#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!