GROUP 1: HARD WORK, NEW STRANGE THINGS, AGAIN TEACHER AGAIN, REAL PROGRESS, EVERYONE' S LEARNING8/18/2016 its already the end of week 3 , we are over half way and only have 3 more classes with group 1 until there final performance! In this short period of time i have already learnt so much about my teaching and the girls challnge me and teach me new things every day. By the end of some classes I am exhausted with the amount of energy to takes to encourage and support these girls to keep on trying and to give it there all. Today I had a translator in the class which was so helpful. I asked the girls to create there own movement phrase with a Kick, Balance, Turn and Jump. But after explaining the activity to them only a few girls actually engaged with the task. I am so glad for translation because I couldn't understand the problem. Do they not understand? Don't they want to do it? Vanna, who translated and works with the girls everyday explained that they all want to do it but they were tired and didn't want to do it badly or wrong. So instead they just sat at the edges.
In my Khmer class I take on a Saturday I am learning a dance which has been danced for many many years, the same way, in perfect unison with no deviation from the original movement. I am now really challenging a culture with these girls to give them creative reign and think up there own movement. Also trying to challenge the idea that you cant dance "badly' or 'wrong' is a real challenge. I don't think I had appreciated how many cultural barriers i would face when teaching, the Language barrier was excepted and we muddle through ( most of the time) but trying to distill new ideas in learning and moving is a whole other issue. I am so proud of there progress but I am in this constant state of feeling like I am doing a great job with the girls to thinking I still have everything to learn. And I guess that is the state I always need to be in, always questioning my approach, always finding new ways to do things, always learning, always growing. Bring on next week!
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'Ok so have you thought about where you want to do the final performance?' Stacy turned to me during one of our weekly meetings. We can't do it in the school, there isn't enough space, we have to be careful in public spaces for the girls safety. My brain scanned though the options. The skate park, it's a familiar space for the girls, an open space with enough room for the dancers and the audience and its safe. I went to check the space out, imagining where the audience would sit, how will work around the skate ramps. it started to feel real and very exciting.
In the village of Pret Kat , some half an hour outside of the hot, loud claustrophobic streets on Phnom Pehn is a small place called the Lotus Centre. Surrounded by green and the sound of an insect orchestra stands beautiful buildings. Open spaces with Tiles and pillars were a french martial arts group were training and on top the bedrooms for those training to sleep. The meditation wall with its big red pillars, like a magical band stand with a white clean ground floor and a wooden upstairs with a flurry of colourful mediation cushions scattered around. This place was the first real calm I have experienced since I arrived in Asia, the first time I have breathed air which isn't thick with engine exhausts and burning rubbish. A Huge Buddha stood by a pool of fish and frogs and lotus flowers could be spotted past the water. With a short Google search I found a Facebook page called Common Sole, who had put on Contact Improvisation events on in Phnom Penh recently. With no upcoming events listed I dropped them a message. Eric replied and we met for a coffee, spoke about theatre and dance and music and our shared love for moving and improvising. Eric is good friends with Bruno, the man who started the Lotus centre, so after a coffee we drove to Kandal and i had an afternoon exploring this amazing place. While Eric and Bruno discussed plans in French, I sat there for a while noting how many french people there are in Cambodia and regretting for a moment that I hadn't applied myself a little more in Mrs. Goodwin's class at School. Instead, I was granted the privilege of spending a breathtaking hour in the Meditation Hall. With the sound of insects, birds and frogs as my music I danced and I moved. I did what I love the most and improvised. On the way home, Eric and I started cooking up a plan to run a CI workshop there before I leave, ideas were flying and excitement starting bubbling as the idea of dancing in this amazing space quickly started to look like plausible possibility. If you are in Phnom Penh and interesting in movement, dancing, Improvisation or Contact improv please get in touch. Its the second week of teaching and now classes are two hours rather than one and the girls have finished there exams! This means we have more time to really get into it. A few things I have noted from today's class - The girls desire to keep on going over and over until its perfect is very apparent and is a wonderful attitude to have in the classroom. - Some of the girls decide to sit out, its difficult sometimes to tell the different between the girls who need to take some time out with the girls who are just playing up , something i still need to learn how to manage - Language barrier is a challenge, I am very grateful to have two budding translators in the class, which means that we can do more complicated and interesting things than just coping what I do. - A very loud round of applause is heard every time they perform together, they really seem to be building a group sense of achievement so quickly and its great to see. - Another challenge is that the space is very small, the girls are really aware of this and today made a suggestion to make it easier, my amazing problem solving, space aware dancers :) Yesterday I spoke with Stacey, the Director for Hope for Justice about where the final performance is going to take place at the end of this project. We have some very exciting ideas cooking so watch this space! Sovanna Phum Art Association Presents The Story of the Dog
On Saturday night I went to experience some of the traditional performance art that Phnom Pehn has to offer. The Sovannaphum Art Association have been running 1994 and put on performances for all audiences. The story of the Dog, hadn't been performed in 10 years and it was the first time that all the performers had used the wooden puppets. It was a beautiful display of the new and the old. The large traditional shadow puppets used in the Folk Tales, with the new wooden puppets, classical Khmer dance and beautiful physical theatre. The Theatre was an outside space with benches all cut to different heights to mimic rake seating perfectly. There were live musicians playing beautiful instruments I couldn't name the outside was decorated with more unused puppets. After the show, i got a sneak peak of back stage and had a go with the beautiful shadow puppets which are made out of leather and the shapes are cut out. Beautiful experience :) In Khmer classical dang there are so 5400 different gestures which all have different meanings. That in my tutor taught me the 8 basic gestures which represent the life cycle of a flower. It's like a more painful and more beautiful version of sign language, where fingers are contorted beyond there natural range of moment to create abstract shapes of flowers, fruits and seeds. . All the movements are so alien and awkward to me, and the attention to detail is incredible. From every finger to wrist twist. My tutor is a student of the dance academy at Cambodian Living Arts, an organisation who have a commitment to transforming and developing Cambodia through all arts. An organisation I hope to speak more about later on. This classical Khmer dance that I am learning has an incredible history of survival and resistance through the Pol Pot years of 1975-79. 'If you want to eliminate values from past societies you have to eliminate the artists. Because artists are influential. Artists speak to the people' (Don't think I've forgotten 2014) The Khmer Rouge understood the power of art, which is why only 10% of all artists survived the Khmer Rouge Regime. They would use dancers as propagandist for manual labor, the dancers all wore black, there was no emotion, no expression. This was the only dance which existed during this bleak, dark time. after 1979 a small group of dancers came together to bring there dance back to life. With 90% of there peers perished and with little or no archived documentation, photographs , manuscripts, video footage, they relied only on memory to Rediscover is ancient tradition. This is why I was so eager to learn some of this dance. A dance with such a history of strength and resilience, a true testament to the power of arts. There is a problem however with the value that Cambodia not people put on traditional art,that anything which is new or modern or contemporary, is seen as a threat to Cambodian values. After a time of such fear where everything was stripped away from the people, their individuality, their right to expression, their rights to their traditions, these values are treasured more than ever before. But is this high value which is placed on classical tradition stifling and hindering artistic and social development of Cambodia? At Hope for Justice I am teaching the girls contemporary dance and exposing them to a new way of moving and performing. It's very exciting. A time-lapse video of my first Khmer Dance Class at Cambodian Living Arts Saturday 7th August
Sources: Cambodian Living Arts http://www.cambodianlivingarts.org/, 2016 Questions of Practice The dancer and Cambodian History by Toni Shapiro-Phim The Phew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2007 Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll, John Pirozzi Documentary 2014 EXPLORING THE CITY: AEROPLANES, BANGKOK, KHMER LESSONS, HISTORY, NEW ART, CLASSROOMS AND POOLSIDES8/4/2016 On Tuesday and Wednesday I taught the first two classes at Shine School. The school is split into two classes, group 1 and group 2. Group 1 are the younger ones and have been here for a shorter time. For a lot of them there English is not as advanced, they are more hyper and more likely to act out. Group 2 are generally older and have been in the school for longer.
I started the class with an introduction circle where each person says there name and does a movement. This is mainly so I can remember everyone’s name! Warms up included, jumps and runs, and cartwheels. The girls all do Yoga every week, so when the warm ups included Yoga stretches that was a great link that all the girls could relate too. I’m a new teacher, with a new accent and teaching a dance style they have never seen before so all hesitations are allowed. The language barrier is difficult, and my one Khmer class I took on Sunday somehow isn’t sufficient to teach a full dance class and I have been amazed at how much language I am used to using. Challenging myself to explain things without using language is one that is very interesting. After my first class with group 2, some of the girls were practicing the movements in the corridor and correcting each other. It was so great to see them really engaging with it, and had obviously really enjoyed it too. The staff are really exciting to see what will come of this project. And I am so exciting to see the quieter students coming out of their shells, and I can’t wait to see how much I am going to learn and develop, as my teaching skills get pushed to new lengths Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. The Capital City. A crazy city. A city of fizzy pop shops on a side car of a motorbike, houses and shops that spill out onto the street selling eggs and noodles and wicker chairs. A city of silent beggars. Its a city for the young, the old are few and broken. Its a city of contrast. The Aeon Mall, a clean white western confusion of designer shops and fast food restaurants. Its a city for the travelers and volunteers of Non-Government Organisations. Its a city of corruption and police bribes. Its a city of fear, fear of the rich, fear of the Police, fear of the government. Its a city with a recent dark history, one which you can see in the faces of the old. Its a city of cheap beer and parties and food and Tuk Tuk rides.
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Caroline RowlandI am a dance artist from Leicester who is teaching dance in Cambodia with Girls who are survivors of sex trafficking and with young disabled Khmer people ArchivesCategories |