Sbek Thom

Sbek Thom (ស្បែកធំ, Sbek Thom) is the Khmer shadow theater of large leather panels, performed at night to tell the Reamker. The Reamker is the Khmer version of the Ramayana, and Sbek Thom is regarded as a sacred art, dedicated to the divinities.

Illustration inspired by a shadow theater performance at night.

Tradition details
Khmer name	ល្ខោនណាំងស្បែក
Also known as	Sbek Thom; Nang Sbek Thom; Lakhaon Nang Sbek; Khmer shadow theatre; Big Skin
Practice type	Performing art
Usual occasion	Khmer New Year
Subjects	Dance & Theatre

Names

Sbek Thom means "large leather" or "large hide," and Sbek Toch (ស្បែកតូច), its smaller relative, means "small leather." The form is also called Nang Sbek Thom, Lakhaon Sbek Thom and the Khmer Large Shadow Theatre, and in English it is sometimes called "Big Skin."

Sbek Thom is one of three Khmer shadow-theater genres. Sbek Toch uses smaller, jointed puppets and a wide range of stories, and Sbek Por uses colored leather puppets.

The puppets

Each figure is cut from a single piece of cowhide, during a ceremony for the character it represents. The puppets stand about two meters (six and a half feet) high and have no moving parts. Most show gods and deities, and many are designed in the Brahmanic style. A panel may show one character in a fixed pose, or a whole scene with its background. Heroes such as Preah Ream and Neang Seda are drawn with graceful forms, and demons as monstrous and fierce.

The hide is dyed with a solution made from the bark of the kandaol tree. The artisan draws the figure on the tanned hide, cuts it out in fine openwork, paints it and fixes it to two bamboo sticks that the dancer holds. The hide comes only from cattle that died naturally, never from animals killed for it. The makers regard it as sacred and pay their respects to it, and while they work they wear only white and do not drink alcohol. Roluos, near Siem Reap, is the main center for making Cambodian shadow puppets.

A large presentation may need as many as 160 puppets. A set of 90 hides shown in a video about the art was sponsored by Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk.

Performance

Performances take place at night in the open air, beside a rice field or a pagoda. A large white cloth is stretched between two tall bamboo poles, with a fire behind it; today, light bulbs or projectors may take the place of the fire. In the older setup, the fire burns in a low frame of banana trunks behind the screen, and some troupes burn coconut shells.

The puppeteers are trained classical dancers. Each carries one character of the Reamker, and they dance in front of the screen in full view, pressing the panels against the cloth with precise steps set for each character. The play works through contrasts of light and darkness, and it unfolds as a series of lit, sacred scenes rather than fast action. Two narrators, seated before the screen, chant the story in stylized verse, one usually taking the descriptions and the other the dialogue. A pinpeat orchestra plays, and its melodies and rhythms mark royal entrances, battles, grief and the comic episodes of the monkeys.

The stories come from the Reamker, the struggle between good and evil in which Preah Ream sets out to rescue Neang Seda from Krong Reap with the help of Hanuman. Wikipedia also lists the Mahabharata and other Hindu myths among the plays of Khmer shadow theater. A full telling can last several nights; in the past it ran seven nights or longer.

Ritual and meaning

Because it is sacred theater, a performance is regarded as an act of worship. Before the play, an achar (ritual leader) makes offerings to the spirits and consecrates the space. In the ceremony known as hom pithi or khum rong, the panels of key figures (the Ascetic, Preah Ishor, Preah Naray, Ream and the Demon King Reap) are set on the screen with ripe bananas, betel leaves, incense, flowers, rice, candles and consecrated water. Incense is lit for the supernatural masters (sampeah krou), and the performers bow as the gods and masters are invited. The invitation is also called loeng kru, "inviting the masters of the sbek." It calls on the teachers of the past and on the spirits of Preah Ream, Reap and Hanuman.

In this belief, the puppets become vessels for the gods and heroes they show, and the puppeteer invites the hero's soul into the leather before the shadow can come alive. In the 1960s, the opening ritual included three cries by the dancers to call the gods, an invocation by the master, and purification of the figures and performers with consecrated water. The panels were treated as masks inhabited by spirits. Taboos and incantations of that time were believed to protect the dancers' health, and the figures of Shiva and Ravana in particular received offerings and protective rites. Master Ty Chean said, in a 1992 film by Jacques Brunet, that he was believed to be possessed by spirits while he performed, and that people honored those spirits.

Early inscriptions show that reciting or hearing the Ramayana was considered meritorious and purifying. The tenth-century inscription K.218 at Prasat Sankhah calls the recitation a cleansing of sin. A performance is meant to bring blessings and restore harmony through the retelling of sacred stories.

Sbek Thom has been performed at the cremations of kings and monks, at coronations, at the marking of the sacred boundaries of new Buddhist halls, at the consecration of Buddha images, at life-prolonging ceremonies for chief monks, and in village rites. Kings and high officials often sponsored performances as merit-making for the whole community, and at the funerals of high-ranking people it made merit for the dead. Farmers performed it in times of drought to ask the gods for rain, and it was also offered to drive away plague and other misfortune.

History

Sbek Thom dates from before the Angkorian period. Its origins are uncertain, but the art is widely believed to have roots in India; Jacques Brunet wrote in 1969 that shadow figures likely came from ancient India and spread with Indian culture into Southeast Asia. Some art historians see figures resembling jointed leather puppets on tenth-century bas-reliefs at Preah Ko. The Phnom Penh Post dates the art in Khmer lands to the arrival of Brahmanism.

Written sources are rare. Cambodia's oldest known inscription, K.359 at Veal Kanteal, from the seventh century, mentions the Ramayana and records that a Brahman set up daily recitations of the Ramayana and the Purana. Imagery from the same era was found at Angkor Borei in Takeo Province. From the thirteenth century, Reamker imagery spread across Angkorian monuments and reached its height at Angkor Wat.

Performances were once held only three or four times a year, on set occasions: Khmer New Year, the king's birthday and the veneration of famous people. The Phnom Penh Post gives two or three ceremonies a year, including coronations. Sbek Thom was played at royal rites and entertainments in Angkor, Battambang, Udong and Phnom Penh, and it grew close to the Royal Ballet. After the fall of Angkor in the fifteenth century, it grew from a ritual into an art form while keeping its ceremonial role.

The decline began before the Khmer Rouge. In the 1960s, Master Ty Chean's troupe was one of the last, and by the mid-twentieth century the full Reamker was rarely performed; single episodes were chosen instead. Sounds of Angkor attributes the decline in part to a loss of meaning among Cambodians. In 1968 a Sbek Thom troupe was formed within the Classical Dance Troupe, which later became the Department of Performing Arts.

Under the Khmer Rouge, during Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), many puppets were destroyed, only a few artists survived, and the sacred art was nearly wiped out. After 1979, surviving artists gathered shadow puppets from across Cambodia to begin performing again, and the art has slowly revived with their help. Jacques Brunet returned to Cambodia in 1992 and formed a troupe of village youth under Ty Chean's guidance. Before his death in 2000, Ty Chean trained musicians and panel handlers.

UNESCO proclaimed Sbek Thom a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 25, 2005, and inscribed it on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 (file 00108). It is one of five Cambodian elements on UNESCO's lists. At inscription, three shadow theaters had been re-established to pass on the knowledge and skills, including puppet making.

Community

Sbek Thom is performed at sacred temple ceremonies, at private functions and for the public in Cambodian villages. It is also played on national occasions such as National Culture Day, and it is chosen to represent Cambodian heritage at ceremonial events. In Cambodia's report to UNESCO, Cambodians, young people among them, regard it as especially important and as something that sets Cambodian culture apart in the region. The Phnom Penh Post (2025) notes that it is rarely performed in public.

Troupes perform for visitors, often at Wat Bo in Siem Reap, in shows of about an hour that use fire, electric light and traditional staging. Since 2013, the Bambu Stage troupe in Siem Reap has combined Sbek Thom with Sbek Toch, live shadow theater, drama, lighting, projection and subtitles, for Cambodian and international audiences. Leather carvings for Sbek Thom and Sbek Toch are also made for the souvenir market. The craftsman Sery Rathana teaches engraving to children in an orphanage, and the work helps them earn income and stay in school.

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts leads the work of safeguarding, with local authorities, schools, private troupes, nongovernmental organizations and cultural associations. The ministry holds events each year on November 25 to mark the proclamation; in 2020 it canceled them because of COVID-19 and marked the 15th anniversary online. The UNESCO office in Cambodia has worked with the ministry and the Ta Ty Chean Sbek Thom troupe of Siem Reap Province on training, exhibitions, publications and youth education.

Performances dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020 the Ta Ty Chean troupe performed twice: on November 21, and on November 28 over Zoom, at the request of a community in Japan. Through that period the troupe trained young people and sold leather openwork puppets from a small shop near Angkor Wat.

References