This country defies expectations.
You think you've got it pinned, you gather what knowledge you have and assess and make some kind of general assumption or theory, and then it goes away like the roads in the rainy season.
I had never seen the group Phare Ponleu Selepak, nor knew that much about it except that it was a school that taught circus (apparently among other things) and based in Battambang. I knew it was French influenced, as the website is in French, and I had heard that the work they did was fabulous.
Therefore, when I bought tickets to their current traveling show in Phnom Penh, I was expecting something Cirque du Soleil-ish, slick and artistic and impressive, where the story functions as a link between the acts.
Naturally, I found nothing of the sort. A stage set up in the middle of a huge arena -- more like a large box with a curved tin roof smacked on top -- the lighting was iffy, the sound echoe-y, and filled with the questions and shouts of the restless small children, slowly reaching their tolerance of being able to sit still. The acrobats wore simple costumes. On the sides of the stage were easels with canvases and in addition there was a highwire set up, a rolling table, and a large number of cardboard boxes, which served as set pieces.
The circus itself was rough, though still impressive. Almost purely acrobatic (no aerial acts at all), the small troupe of about eight acrobats were clearly still young and clearly still learning. They were good, certainly, but unpolished, and in fact --
The show was not at all about the circus.
It followed the story of a girl, Sokha -- the only girl in the troupe, in fact -- going through the Khmer Rouge, fleeing to America, becoming part of that culture, but then returning to Cambodia to heal and teach. It began and ended with her as an old woman, hunched and bittersweet, surrounded by her students and still haunted by her memories.
The choreography was incredible, the acrobatics integrated perfectly into the story: one of the guys handbalanced in a skull mask as his fellows stumbled around the boxes in the background, showing the systematic executions; the prisoners stumbled across the high wire as they tried to make it to safety; later in America, the death character returned to prompt Sokha's nightmares, which led her into a contortion act.
The canvases turned out to set the scene, as they had an artist with them, and painted live as part of the story. During the Khmer Rouge period, he lit paintbombs, then threw red and yellow onto the canvas, and as the story went on, he painted a skull, hideous and leering.
It wasn't all so heavy -- the darkness was balanced perfectly by the moments of levity and joy. The acrobats hammed it up and laughed freely in the moments when all was well, and stumbled and shook as prisoners.
It was impossible to sit unmoved.
I confess that at the beginning, seeing that the acrobatics were just a small step above that at some of the circus camps I did, and the iffy lights, and the terrible venue (the audience was so far, as the stage was plopped in the middle of what seemed to be a basketball court), and the many restless small children (I can't imagine why they were there, as it was NOT a show for small children), I was skeptical, but it wasn't the circus that caught me.
By the end, it was all I could to not just start sobbing in the arena, not just during the Khmer Rouge scenes, but especially at the end, watching Sokha grow old and encourage her own students, watching them grow into confident acrobats but then still caring for her. It was not a sad story, but beautiful, and very well-presented.
I have a lot more to learn about this country, I think...
That sounds beautiful - especially with the artist creating the scene as the act went on. Very glad you had the opportunity to experience this. And is it not true that we don't need to learn so much about places that we venture, but that these places show us that we need to learn so much more about ourselves? Much love.
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