Forcing hands: Decisions, decisions, decisions

Obviously I haven't blogged in months, probably years. I'm not sure I'm starting now, but I wanted to put into words some thoughts.

After three years in Cambodia, I moved to Seoul, South Korea, last week. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, and going through with it cost me more courage than I knew I had. I left behind a house, a moto, good work, a very strong community, and one of the loves of my life, for nothing certain whatsoever -- just the promise of becoming a better artist, a better choreographer, a better person.

The impact of the decision is still shaking the ground beneath my feet -- and how could it not? But I've started to understand something.

Humans don't like change. The less we change, the better. It's a fundamental aspect of our egos, formed from a very, very young age. Change is uncertain, not changing is safe. As long as we don't have to change, most of us don't. We like playing by rules we know.

I could have stayed in Cambodia. It would have been more than easy. But I didn't, because I knew I needed to be challenged. I needed to shake things up. I needed to change the game. If I am going to build my life into what I want, I can't just stay and let life live itself.

No one is an island. We are all connected to each other, in ways we can't even begin to comprehend. And once we actually make a decision -- once we shake things up -- we force the hand of the people and the world around us. People like to hold onto their cards, but if we play a card, they have to as well.

I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I know that in making this decision, I've forced the game to move. The game of my life, the game of the lives around me. How everyone else plays is not up to me, what cards they play is not up to me.

But sometimes we need to do this. We need to storm back into the room of our lives and turn over all the tables, throw the drinks, shoot off some fireworks, send everything flying. And then we can build our new game, with our new rules. And that's when we grow, that's when we learn, that's when we find ourselves in places we could never have dreamed of.

Make decisions.

And then, even if your knees are shaking and your knees are weak, go through with it.

That's being alive. That's making the choice to live, and not just survive. However much it hurts sometimes, I'll make it every time.

Love just gets in the way: Sometimes truth isn't true

About four years ago, I was talking to someone in France and telling him all about my plans for life (which no doubt resemble nothing of what I currently think about it). He was very enthusiastic and supportive, but near the end of the conversation, he said something I haven't been able to shake since.

He said, I had the passion and the drive to do everything, but he could see one thing that would stop me: falling in love, and having my heart broken.

In the years since, this has somehow become Truth for me. Love gets in the way, love derails dreams. Just don't fall in love, and you're fine.

It's a view that falls nicely into the Modern World, Modern Woman that's gotten all over everything. Whoever you are, if you are not succeeding or going forward with your career at every moment, then you are going backwards. While it's not all feminists saying so, the connotations of the "you don't need a man" sometimes careen into "you shouldn't need anyone."

There is nothing wrong with succeeding or going forward with your career. But life is more than work. There are angles and corners that need attention too.

I've had to rewrite each sentence here more than once because I keep second-guessing myself and thinking, well that's not a bad thing, but the fact of the matter is, whether or not I should have or not, I fell in love. And ever since, that guy from France has been chattering in my ear, full of dire warnings and fear, and I'm getting totally sick of it.

So I'm letting it go. I don't want that Truth anymore. Life is never a set of rules, a follow-this-and-you'll-get-this, and I'm pretty sure that love doesn't derail dreams, it is the stuff of dreams. I will always be me, and always go forward with what I love and what I want from life.

I was about to launch into a big, rational argument for why this is okay and why I'll still be -- but you know what, never mind.

I'm just going to say this: Truth is not always true, life is very big, and love is an amazing thing.

And leave it at that.

"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. 

Introducing The Book of Noah

What in the world is The Book of Noah?

Well, if you believe wikipedia, it's a "non-extant Old Testament pseudepigraphal work, attributed to Noah. It is quoted in several places in another pseudepigraphal work, 1 Enoch, as well as mentioned in another, Jubilees. There have also been fragments...in the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Thanks, Wikipedia. 

The Book of Noah I want to introduce you to is not a pseudo-anything. It is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel, which is now widely available in ebook form. It takes place both in the near future and five hundred years from now, telling the parallel stories of U.S. Attorney General Chris Cordwainer during World War III, and Noah, the young High Priest-in-training of the Church of Noah, when the “war to end all wars” and its aftermath have radically transformed the country. 

It started out as a story. For most of our preteen to teenage years, my sister Hilary and I used to tell stories every single night for hours at a time. We took our favorite public personas and invented new lives for them, added in characters, built entire worlds of our own making. There were many fabulous stories along the way, but this particular one was told across the end of 2006 and through the first half of 2007. 

Sometime in fall 2008, I was spending a weekend in Bronxville, NY, with Hilary -- she was a senior at Sarah Lawrence College and I was a freshman at Columbia University. I happened to think back on that story and realized that, seen from a certain light, it could be a post-modern Christ story. 

Right about that time, the main character of the future storyline, Noah, marched into my head and introduced himself. 

So I started sketching out his story, and when Hilary asked what I was working on, I told her, and the rest of the weekend went to pot as we hammered out storylines, character sketches, and major plot points. I went away and wrote a 50-60 page detailed outline, which Hilary did her magic on and turned into a proper draft. We sent it back and forth furiously, editing and cross-commenting and trying to find the neutral ground between our significantly different philosophical viewpoints, something that very much came into play in the story. 

When we finally thought we had something, some two years later (spring 2011), we gave it to our dad to read, with great pride. He came back with some kind but very thorough critique. Disappointed, we shelved the project for a few months. But we were unwilling to let it go; it meant too much to both of us, in many ways a personal manifesto for dealing with a crazy, uncertain world. So that fall, we came back to it and dealt with the critiques, reshaping and restructuring the story. It went through several more rounds of edits, until it approached the version you can buy today on Smashwords.com. 

We did think about approaching publishers, but after the nightmarish scenarios Hilary went through trying to get her (amazingly fantastic) historical fiction novels published -- seven months to just hear if the publisher would read it, backlog, editors loving it but never following up, etc - we decided to just go ahead and release it ourselves through the Smashwords platform.

Today's date - Election Day, November 4, 2014, was chosen very deliberately. I think you'll understand when you read it.

So without further ado, let me present The Book of Noah, by Hilary and Gillian Rhodes.

Now available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487258 .

Buy, read, share, love, and be inspired!!!!

Did anyone else notice that?: Watching kids' movies

The other day I watched How To Train Your Dragon 2. I’d watched and enjoyed the first one and thought it would be a fun little diversion for the evening.

It started out promising and fun. But sometime in the middle, right about when the villain was introduced, I got a little uneasy. He was your pretty stereotypical villain, nothing much new – he did his thing through intimidation and an iron fist, he wasn’t all that smart, he couldn’t be reasoned with. Your basic villain trope, in other words.

But as the movie continued, I got more and more uncomfortable. The climax of the story made me cringe, even though it was standard issue – the villain can’t be redeemed, the hero vanquishes him, etc. By the ending monologue, I was even angry.

Have you figured it out yet?

The villain was the only dark-skinned person in the midst of fair-skinned vikings. He was dreadlocked and scarred. And he fit, to a T, the ugliest archetype we have in the West for the “Terrorists.”

When I went to the internet to find out if anyone else had noticed this, I found some very interesting things. The first was that hardly any, if any at all, of the critics, mentioned it. Not even the fact that he was the only dark-skinned person. Crickets. They all loved the movie and its “emotional resonance” (are you kidding me? A kids’ movie where the father DIES in the middle of it is great because of its “emotional resonance”???).

All right. Instead I googled “How to train your dragon 2 racist,” and discovered a few fringe tumblr pages. And then I made the mistake of looking in the comments.

According to most people, Drago Bludvist is eastern European, and therefore he is Caucasian, and therefore the movie is not racist. In fact, the entire discussion seemed to be centered around whether or not he was supposed to be black. Nobody was talking about the terrorist parallel. 

I can’t be the only one to see this, or be disturbed by it, right? The rhetoric isn’t new, by any means – it is, in fact, to cop an idea from my brilliant sister, straight from the Crusades. The “Other” is unreasonable and terrible; nothing they do is redeemable. “They” use intimidation and force, “We” use reason and peace-making tactics. It is only in defense that we fight, and of course “We” will win.

The ending monologue sums up this archetype in all its terrifying bigotry: “Those who attacked us, are relentless and crazy, but those who stopped them, oh, even more so! We may be small in numbers, but we stand for something bigger than anything the world can pin against us. We are the voice of peace, and bit by bit, we will change this world.”

Do you see it? It sounds great, doesn’t it? The hero wins, the villain is gone. We are the peacekeepers, we stand for something bigger (“City on a hill,” anyone?). It is the Manifest Destiny rhetoric in its very essence. Imperialism is A-OK because we are the ones who stand for something. 

Am I overreacting? I don’t know. I doubt the filmmakers did this on purpose, but what’s really disturbing about it to me is how ingrained this rhetoric is that it’s turning up so undisguised in a kids’ movie.

More than that, I found that the choice to make Drago Bludvist whatever he was supposed to be, black, Arab, eastern-European, but in any case very clearly darker than all the others, and portray him in the way they did, was far too easy and made the movie seem, to me, like downright propaganda for justifying the next Crusade.

So I have to ask not, am I overreacting, but do we really want our kids growing up on this stuff? And does it have to be so ingrained that hardly anybody bats an eyelash at how blatantly racist it is? 

There's got to be another way. I'm convinced of it. Just because this is the way it's always be done doesn't mean it's the way it needs to be. 

The glitz, glamour, and flourescent lights

Cambodia is poor, you say?

It is. This is true. But there are also people here who are rich, filthy rich, with Lexus cars and slick iPhones (often more than one), throwing down hundreds on bottles of whiskey at ritzy nightclubs. I don't know where they get their money. Corruption money? Business? I couldn't tell you.

I'm not entirely sure if the glitz and glamour people -- such as the stars who come through CTN - are filthy rich. I do know they are all dripping with fancy electronics, stylists and entourages following them around with the latest (mostly Korean) fashions, carefully painted faces. The image is everything.

The world of glitz and glamour in Cambodia (and of course it's not exclusive to here, it's just where I've experienced it) lives apart. It has its own places, attitudes, fashions, crowds. I kind of flit in and out of it, with my job at CTN and the people I've met. Case in point -- this past weekend, I was asked to perform at the launch party for the 100th issue of Ladies Magazine, apparently the number one lifestyle magazine around.

The event took place in the "Fashion TV Lounge," in Naga World, the only casino. The Casino itself is glitzy, but the lounge is even sleeker, all mirrors and colored lights, TV screens and modern white tables. A host of girls in Little Black Dresses ferrying  bottles of vodka around. This:

Walking in, there was a stop for the paparazzi, flashing lights, the backdrop with all the sponsor names (and mine, for that matter -- the gig was free, the publicity was my payment). People arrived fashionably late (an hour and a half or so), boys in bedazzled blazers with no shirt underneath and enough hair gel to hold up the leaning tower of Pisa, girls in sky-high heels and fancy dresses, everyone walking in with their eyes swiveling to see who's there.

Honestly? The whole charade leaves me a little cold. It has for awhile, at CTN, watching the stars strut in and primp and fuss, then go lip-sync or, sometimes even worse, actually "sing." The dance groups do the same thing, the boys spending far more time on their outfits and makeup than warming up or, probably, rehearsing.

I think it's because I can't help but feeling that the whole thing is just a cover, a pretend world of silver and gold. It's like this: when it was time to warm up, I was led past the gilded toilet doors to the staff only door, and inside, it looks like this:

Here, the illusion is shattered. The lights are harsh, the tile stark. The girls limp and mutter about their feet as they go off for more alcohol. As they step through the door with now-full shot glasses, they change. They smile. Nobody knows their feet hurt.

Like me. I didn't really want to be there. I was tired, a little sick, extraordinarily stiff due to the return to ballet after a summer off, and chiefly concerned with returning home to finish my book. But I am a professional. So I did my makeup, stretched my aching muscles, and then stepped onstage and danced like there was no tomorrow. No one knew the difference.

I think that's what I mean about the glitz and the glamour leaving me cold, because as far as I can tell, it's a world meant to cover and hide blemishes, where image is all important, and if it cracks for one minute, you're lost. I don't mind playing dress up, playing in the spotlight, sure. But I want to know what's beyond the mirrors and pancake makeup, what matters at the end of the day if all the prettiness and money vanishes.

Who are you, when you leave the glitz behind, and step into the flourescent lights.

Out of budget: Working with Cambodian dancers

Disclaimer: The following is reflective of my reality and does not necessarily apply to all Cambodian contemporary dancers.

I've noticed something recently. Actually, I noticed it at the end of last year, but have only been able to articulate it recently.

When I was in Malaysia for the festival, I was talking with the choreographer of the Korean group and asking him how he got started. He said that he had just gathered a group of friends to start training every day, and then found a producer along the way to hunt for gigs, and now whenever they perform, he pays the dancers. Otherwise, he doesn't. He said, "why don't you do that in Cambodia?"

The thing is, according to my experience, such a thing would be completely impossible in Cambodia, as I have yet to meet a dancer who will voluntarily go through training/rehearsals without a firm guarantee of a performance or payment. They might agree to something in theory -- such as my dancers did in the fall before our performance in October -- but in reality their commitment to such a thing is very minimal and I always felt like I spent more energy getting dancers into the studio than actually creating.

Don't get me wrong: as an artist, I absolutely agree that art should be valued and that the idea that artists love what they do so there's no need to pay them is both disturbing and dangerous.

However, I also believe that being an artist also includes a practice of training and self-development, a practice of questioning oneself and abilities. You can't just slap the title of "Dancer" on yourself and leave it at that -- there is always more to learn, always room to improve. The second I decide that I'm a good choreographer and that's that, I stop learning -- and I stop being an artist.

It feels to me as though the Cambodian contemporary dancers have looked out to other countries and seen artists being paid, and as such are demanding the same (which is perfectly legitimate by the way), but have missed the other side of the coin -- the endless hours of doing things for free, or paying to do them, to become better artists and dancers.

For example: my dance partner and student, Dara, recently told me that he would not join the festival in Malaysia in November (a very big festival with lots of groups and fantastic exposure) for less than $200. I had already offered 50-100 and all expenses paid.  His reasoning was that it was his second time. There was no thought in his head -- at least, as far as I can tell -- about what he might gain from the festival. Only the money. Regardless of the fact that 99% of the dancers in Sibu -- and probably that again for the next one in November -- have several years worth of training on him.

Yes, I'm angry about it -- I'm trying desperately to be reasonable about it, and questioning if I'm the one being ridiculous here. But Dara was really the last dancer here I really wanted to work with, and I'm out of options.  I am a young choreographer -- it's going to be a while before people pay me enough so I can pay dancers at the rates Dara is asking. The dancers here are out of my budget, and the disinterest in experience and professional development is the chief factor in making me want to leave. Even Cambodian Living Arts, which remains one of the coolest organizations I've ever worked for, recently nixed an idea for a second choreographic development workshop because of the "lack of hard skills" offered in the workshop goals.

Yes -- I want to leave. There is nobody left I can afford to work with, and I know that there are many other places full of dancers who are hungry to learn, hungry to gain experience, and willing to board a train without seeing the destination. Those are the people I want to find -- not the people who simply hold out their hands and say, "Okay, but how much are you paying?"

I'm not getting on a plane tomorrow. But my focus has shifted, and over the course of the next six months or more, I will be looking to move onto a place where I can grow as an artist, surrounded by other people with the same vision. At this point, I don't see it in Phnom Penh.

America and Unpopular Opinions

I don't often like to post on politics, especially American. But I was thinking about this subject the other day and especially since a friend asked me for my thoughts on America now that I've lived abroad for close to two years. My thoughts change and evolve and will continue to do so, and I feel like I always need to make a distinction between America The Country and the America I knew growing up, that the Grand Culture is not necessarily life and people on a daily basis.

It's also true, however, that America The Country cannot be ignored, and in light of recent events, I want to post this -- two honest, and probably unpopular, opinions that I'm still hesitating if I want to publish or not.

There was another mass shooting the other day. The shooter was young, disturbed. All three of his automatic guns were purchased legally. In the aftermath, people act surprised that it's happened again, this thing that has become a cultural archetype and occurs regularly, every few months or so. The media gleefully portrays the grieving families, does exposés on the shooter, his parents, his life. He becomes famous. His writings are published. People cry that this must be the last time.

It won't be the last time.

The NRA will push for more guns. Legally concealed weapons. People will shout that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The issue might reach Congress, but the politicians will hem and haw, occasionally take a strong stance, but back off when their campaign funding runs low when half their constituents disagree and gun rights groups void their checks.

Sound and fury. Nothing will change. Take away our guns, people will say, and you might as well open our borders, pull back the military. We Will Not Be Safe.

Cambodia is a crazy country. But I confess to feeling safer here than I do in the States. The culture of gun rights, which has fabricated an entire cultural archetype of mass shootings, makes me sick.

That brings me to another very unpopular opinion, and one which I actually do hesitate to bring up here or anywhere. That's on the subject of the military, and this pervasive glorification of military might that is rampant across America. Criticize Washington all you like, but the moment you open your mouth against the military, best watch out.

I have no doubt that the soldiers serving in the military are, for the most part, respectable and courageous individuals. I just question the fundamental reason why America needs such an enormous military. I used to hear people say, all over, thank you to the brave men and women out there keeping us safe.

I don't know what the military all over the world does on a daily basis. I don't know what would happen if they weren't there. I don't personally think that life as we know it would collapse and the next world war would start post-haste, but I don't know that.

But what I want is for someone -- honestly and without the blinders of pride and glory -- to explain to me Why. Why having an enormous military all over the world and playing protectorate in countries in an attempt to make them mini-Americas and unanimously and unquestioningly supporting whatever they do actually keeps me safe on a daily basis.

Sometimes I look at America and I do see the land of opportunity. Rarely these days, and at the moment, all I see is a nation run on money and arrogance, with military might, guns, and violence held up as the pillars of security and prosperity. I'm not even going to get into the education system and how it spits out millions of young graduates every year in huge holes of debt, already in over their heads.

Sure. That's not the whole truth of it. But it's reason enough for me choose, simply enough, to take my feet from those shores and settle my roots elsewhere.

Finding the path, and the dance

Today marks the end of seven weeks on the 100 days of dance project and the halfway point. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to post this there or here but decided on here -- the other place is just for the pictures. I wanted to write this, however, to talk about the interesting fact that the 100DOD project comes at a time in which I'm feeling less and less confident in the amount of dance actually happening here.

We are now in the fifth month of the year, inexplicably (where HAS this year gone, anyway?). In two short months, I will celebrate my two year anniversary of living here, a full year and a half longer than I originally planned. Clearly something has kept me here -- but that "something" continues and will most certainly continue to evolve.

One of the reasons that I originally decided to stay longer in Cambodia was because I felt like there were an incredible amount of opportunities in dance. Because contemporary dance is so new, I felt like there was huge opportunity for me to do some very cool things, things I wouldn't get the chance to do elsewhere.

That is all true, and remains true to this day. I choreograph for national television on a weekly basis and have had the opportunity to choreograph and perform for numerous occasions. That in itself is huge.

However, I'm beginning to understand something: there isn't actually that much contemporary dance here, and very few trained dancers. The main power is Amrita and apart from that, there isn't much. Some of the Amrita dancers have their own small groups -- mostly with other Amrita dancers -- that perform in clubs or at other special events. Of the five dancers I was working with briefly last year, I realized that three of them were already established artists and were extraordinarily busy -- a mix of singing, classical dance, classical singing, their own contemporary groups, etc. Another was in the same boat, except in the hip hop/pop singer universe. As such, they were completely unreliable and managed to come to the absolute minimum of rehearsals required. It was only one -- Dara, who remains one of the most talented dancers I've seen to date -- who I was really able to work with.

Another reality -- and I don't think this is just Cambodia, but all over the world -- is that people talk a lot. Things seem more doable here because it's cheaper, but the fact remains that a great majority of the projects I was so excited for this year fell out from underneath my feet. People -- including me -- have big ideas, but then something happens or something comes up, and they just don't seem so doable anymore.

I can't deny, however, that Cambodia is growing ridiculously quickly (the amount this city changes on a daily basis gives me whiplash), and there are great opportunities. But it is interesting to me that in a year in which I feel much less certain about what I can do here is when this 100DOD project came to mind -- a project designed, in fact, to showcase the amount of dance.

Maybe in some ways I needed to remind myself.

I'm also not rushing for the airport. What's keeping me here is not necessarily the promise of fantastic opportunities, but the simple fact that Phnom Penh is home. Somehow and inexplicably, it is. It's chaotic and messy and completely corrupt and crazy, but it's comfortable (I don't know how that works either).

Instead of focusing on Cambodia, now, however, I'm looking out -- to international dance festivals in the region for the moment, maybe in the broader Asia region later. Whenever I get my showreel together I'll start trying to get some residencies or short term work with companies. But in the meantime, keep Cambodia as a base. A place to settle -- for now.

And as this 100 days of dance project has shown me...there's still plenty to do here.

#100DaysofDance -- go check it!

Right.

So something got into my head, and I decided to start this project, called #100daysofdance (v. Cambodia).

Basically it goes like this: I love dance, and I live in Cambodia. In fact, I live in Cambodia because of dance. So I decided to marry the two, and out came this idea to take one dancing picture a day, tell a short story about why I took it, who's in it, etc, and do this for 100 days.

I got so excited about it, I made a whole new blog to accommodate it: 100daysofdance.blogspot.com.

Check it out, share it, enjoy it! This blog will go dormant while this project is happening (more so than usual that is), but be sure to check back when the 100 days are up!

Cheers.

Beyond the Borders: Musings on the expatriate life

Across the world, for whatever reason, millions of people are living outside of their homeland, just as millions are living the same hometown in which they grew up, maybe the same as their parents, and their children.

People immigrate for all sorts of reasons: the promise of a better life, forced circumstances, a job, a family, the need for adventure, whatever it may be. Over Christmas, when I was in America, I found myself thinking about this phenomenon, which is so daily -- but really, it's interesting to me, why some people leave their own country for other shores. 

I was thinking about it for a number of reasons. The first is probably that it's been a year and a half now that I've lived in Cambodia. The second is that I knew that trip to the States would be the last in awhile -- the ticket is just too expensive and I can think of some other places to use extra money. Although I don't necessarily see a long-term future in Cambodia, it had become quite clear that I no longer have any interest in living in America. 

Of course, my beloved family is there, and I would spend time in Colorado for their sake -- but not to live. Living is different. 

So why did I leave? It's not the easiest question to answer because right now, I can say that, simply enough and for whatever reason, it's just not my country. It's not "home". It's familiar, but not home. But that's not why I left when I did -- I left and came to Cambodia because someone asked me to come here and teach. 

And so I did, and that's that. It's just that living abroad has agreed with me, and now I can put words to it. 

It's not always easy. I'm quite convinced that "cultural DNA" is a thing. I spent my childhood -- a very, very impressionable time -- in America. All of my cultural references, societal rules, history, background, etc, was programmed into me from birth to adolescence. In Cambodia, there are very few common "genes". It's the West, not the East, third world, not first, and those are just the big labels. 

As you can see from the progression of posts on this blog, sometimes I don't understand, sometimes I really have no clue why I'm here, sometimes I feel like an unwelcome and unneeded observer, sometimes I'm ready to pull all my savings from the bank, buy a one-way ticket to wherever I can afford, and flee. Some days it's just too far and my family is gone and I'm alone on the other side of the world.

And on the other side, sometimes everything is so rewarding, sometimes I'm accepted and welcomed more than I can believe, sometimes I just can't imagine leaving.

It's a choice I make, every day, and when things go wrong, I always make myself wait at least a couple days. Talk to a friend or two. Just keep living, day by day, and I never regret it.

Sometime last year, I was talking to another friend, who said that people like us who travel a lot and live elsewhere start to belong nowhere. It's true, in a sense. I no longer belong in America, but nor do I belong here. Even in France, the place where I've felt more at home more than anywhere else in the world, I don't belong fully.

But I look at it differently. Now, these days, I belong everywhere.

For me, that's enough. 

Gillian's Adventures in Wonderland

Some days I think -- stop the world, I want to get off! 

Except I don't, and I'd probably be bored.

My life in Cambodia has descended down the rabbit hole, and down there is a Wonderland -- but I do not mean in the sense of Disneyland. I mean, in the words of Alice herself, "Curiouser and curiouser." Things move in waves here, separated by periods of still water, but when they come they come like tsunamis.

This is abstract, because as usual I don't have the words to begin, wouldn't even know where to begin. I rarely write on this blog exactly what I'm doing or working on, and the backstory alone would take me longer than I care to spend. Writing is stupid anyway when life is so full, but with the waves of Wonderland literally driving me to distraction, I'll give it a go.

I'll try to put it as simply as possible: Somehow, some weeks ago, the world of fashion/film/glitz and glamour in Cambodia decided to notice I exist.

I couldn't say why and I'm not even going to pretend I had anything to do with it. A meeting here, a recommendation there, the collective unconscious suddenly getting the idea at the same time and transmitting it to several different people.

It's not substantial right now -- a few discussion, a few requests, a shoot here, the waffling possibility of a commercial and a movie dancing in the background. In fact, I'm quite convinced I shouldn't even be talking about it, because tomorrow everyone might get distracted by the next set of pretty lights and all these doors will slam, and I'll quietly go back about my business. If people say "you'll be famous," my first instinct is to be skeptical. Promises and prophecies are nothing until life makes them real, and only then.

Of course it's not just that, because that alone would be enough to deal with. CTN has opened another door for me which leads into a whole other house (I don't know what to say about that except that it involves branding my team and building it into "something"), and in the meantime I'm still attempting to pretend I'm a professional choreographer and trying to build something that looks like career in that regard.

It means -- to use yet another metaphor -- that I seem to be carrying three separate trees, all of which are growing like time-lapse videos and branching off in a million directions, while I am the gardener trying to water them, choose which branches to cut and which to keep, which to follow.

Enough metaphors -- but in the end they're the best I can do. To return to Wonderland, I find myself in a world somewhere beyond the looking glass where things are curious and lovely, mad and uncertain, and I'm not sure at all what of it really exists when the dreams all fade.

I suppose I'll just have to follow the White Rabbit to find out.

A random collection of thoughts for a Saturday morning

Because I can't think of anything else to blog about and because I sort of want to pretend like I still update and run a blog.

Actually, I'm just not finding words easily these days. My journal notebook is busy collecting dust and I haven't dared to write anything remotely poetic recently for lack of anything poetic to say. In short, all my usual methods of pulling crap out of my brain in order to clear it up have not been working so well. Maybe that's why I can't sleep properly right now, and my dreams are insane, night-long epics that vanish in the daylight.

Okay it's not that bad, really, but I have noticed it.

Anyway, so here are your Random Thoughts for a Saturday morning:

1: In English, you have six question words: Who, what, when, where, how, and why. And then you have these: Someone (who), somewhat, sometime (when), somewhere, and somehow, but there is no somewhy. Why is that??

2: Even my doodles aren't as crazy as usual. My brain, last night:

3: People ask me a lot what's the craziest thing I've seen on a motorbike in Cambodia. But you know, that's an old story -- 4 people, a baby, and a stock of something, or a pile of half-alive chickens hanging from their ankles, or an entire pig, or an enormous bundle of bamboo, or a few hundred cartons of instant noodles. Yes, everyone sees that. 

But the weirdest thing I've seen in Cambodia is a random carnival ride on the side of the National Road. It was one of those things that's like a carousel but the horses are actually suspended off the ground and kind of fly out to the side when it spins. It was literally just on the side of the road one night when I was driving to CTN, with a couple of people riding it -- and next to it was a smaller version, for the kids I guess. A couple weeks later, it was gone. 

But how does that happen??!!! Those things are big, they can't just fit on a motorcycle. Where the crap did it come from, how did it get there, and how did it go away so fast???? 

I don't understand. 

Ponder that on your Saturday, my friends. 

The phrase I want is, I don't know.

Yes. I know. I haven't blogged in two months. What happened is that I completely ran out of time. I worked all day every day for two and a half months, very barely held myself together, and then hopped on a plane to the other side of the world, where I spent three most excellent weeks with my family.

And then I flew for something like 25 straight hours, and I returned here.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The place that I found myself referring to as "home" while in Denver, Colorado. The place that populated my dreamscape for much of those three weeks, where projects and opportunities await. And the place that is currently just too far away, and full of confusion.

I'm fairly sure at this point that I don't want to live in America -- I'm a citizen, but it's not "my country;" however, it is where my beloved family is. I have skype, but skype does not compare to physical presence, and three weeks a year is a very short time to share.

But I am not there. I am here. I am here, where projects are falling down around my ears. I am here, with no real idea of where my career is leading me. I am here, where despite it all I feel so settled, and ever since my feet touched down last week, people all over the city have welcomed me back with staggering warmth. I am here, alone and independent, and my family is over 13000 kilometers away.

You could say it's confusing.

I'm inclined to think that I probably shouldn't even be talking for another two weeks -- the last time I left home, I spent ten days in Paris, which is a very happy place for me, and it still took a couple weeks to settle back into Cambodia.

Is the jet lag, the culture shock, the unsettled energy of the city, the shock of returning to work from vacation?

Most likely.

All I can say is that I've quite lost my way, but somehow I'm here and that's all I know.

(I'll try to get back to blogging, now that my life is not being devoured by work quite as much.)

Battambang and Khmer weddings: Another adventure

One of my Khmer friends from work asked me to present a contemporary dance duet at her wedding. She was having two -- one for her family in Battambang and one in Phnom Penh. I asked one of my students, Dara, to perform with me, and this week, we went to Battambang for the first edition. Thus follows is an account of the occasion. 

===

It starts in a bus station. Activity everywhere. There’s a window for tickets, and a window to send/receive goods, people sending things on buses because the post doesn’t actually work – though, really, this is the post. Where do you want it to go? The driver will drop it.

Every so often, a fine spray of cool water spouts from the ceiling like the fire extinguishing system in a museum, and people wait, for the bus or for their friends.

We (being me and one of my students, Dara) get on the bus. The drive is long and even longer for the fact that something in the bus breaks – I’m not sure what, but it causes the air conditioning and the karaoke videos to stop and the driver to drive with the main door open, slower than usual. I hear him on the phone and though I don’t understand, I know something’s wrong. Not good. I ask Dara to eavesdrop and translate for me. An arrival time of 6:30pm becomes 8:30pm.

Along the way we stop a couple times. Someone discovers I speak Khmer and reads the tattoo on my leg and suddenly I’m a celebrity and the ladies are asking for photos. I tell Dara, “Barang speak Khmer, everyone wants a picture.” Mostly, I spend the time reading, or eavesdropping on Dara’s endless phone conversations.

Dara and I on the bus. 

We get to Battambang, and find our way to a hotel, and then food. Dara spends the whole time on his iPhone. Oh well – he’s a teenager. I watch the girls run around and wonder when the food is coming.

Dara digilently on his phone. 

==

The next day starts at 5:45am. Dara and I, bleary eyed, try to get ready in time for our pickup at 6am from the hotel. An Uncle and Aunt of my friend are waiting to take us to the house, where a tent has already taken over the street and music is blaring. I’m led inside to change into the Khmer traditional clothes I’m being lent. My friend Leak is there, unable to turn her head, a competent gay guy confidently turning her into a goddess.

An Aunt has been assigned to keep me company. The guests are arriving, sitting in the row of chairs along the tent. The ladies group together, either bleary-eyed like me or looking, as wedding guests do, thrilled at themselves and their fancy outfits, all of them in brilliant colors. I can see the family resemblances across the faces. The older women are in special chairs, mostly in brown, calm and smiling. The men are at their own end, looking somewhat subdued in their plain colors, button up shirts and trousers.  

Me in my traditional clothes and the Aunt in charge of me. 

The wedding itself lasts over six hours. There are at least five or six different ceremonies, starting with the parade of gifts. The Aunt in charge of the Barang hands me a silver platter with a box of sweets on it, and everyone, some sixty strong – each with their own gold or silver platter with fruit or sweets – goes on a parade around the block, the musicians, the parents, and the groom in front.

My "gift."

The parade to start the ceremonies. 

No one is more beautiful than a woman on her wedding day and Leak is no exception. Over the course of the morning, she appears in at least six different outfits. Each ceremony – hair cutting, tying of bracelets, exchanging rings – is separated by a change of clothes. The guests mill about as any guests at a wedding, wondering how long the ceremony will take, except here there is food to eat, breakfast and lunch. The close relatives vanish into the room off the tent every so often to perform their duties of giving gifts or whatever it may be, then return and wait at the tables. The musicians sit to the side and play, not watching anything – but it doesn’t matter, because the MC has a microphone and the speakers are cranked.

The bride and groom and all the gifts. 

Beautiful Leak in outfit 3 or 4. 

The relatives are so kind, including me in the ceremonies, finding places for me to sit, and commenting on my outfits – I change once. They love that I’m wearing traditional clothes, and tell me I look beautiful. I’m the only barang around and everyone is curious, but very kind.

Dara vanishes sometime in the morning and after lunch the early morning is catching up. The mother of the bride sends me off with a different set of Aunt and Uncle and a packed lunch for Dara. He eats and I sleep, waking up a full hour later and thinking I only dropped off.

We – or that is, I do, and Dara decides to come with – decide to go off in search of coffee. I look up the main coffeehouse in Battambang and off we go. It’s very close – the city is small, and quiet. The buildings – at most three stories high – seem very short in comparison to Phnom Penh. I wonder where all the people are.

We run into someone we know – the guy who heads Krom, which Dara’s sisters are part of, and his daughter, and they join us for coffee. We spend a lovely time chatting.

A little bit and a walk to an ATM later, it’s time to go to the wedding reception. Yet another Aunt and Uncle come to pick us up. We are ushered to the artists room, where the same competent gay guys are hanging out. They want to know if I’m planning to do any more makeup. I say I don’t have any, and suddenly I’m ushered into a chair, and one starts painting my face like an artist. When he’s done, he starts on my hair, and some half hour later, the transformation is complete.

Getting my face painted. 

Ready to dance. 

Leak arrives in a rush and says there’s a problem with the music as she’s ushered into a new outfit, this one a long beautiful white dress. This prompts a rush of activity. Dara runs off to deal with the sound people, and when he gets back, we are asked if we can dance now. I ask for ten minutes to warm up, which is granted. The MC is given our names, I triple-check Leak actually wants me to say something, and then we are out the door.

The stage is tiny and we are way off the music, waiting for the end of the first song much longer than usual, so we improvise – Dara is right there with me, thank heavens. It’s not perfect, but the reviews are fantastic. The groom tells me that everyone stopped eating and paid attention when we danced, which makes me happy.

We eat and there’s dancing. The father of the bride gets roaringly drunk and starts feeding people shots of whiskey—including me, three times, the mother of the bride protecting me.

The party winds down around 9pm and an Uncle – I can’t remember if he’s the same or not – sends us back to the hotel. Dara decides to leave early so I give him the share of the generous gift Leak slipped me and send him on his way. Tomorrow the family wants to take me around Battambang, so I have to change my bus ticket in the morning to leave in the afternoon instead of the morning.

It was a crazy day, but testament to the work I’ve put in to make this place – in all of its uncertainty, frustration, and beauty – a part of me, and me a part of it. Here I am, in Battambang, part of a wedding, a family, on the outside and inside, doing what I love, with a good friend by my side. I would say, that’s a win. 

Why am I here?: The ups and downs of life in Cambodia

I suppose it would happen in any country, to anyone living anywhere, abroad or otherwise -- though perhaps especially for expatriates like me. Every few months, you start to wonder what you're doing here, because the things you think you want morph, the things you think you came for vanish, and in between there is a whole lot of gray to deal with.

It's not as though there are not opportunities in Cambodia -- in fact, there are so many that I'm working close to 50-60 hours per week between three jobs and my extra projects, which include a number of performances to dance in and create.

But it just doesn't look like I thought. Most of my recent frustration has come from my attempts to start "Pandaemonium Dance", which I had pictured as intense training and rehearsal with a number of dedicated dancers, building up to a variety of performances. I spent a long time worrying about the fact that I have no paid opportunities yet and not wanting to waste the dancers' time, and yet thinking they would be there to build the thing up with me.

Except, as artists do everywhere in the world, that's not the case. As the producer/creator, you are always the one who cares the most, and the others are there because it is one opportunity among many and they don't want to miss anything, so they do everything 50% instead of throwing 200% into one thing to build it and see it through.

What does that mean? It means that every week, some dancers are missing because they have other shows, other rehearsals. Saying they are free to rehearse at a certain time -- which they all did -- does not, I've discovered, mean they actually are. That time is not "blocked out" of the schedule as it is with mine, and if something else arrives, well, they try to do everything and if they can't, they say yes to the new one and send me text messages apologizing profusely for not coming.

That's all well and good, but they still aren't coming.

It's frustrating because of course I want it to be as essential to them as it is to me. When I say I'm doing something, I do, and come to every single rehearsal unless I absolutely cannot -- and if another thing comes up, I say I can't do it, I'm already working on something else.

But that is not the case with everyone and everywhere, and in the past few days, I've had to go back to that old question -- what do I want?

Every time in Cambodia when I think my mission is to "help" or to "teach" and that my knowledge is somehow invaluable or essential, I get lost and I have to realize that it is not. These artists are busy. They are good. And they will find their way -- or not -- regardless of what I do. I am not the Doctor or the Know-All, End-All.

It's a sobering thought, but the only way out is to go back to that simple question. What do I want out of being here? Why am I still here, a year and change down the road, and why shouldn't I just leave, as I consider doing every few months? If all these things I want, in life, love, career and etc, seem so very far away, where can I go to find them?

I actually still don't know the answer to those questions and probably never will, but I do know that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to leave this place yet, and I can't picture it.

So I'm having to go back to what there is and go from there, and follow my own heart, do things because I want to and not because I think someone else needs it. And be willing to let my vision of what it is I thought I was doing here to change. As an example, the past week I started judging for a Kpop dance contest on CTN, which is fabulously amusing, but that is not at all what I thought I was coming for -- a TV personality on Cambodian TV, WHAT??? But there it is, and it's fun, and though it is not the artsy fartsy production/creation I had in mind, it is here and happening, and I have to follow it.

Life is complicated, and so is this country, but for better or for worse, I am here, and learning by the day -- and maybe, in the end, that's the real and only reason to be here -- and maybe it's reason enough!

Home of the brave and the blowhards

When I was a little girl, the fourth of July was one of my favorite holidays. Of course I loved the fireworks, but I remember one year at a big party and fireworks show, and they sang "Proud to be an American." I put my hand over my heart and I cried, because I did feel proud.

Times have changed. I have grown up and lived over two years (11 months in France September 2010 - July 2011 and Cambodia since July 2012) abroad. I have watched the disastrous reign of Bush and partied in the streets when Obama was elected. I have read and ignored and generally pretended I know nothing of the country where I grew up and still holds my citizenship.

As I have mentioned, I do not much like politics, anywhere in the world, and especially these days. But I have to say that I have been utterly and completely disgusted by the recent political situation in America.

I knew it was a mess before, with the Republicans heading down a dangerous fundamentalist path and flatly refusing to negotiate anything that even so much as hints against their own agenda, and the liberals flatly refusing the same thing (though I tend to agree with the liberal agenda much more often than the Republicans, I have been quite dismayed by both party's complete unwillingness to even consider listening to each other.) I did not agree with Obama's hardline on Syria. I do not like the US foreign policy period.

Let me put it this way: that the Republicans have shut down the government because they didn't get their way is a disgrace to democracy.

But it's more than that.

This is personal.

I have watched my father struggle with the healthcare system over the course of and continuing over two serious accidents. I have heard of how my deathly ill sister was refused at a number of clinics because she had no insurance, and my financially struggling sister ready to spend 300 dollars out of pocket -- no small change -- simply to get someone to look at her.

My sister Darcy ended up in the hospital for two and a half months while my family struggled daily with social workers to figure out how to get her the care she needed.

And now, here we are. Maybe it is expensive, maybe the system will be flawed, but in Obamacare I saw an opportunity for me and my family - none of us with health insurance, no way to afford it, and all sorts of reasons why companies would deny us -- to get valuable coverage.

But because some blowhards have decided they disagree and are completely unwilling to negotiate or even consider that the system now may be broken -- and it is, I assure you, broken -- the government is shut down, and the whole country is suffering. I see no end in sight or even any sign that anybody would rather have a functioning government over getting their way.

No.

I am not proud to be an American. Not anymore, and not now.

Cambodia is going to be fine

The longer I stay in Cambodia, the more I understand about what it is to live here, especially in the energy. I believe whole-heartedly in ghosts, because energy is powerful. Walls, rocks, places, hold energies and history, and I think that at some times there is such a flash of energy that it remains -- perhaps why violent deaths sometimes result in ghost sightings and stories.

There is an energy in Cambodia, and I didn't really even understand that until a friend and I were talking about it. She was in Thailand for a week and said now she thinks it's important to get out of the country at least once every few months because the energy here is heavy.

She's right -- there is a heavy energy here. Going to Sihanoukville or the islands, while relaxing, doesn't cut it, because it's still Cambodia and it still carries the weight of the genocide.

At the immigration office we're working on a separated family case, and between the sisters who have grown up in America and the sister left in Cambodia (born some years before the Khmer Rouge), the difference in their faces and eyes are incredibly striking. The one in Cambodia has years and  years of care and worry and hard work etched into her face, very little education and far too much hurt for her time. Those in America have wide, lively eyes and smooth foreheads.

Sometimes it gets frustrating -- actually, a lot. Corruption has been built into this country's government from the beginning and it is so entrenched now that it's hard to see even the start of the path out. Poverty and corruption are institutions and it affects all daily life. With the recent political stalemates, it highlights the problem even more.

One of my friends said it best -- more often than not, instead of being the "Kingdom of Wonder", Cambodia is the "Kingdom of Wondering What The Hell is Going On."

And yet.

Today I went to go see the circus. If you believe the internet, there is no circus school in Phnom Penh, only in Battambang, but there is a circus, a program of the Royal University of Fine Arts. Circus apparently dates back to the Angkorian times as there are bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat showing people tightrope walking and juggling.

The maybe ten performers were aged somewhere between ten or twelve to maybe late teens or early twenties, all but two male, and they were good. They attacked their work with focus and determination, with all the panache, showboating, and theatricality required for circus. They were choreographed, decently rehearsed, and actually very impressive.

When I left, I had this thought: Cambodia is going to be fine. It's going to be fine because there is a whole younger generation of people who are passionate about what they do and willing to take the time to invest themselves in it.

My brain afterwards was trying to be a cynic about it, saying that the system is so skewed that all that optimism and passion could get squashed -- a very specific google search that finally admits the existence of the school is full of how it might get shut soon and how the artists are not sure if they can actually make a living doing this.

But I can never shake that feeling, whether with these young performers or other dancers and artists I've met. They are not sure, but they are passionate and willing -- so it seems at least -- to take the risk. When they talk afterwards their words are unsure, but when they are performing their eyes are on fire.

It is not now, and change is a very, very slow, ardous, and ugly process. My mind can think of a thousand ways for things to go wrong and very few for them to go right. The passion of youth to be stamped out by the status quo and the old entrenched institutions and all that.

But whatever my mind thinks, my heart sees these young artists and believes unshakeably that in their hands, Cambodia is going to be fine.

Violence is not the answer

There's been some crazy things going on in Phnom Penh. Demonstrations and protests against the total sham of free and fair elections have turned dangerous with police brutally dispersing, or unnecessarily blocking key arteries to keep people from going home, or, in the case last night, standing by as a number of masked thugs slingshot marbles and beat sticks on peaceful protesters.

I don't much like politics, and I don't really like talking about them. Any conversation descends into an us vs them dichotomy, thems is wrong and us is right. So I'm not going to say much more about it and won't spend on long this post either.

Today the new Cambodian "government" was sworn in, 68 seats of the ruling party with the opposition boycotting in protest of the unfair elections. The King was there and read some statement that mentioned none of the violence or the strange fact that half the seats remain painfully empty.

Even worse, a number of major countries -- including the US and France -- sent representatives to the farce of opening a democracy. The US Ambassador to Cambodia was there, smiling, putting a rubber stamp of approval on a government that uses corruption as a way of life and cares about power well before the needs or desires of its own people. Someone said on Twitter, and I couldn't agree more -- those who sent representatives today are a disgrace.

It's not just Cambodia, though. In my own country, the government is raring at the bit to start another war. The two parties refuse pointblank to have anything to do with each other, including discussions or, perish the thought, try some attempt at compromise. And in the meantime, America sickens -- and literally, considering the utter catastrophe of a healthcare system.

There is even a well-respected (by some) American institution with widespread membership whose explanation for the fact that thirteen people were shot in a military base is that "there weren't enough good guys with guns."

While here, armed thugs shoot people with marbles and beat them with sticks while the police passively look on, and in response to the incident, explain "they were trying to do something, but we stopped them, we didn't do anything wrong."

I will say this once, and I'm not going to change my mind: violence is not the answer. It was never the solution to begin with, and trying to stop violence with violence only perpetuates the bloody cycle. Any rhetoric, religious or political or otherwise, that ultimately leads and endorses a violent conclusion, is not the answer either.

Violence has become the rhetoric of everyday life. Hurt them before they hurt you. It's in our games, our media, our politics, our religions, and the result is a rotten fruit.

It is not the answer. Not then, not now, and will never be.

Protection from the overbearing west, or covering your eyes?: Why I'm teaching ballet here

There is an ongoing debate going on in Cambodia right now about arts and culture -- to evolve or to preserve. And on the side of evolve, there's another split as to how. They agree that it's okay to change and move forward, but as to how -- with what influences, etc -- is the question.

Essentially it all boils down to the question, how much of the west is too much? For the preservation side, any is too much, but even on the evolve side that can be true. The west has done enough. Cambodians should evolve from their own culture, and the west should stay in its own place. 

This week I found myself in the middle of this debate as a result of my decision to teach western dance history in a workshop at Cambodian Living Arts. I prefer not to say who the debate was with or how it came up, but the basic question was this: if we're encouraging contemporary Cambodian dance that is still based very much on Cambodian culture, then we should be careful about showing/exposing the dancers to too much western dance so they don't get a certain idea fixed in their head. 

Now here I have to say, I have no idea what the best way is, obviously. I have only what I think, and while I do feel pretty strongly about it, I can't say I'm right and end of discussion, as no doubt the truth is more complicated. 

But what I think is that there is nothing more important than education. There is nothing more important than being exposed to as many things as possible, ideas that challenge what you feel, what you think you believe. Personally, I've watched a lot of dance. I like maybe 10%, and I really love maybe 5%. But the more I watch, the more I understand what it is I respond to, the ideas I really appreciate. 

Now, if it were to be the sort of thing where someone comes in and says, "This is Martha Graham. This is what dance should be. The end," that would be a different story. But I can never say, this is what dance is, this is what it should be. Those ideas are constantly being challenged, and the most revered characters in dance history are those that broke the rules, that did things completely different from those that came before. 

Why is it that we westerners are allowed to steal from every other culture, and yet when it comes to Cambodians learning about the western forms, suddenly it's seen as the overbearing west? 

Isn't it true that looking at the western forms -- and any other cultural forms and dances -- that they might understand what makes Cambodian forms unique and special, and being able to really exploit those areas? 

Besides education -- learning history, context, seeing what ideas other choreographers are playing with -- what about teaching other techniques? This has been a different side of the debate in the past. I am planning, as part of my dancers' training, to teach basic ballet and basic contemporary techniques. I want to do this because I think there are certain tools of movement -- like strength, flexibility, and balance -- that ballet is really good at offering. Graham technique is excellent for core strength, another useful tool, and other techniques I've learned are really good for strengthening and learning to use the back, yet another useful tool. 

But in doing this, am I squashing the Cambodian side? Even if we never actually perform a lick of ballet onstage. Pilates might be okay, but ballet? Too western? Of course I don't know the answer to it, but I do believe that as a dancer, the more tools you have in your pocket to help you move in different ways and adjust to different styles or think of different ways to move, the better. What I know is ballet and contemporary and that's what I can teach. 

Does all of this make me a blind, overbearing westerner? 

I know that sounds like a sarcastic question, but I mean it honestly, and the answer is, I don't know. Maybe it does. But I just can't let go of the idea that it's important to know what's out there, what other people are doing and why, because I'm quite convinced that the more you understand the other, the more you understand yourself. 

It has to be done tactfully, in the sense of showing -- this is this choreographer, they were trying to do this -- and not lecturing. But there is no need to shelter these dancers. Let them look, let them learn, and let them decide for themselves what it means to be Cambodian. With the education behind them, it will be a much more informed decision. 

I don't know all the answers, but I just think that covering your eyes does not help you see.