"Oh, that'd be great for them": Things people don't need to say

When I was putting together the funds and logistics for the Tari festival in November, I heard something fairly often from my western friends:

"Wow, that'll be a great opportunity for your dancers!"

I get why people might say such a thing. I imagine that if the same situation had been taking place in New York with American dancers, I'd probably hear, "What a great opportunity for you!" instead. But from my perspective, it was a strange thing to hear: the three dancers I was working with were already very accomplished, well-traveled performers who have been dancing and performing professionally for multiple years. The "great opportunity" in my mind was for me, and I was just happy they'd agreed to be part of the project. 

You can of course argue that it's a great opportunity for everyone involved and I'd be likely to agree with you, but what I mean to call attention to here is the difference in how some people viewed it and talked about it. It's one of those cultural stereotypes we tend to carry with us, and worth it to point out. Because the dancers are Cambodian, people tend to assume they don't have great opportunities like that. While that's sometimes true, it's also just as often not true. 

It's one of the reasons that, when setting up my Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign, I tried really hard not to mention or at least not make a big deal out of the dancers' nationalities, instead focusing on the cross-genre creative process aspect. The project wasn't about getting Cambodian dancers to Malaysia, it was about putting together a production from a cool starting concept. 

The trip to Malaysia broadened all of our horizons, and we all learned and grew from it, me no more or less than them. 

It might be semantics, but worth having a think about.