CAMBODIA: CAMBODIAN ARTS
Deeply woven into the fabric of Cambodian culture is its court and folk
dance and music. It is through Khmer traditional performing arts that
the mythology and history of its people is passed from generation to generation.
Visitors to the great temples of Angkor can see the story of Cambodian
people come to life on the bas sculptures depicting the celestial Apsara
dancers, monkeys, and kings.
However, in present day this system has struggled under the effects of
war, and Cambodian people now struggle to preserve the Cambodian culture.
This struggle of conserving traditional Cambodian culture peaked with
its attempted annihilation during Cambodia’s war in the late 1970’s.
The decimation of the Khmer people targeted educators and cultural leaders
in a systematic program of ethnic destruction that left well over one
million dead and thousands as refugees to the U.S. and other countries.
Throughout the eighties and into the early nineties, ongoing political
turmoil and economic instability plagued the country. In 1999 Cambodia
experienced its first full year of peace in thirty years, which has resulted
in increased international investment in the economically devastated country.
PRESERVATION of TRADITIONAL CAMBODIAN ART FORMS
For Khmer culture, its challenge in maintaining a transnational existence
is to recapture material before it becomes completely inaccessible or
distorted by time. Artists and scholars need to be able to sustain their
work at multiple locations both in Cambodia and in the U.S. Early efforts
to join Cambodia-based and U.S-based artists and scholars, who hold the
knowledge of traditional Cambodian art forms, need to be reinforced and
repeated consistently to insure conservation and growth of the traditional
culture. Documentation of the art produced through these efforts needs
to be completed, organized with existing resources, and made accessible
across geographic boundaries.
RUFA
In the context of a country at the beginning of reconstruction, the reopened
Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh (RUFA) began the work of recovering
the nation’s traditional arts by rebuilding its programs and gaining
institutional stability. Faced with many challenges, including few resources
in a severely handicapped economy, the work of the institution has been
complicated by the effects of the recent war.
CAMBODIAN DIASPORA
A number of surviving master artists from Cambodia were resettled in the
United States and, today, have moved beyond the refugee period. Cambodian-Americans
have achieved a level of economic security and have actively worked to
develop and secure local cultural organizations.
Individually and through these organizations, Cambodian-Americans have
made an effort to maintain and develop connections with their cultural
heritage and country of origin. Yet the connections between these Cambodian-American
communities and artists in Cambodia remain inconsistent and, as noted
above, the situation for artists in Cambodia itself remains unstable.
The continued practice and celebration of Khmer traditions and culture,
in Cambodia as well as in the U.S., illuminate the interconnectedness
between Cambodian people across nations. Similar to other transnational
people, Cambodians are able to transverse political boundaries and exist
in a shared time, yet different space. However, much of the cultural artistic
material that identifies and propagates this community has been dispersed.
No longer is the cultural material of Cambodia residing in Cambodia alone
or in any recognized center. And much of the non-written artistic material
now exists in the United States with emigrant survivors.
