Dansez Roam, contemporary dance
"Belle" Chumvan Sodhachivy, "Hope of tomorrow"
Chey Chankethya, "The Mosquito net - The Statues and the cleaner"
Hang Borin, "Lonely - Lonely men"
2009, Chenla Theatre
French Cultural Centre, Cambodia
Dancers:
Chy Rothana, Preng Sokanrith, "Belle" Chumvan Sodhachivy, Chey Chankethya, Hang Borin, Khiev Sovannarith, Yim Savann, Phon Sopheap, Hem Linda. Phon Chanpisey, Noun Chhaylot, Noun Sovitou, Khon Chansethika Khon Chansina, Chhung Yivchhoy, Khan Boline
Light and Video: Victor Corolleur
Chumvan Sodhachivy (Belle) speaking about her 2009 piece, Hope of Tomorrow: "Whenever my mother (Nou Sondab) and I heard the call of a frog on one of our walks, she would turn to me and tell me how that sound reminded her of my brothers and sisters who had passed away or disappeared during the rule of Pol Pot. She lost 11 children during those years, most to starvation and disease; as for the others, they were taken away to do forced labor. She never saw them again nor learned of their fates. Her 12th child died after the Khmer Rouge had left power. I am her 13th and only surviving child.
She had spoken to me often of wanting to have a movie made of her life, acknowledging the fact that all Cambodians who survived the Khmer Rouge years suffered enormously, some more than she. Yet she still felt her story, with its physical brutality and the loss of so many children, might be an important one to tell.
With the limits of a stage and live audience – we couldn't use the technology one can in films to switch scenes – I felt that I could present perhaps only a small percentage of what I would have liked to in a dance work about my mother. However, with a background in both classical and contemporary dance, I was able to select episodes from her life history and present them to the world, and to my mother, as a gift."