Yike

Yike (យីកេ, yike, said "yee-kay") is an old Cambodian musical theater that tells stories in song, speech and dance to a family of frame drums. Also called Lakhon Yike, it is performed in nearly every province of Cambodia and by Khmer Krom communities in southern Vietnam, often at pagodas and village festivals in the dry season.

Illustration inspired by a village theater stage in Kampong Cham.

Tradition details
Khmer name	យីកេ
Also known as	Lakhon Yike; Khmer musical theatre
Practice type	Performing art
Usual occasion	Dry season
Subjects	Dance & Theatre

Performance

Yike joins singing and dancing with an ensemble of traditional and modern instruments. Popular stories and myths are told in both song and spoken dialogue, and the narrator, who is also a singer, directs the show. A show often opens with robam yike hom rong, an invocation dance, and much of the movement lightly follows a style like rom kbach. It is staged in a circle so the audience can watch from every side. Lakhon Yike mixes classical and modern choreography and costume. Teacher Uy Latavan calls yike the hardest form of classical Khmer opera to perform and compose, harder than Bassac.

The repertoire has more than 80 songs, each for a different feeling of a character. Some passages carry meanings that performers cannot explain, even though they sing every word. Proeung Chhieng said a yike performer needs a beautiful voice, good looks and acting skill.

Stories

Yike stories often come from the Jatakas and the life of the Buddha, and Tum Teav is a common play. Other themes come from old tales of Khmer kings, and Proeung Chhieng notes scenery often based on the Ream Ker, the Cambodian Ramayana. The repertoire mixes traditional and contemporary stories. Yike deals with myths, historical events and the problems of everyday life, and it carries messages of social cohesion that still speak to Cambodians around the world. As it grew popular with farmers, it became a theater that taught Buddhism and Brahmanism.

Music

The music is built on skor yike, a family of frame drums in as many as 13 sizes. An ensemble may use from two to thirteen drums. The largest, the skor mei, begins the music, the others join one by one, and at the end they drop out until the skor mei plays alone. The ensemble adds a two-string coconut-shell fiddle, the tro ou camhieng. In older yike, song and drums were the heart of the music, and the tro ou was added later to make the singers' voices sound more beautiful. Kampot has its own yike, with music and movements found only in that province.

History

The origin of yike is unsettled. It is believed to have come from Champa and reached Cambodia in the Funan period (Wikipedia), or to have begun among seafaring people (ICHCAP). Judging from its poetic song form, ICHCAP places its appearance in the late eighth century, in the reign of Jayavarman II, and Aok Buntheoun gives the same date. Leisure Cambodia traces it to an eighth-century theatrical game of drums of different sizes, singing and dancing, and compares it with Thailand's likay and Malaysia's jikey. Uy Latavann says Cambodians used a Cham drum to make a theater dance once called Lam Yike, a name still known in many parts of Cambodia. In Takeo, yike performers still wear a crown like that of a Cham queen.

Aok Buntheoun holds that yike came from Malaysia, once called Melayu Island. Malaysian academic Rosdeen Bin Suboh Suboh says Malaysians believe their jikey came from Cambodia and Thailand. One audience member suggested older trade ties with Malaysia and noted that most song wording is Thai. The two forms were shown side by side in Cambodian Living Arts' Exploring Identities season, and the speakers pledged to keep both alive without settling their shared roots.

Early yike was often performed at the Royal Palace after classical dance, and later it grew popular enough to stand on its own. It took on new costumes, instruments and Khmer customs over time, and it was hugely popular in the 1920s. It was once popular across rural Cambodia. Khmer Times calls it the most popular of more than 20 forms of Khmer opera through Khmer history.

The Khmer Rouge killings nearly wiped out yike, as they did Lakhon Bassac and Lakhon Niyeai. Many performers were killed, but the form survived. About 90 percent of Cambodia's artists are commonly believed to have died in that era, and the loss of masters pushed yike to the margins. After the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, yike made a strong comeback. The State of Cambodia government subsidized it heavily, so performers could earn a living while they rebuilt the repertoire. In 1986 yike and other popular theater lost audiences to video and television. Uy Latavan says Cambodia's many wars nearly lost it.

Variations

Among the Khmer Krom, yike is used as elsewhere, and yuke names the dance theater also called Lakhon Bassac. Yike is related to other Cambodian musical theater, including Bassac and Niyeai. In Kampot the local form survives through only a few masters, though the province once had many yike groups.

Teaching and revival

Lakhaon Yike is part of the drama curriculum at the Royal University of Fine Arts. Leisure Cambodia reported in 2002 that the university planned a class of 30 students for Bassac and yike, but only two applied for yike. Proeung Chhieng said students feared they would find no work after graduating. The following graduating class had 13 yike majors. Yike is also among the Khmer arts that can be studied in villages outside the university. Cambodia listed yike among five art forms put forward for the UNESCO list of intangible heritage, and among three new files for a 2010 submission.

The Kampot Traditional Music School teaches yike and other Khmer arts to children. It holds free afternoon classes for more than 230 local students, and 18 full-time students from poor backgrounds live at the school, some aiming for careers in music and dance. Two Kampot yike masters on its staff had each performed for more than 45 years by 2013. The school's funding problems threatened to close it, which Khmerican warned could mean the end of Kampot yike.

In Kampong Thom Province, the yike troupe of Nipech commune broke up as its members aged and a young performer became a monk. Venerable Krouch Samban, who had begun performing at 15 in 2012, founded the Traditional Yike Group of Kampong Svay district, or Yike Wat Khtom, to honor his father and grandfather, both known yike performers. After village elders practiced and performed at a new pagoda's opening, the troupe formed in early 2020 with elderly yike veterans of Nipech commune. By 2023 it had 27 members, most over 50, and it struggled to draw and keep young performers. Samban has brought in musicians from other regions to fill the orchestra. The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts gave the group help and funding, and COVID-19 restrictions halted its shows for a time.

The troupe is invited often in the dry season, including at Kathin from October to November and at festivals such as Bun Phum. It keeps its fee close to that of Bassac so more pagodas can hire it. New stories are hard to create for lack of time to write and rehearse together, and performers earn little. Troupe leader Preul Mom says yike lacks successors, and Siyonn Sophearith says technology has replaced much live performance, though local audiences still support yike.

In Phnom Penh, the troupe Yike Amatak, taught by Uy Latavan, staged Tom Teav at an event organized by Reek Sai day to help young Cambodians understand yike.

References