultural administrator who led the postwar revival of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia.
Princess Norodom Buppha Devi (នរោត្តម បុប្ផាទេវី, Norodom Buppha Devi) was the prima ballerina and later director of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia.[1] From the early 1990s she led the revival of the company, staged new choreography drawn from the classical repertoire and served as Minister of Culture and Fine Arts.[1][2]
Name and title
Her full title was Her Royal Highness Samdech Reach Botrei Preah Ream Norodom Buppha Devi. The name Buppha Devi comes from Pali words for "flower" and "goddess," and in Khmer it means "Goddess of Flowers." It is also written Bopha Devi or Bophadevi.[1][3]
Dancer
Buppha Devi began training in Khmer classical dance at about age five and was chosen for the Royal Ballet of Cambodia by Queen Sisowath Kossamak.[4] Her training included the hand gestures, slow movements and exact facial expressions of the form, with daily rehearsals under senior teachers of the Royal Ballet.[4] She finished high school at Lycée Preah Norodom in Phnom Penh.[1] She became premier dancer of the company at 15, and received the title of prima ballerina at 18.[1] The Scotsman gives her age as 16 when she became lead dancer.[5]
Until then the royal dances had been performed only before royalty, to honor the dynasty's ancestors and the gods. Buppha Devi performed them publicly with Queen Kossamak and toured the world as principal dancer of the Royal Ballet in the 1960s, including in France.[1][4][6] In 1962 the United States Information Service filmed her dancing the Robam Tiyae Boung Soung at the Royal Palace, with Queen Kossamak's permission.[1] She danced for visiting foreign leaders as part of Norodom Sihanouk's cultural diplomacy, including for French president Charles de Gaulle on the terrace of Angkor Wat.[5][3]
She was known above all for performing and producing the Apsara dance, inspired by the female spirits carved in stone at Angkor Wat.[5] She was the first public performer of the modern apsara dance. In 1966 Sihanouk cast her in the apsara dance in Apsara, his first feature film.[4][1][7] From 1965 to 1970 she was a professor of Cambodian classical dance.[6]
Exile and return
The 1970 coup, the civil war and the Khmer Rouge years stopped her career and the work of the Royal Ballet, and she went into exile.[4] VOA Khmer says she was forced to flee after the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975; The Scotsman says she left before the takeover.[7][5] She returned to Cambodia with Sihanouk in 1991, after the Paris Peace Agreements, and helped revive the Apsara dance and other Khmer dances.[5][4][7]
Cultural leadership
She served as Deputy Minister of Culture and Fine Arts from 1991 to 1993 and as the government's adviser in charge of culture and fine arts from 1993 to 1998.[1][6] She was then Minister of Culture and Fine Arts. Wikipedia, VOA Khmer and VietnamPlus give her term as 1998 to 2004; The Scotsman and Northern Illinois University give 1999 to 2004.[1][7][8][5][6] As minister she made sure teachers could recruit young girls to learn the Royal Ballet tradition.[9] She was also vice president of the Cambodian Red Cross from 1993 to 1997, president of the Cambodian-Chinese Association in 2000, a senator and a member of the Constitutional Council.[1][6][5]
As director of the Royal Ballet, she oversaw the training of a new generation of dancers after the war. She stressed strict technique, the classical repertoire and the gestures passed down by older masters, and allowed carefully framed new work for today's audiences. Under her direction the company toured abroad again.[4] She described her first duty as reviving Cambodia's classical dance, preserving it on film and in recordings, and passing it on.[9] In 2017 she brought a small troupe to Hong Kong for the company's first visit there, with a European tour planned for May 2018. In 2018 she was still directing dance troupes abroad.[9][5] In 2008 she gave a filmed interview now held in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library.[10]
In 2003 she petitioned for the Royal Ballet of Cambodia to be recognized by UNESCO. It was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.[6][2] Prince Sisowath Thomico credited her with the ballet's place in world heritage.[7]
Death and legacy
Her final production, Metamorphosis, was created shortly before her death.[2] She died of natural causes in a hospital in Thailand on November 18, 2019, at the age of 76.[6][7] Master Proeung Chhieng credited her with making people remember Khmer classical dance. Prince Sisowath Tesso asked the filmmaker Xavier de Lauzanne to make a documentary so that her work would be preserved and remembered.[2] A statue of her in a classical dance pose stands at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.[4]
Works
- Cambodian classical dance (Tradition)
- Robam Tep Apsara (Tradition)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Norodom Buppha Devi, Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Phnom Penh Post, Khmer ballet documentary debuts April 1
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Times, Princess Norodom Buppha Devi obituary (December 8, 2019)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Wonders of Cambodia, Norodom Buppha Devi: The Princess Who Became Cambodia's First Royal Apsara (February 2, 2026)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 The Scotsman, Obituary: Norodom Buppha Devi, Cambodian princess who made her mark as a dancer (November 20, 2019)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Northern Illinois University Libraries, Women's voices in Southeast Asia
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 VOA Khmer, Cambodian Princess Who Rescued Traditional Ballet Dies at Age 76 (November 18, 2019)
- ↑ VietnamPlus, Cambodia's princess passes away at age 76 (November 18, 2019)
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Time Out Hong Kong, Interview: Princess Norodom Buppha Devi on the Royal Ballet of Cambodia (August 17, 2017)
- ↑ NYPL Digital Collections, Interview with HRH Princess Norodom Buppha Devi (2008)