Beyond the Dance 16 September 2010

BEYOND THE DANCE – 16 SEPTEMBER 2010 TEACHERS NOTES APPENDIXES

Appendix 1

RITUAL Ritual is apparent in many cultures. In Western culture it often manifests itself in religious services, weddings, funerals and birthdays. Ritual is often associated with birth, rites of passage and death, as well as worship and offering to god or gods.

In the performance you will firstly observe a formal ritual that the key performer, Em Theay, asks of the creative team before they take the work to Singapore. It is highly elaborate involving food, incense, music, chanting, prayer and dance. This is an offering to the gods in the hope of safe passage and their blessing for the new work.

Ritualised movement is integral to Classical Cambodian Court Dance. You will notice that the dancers must have one bent leg and their hands are carefully manipulated to created gestures, each of which have a particular meaning within the stories being told.

In the Cambodian Classical Dance repertoire some of the dances created include:  Apsara Dance - a dance about the apsara, Yaovamalya, and her servants picking flowers for her in a garden.  Tep Monorom - a dance about angels dancing in delight and beseeching a god to rescue the people.  Robam Thvay Preah Por - a dance presented to the King of Cambodia.  Robam Phuong Neari - a dance concerning the beauty of flowers and maidens.  Robam Moni Mekhala - an excerpted dance about Manimekhala with Ream Eyso (Parashurama) in pursuit of her crystal ball.

USING RITUAL In this workshop we will adapt aspects of the ritual and ritualized gesture from traditional Cambodian theatre and dance to include familiar and repeated daily practices in order to create a simple performance piece. This exercise will require participants to work as an ensemble with music and movement

What do we understand about some of our recognised rituals?  Discuss and select a simple ‘ritual’ – washing hands, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, getting dressed OR adapt from a more recognised and formal ritual, a birthday cake, in prayer, walking down the aisle.  Create a series of movements that represent this ritual  Present this in the style of school of fish whereby the group are acting as one and able to repeat the movements in order to explore their meaning Appendix 2

EXPLORING DRAMATIC STORY TELLING Continuum weaves together stories of life and death under the regime of the Khmer Rouge. In the performance personal story and testimony is central to allowing the audience to understand the extent of the Cambodian people’s anguish. Through the telling of personal story we empathise and sympathise with others and we imagine the action in our heads as it is told. Dramatic personal story telling is not unique to Asian theatre but it is a powerful convention of this particular piece of theatre.

Personal story and the dramatic convention

Beginnings…sharing and acknowledging Relate a personal childhood story that has remained in your memory – getting lost, losing a pet, breaking something etc  Amongst the group share this story focussing on the action and the emotion

Structuring the stories…thinking, listening and collaborating  Choose one of the stories OR an episode from each one  On a large piece of paper, map out the episodes that you want to tell/perform AND in which order you think they should go – this will depend on whether you are telling one story OR episodes from a number of stories.  Break the story up into episodes amongst the group members  Choose one very particular moment from each episode – it could be an emotional point, a piece of strong action, or it could be abstracted/symbolic (back on the classroom this will depend on the age of the students)

Creating and making…  Create a strong physical image of this moment using bodies, facial expressions, gesture; the image should be a frozen one  Put the episodes of the story or stories into the order you wish to tell them to your audience  NOW decide how the physical image will complement the narration of the episode  For example – will each story teller step out of the image and speak? Will the story teller not be part of that particular image?  Finalise your dramatic story for presenting to the group

Performing and reflecting…  Present your story to the group as a piece of dramatic narrative theatre  The whole group will reflect and comment on the impact of each story  Areas to think about – content, emotional impact, theatrical impact

Note: This workshop is suitable for drama students in Years 7 to 10 (VELS Level 5 and 6), but aspects of it could easily be adapted for students in Years 5 and 6 (VELS Level 4. The workshop activities could also be adapted for VCE Drama – Units 1, 2 and 3 – allowing students to explore play building and ensemble performance making. Appendix 3

CLASSIC KHMER CIVILIZATION (9th – 15th Century)

 Earlier Kingdoms from the 1st Century - Indianisation  9th Century – King Jayavarman II – 1st in long line of self-proclaimed ‘God-Kings’  Capital moved to Ankor  Emergence of new centre for scholarship, worship & the arts  12th Century – peak of empire  15th Century – ankor sacked by Thais – puppet state of Siam & Vietnam  French Colonialism – 1858 – 1953

Temple Monuments  Palace, Shrine, Mausoleum – link between man & God  Geometric – oriented to cardinal points; astronomy; harmony; replica of universe  Each succeeding king built his own bigger, grander monument

Khmer Society Structure  The King – omnipotent power encompassing people, state, law, soil  Administrative Nobles & Priests  Scholars, Poets, Artists, Astrologers, Astronomers  Warriors & Farmers – largest class  Slaves

How We Know…Carvings on monuments  Tales of wars & political affairs  Mythology, cosmology & tales from sacred scriptures  Food, clothes, domesticated animals, flora & fauna, transport, games, cooking vessels, houses…  Little change in the basic methods & means of agrarian life… (85% rural)

Celestial Dancers  Imagery adorns all of the monuments… enormous importance  Based heavily in Reamker (Ramayana adaptation)  Art form developed – continued after Khmer empire  French adored ‘dance of the palace ladies’ – allowed foreign elements

Royal Ballet  King Sihanouk (1941) – reclaim, purify & modernize  1960’s – his daughter was principal dancer in 254 member troupe Royal Ballet (Em Theay)  Who controlled the dance, controlled the nation

Year Zero  Post colonial – King Norodom Sihanouk (Prime Minister) – declared independence (friendly with China)  Overthrown 1970 – General Lol Nol (US supporter – allowed carpet bombing)  Angry rural army developed – Khmer Rouge – Pol Pot  1975 – (year zero) – coup… Phom Penh fell

An Agrarian Utopia  Within 48 hrs – marched entire population out of capital into countryside – slave labour  Ultra-Maoist – agrarian utopia  Poor, uneducated, easily moulded peasants – ‘old people’ … city folk – ‘new people’ … no human rights

The Killing Fields  Literacy, Arts, Music, Religion abolished – esp Perfoming arts (court assoc)  Anyone deemed educated – spoke English or French – executed  Families separated – starvation… torture  300 royal musicians & dancers – 30 survived

1.7 Million  1979 – Vietmanese invaded 7 overthrew Khmer Rouge  18 years of guerrilla warfare – fight for political power & stabilisation  Late 1990’s – stability  Chronic poverty – corruption – healing slow… move on … global economic movement … some denial in youth