Royal Ballet of Cambodia – Metamorphosis, A Tribute to Auguste Rodin
The Royal Ballet of Cambodia
Royal ballet or court theatre is a sacred art that has its roots in the mists of time. No one knows exactly when or how the art of dance and music from India arrived in Cambodia. Obeying the Indian canons of "total theatre", the Royal Ballet of Cambodia is an extremely refined art form, a total theatre in the sense that it invokes all artistic forms, song, dance, music, poetry, literature, drawing, embroidery, goldsmithing. Unlike Western theatre, the characters do not speak but expresses their feelings or actions through dance gestures (kbach) underlined and specified by songs and melodies.
Directed by HRH Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, the Ballet have been inscribed in 2003 on the Unesco's list of the Oral and Intangible Culture Heritage of Humanity.
An exceptional meeting
"I looked at them in ecstasy....When they left, I was in the shade and cold, I thought they took away the beauty of the world." - Auguste Rodin
Translating the energy and expression of the bodies is at the heart of Auguste Rodin's research. In July 1906, he attended the first performance of the royal dancers at the Théâtre du Pré Catelan in Paris. He then receives as a revelation the universality of the movements of this dance however unknown. He begins a first series of drawings, but the dancers are expected in Marseille for the Colonial Exhibition. He leaves everything to follow them. In one week, he makes about one hundred and fifty drawings, transcribing or interpreting the ballet poses and the dancers' movements. These drawings, later water-coloured with his own colors, are of a rare refinement.
A Tribute
"These Cambodian women have given us all that the Antique can contain, their Antique, which is worth ours [...]. It is impossible to see human nature brought to this perfection. It's just them and the Greeks." - Auguste Rodin
The story of Psyche and Cupid inspired Rodin, as evidenced by the numerous plaster casts, sculptures and also drawings on which this mention appears. During the exhibitions at Bernheim in 1907 in Vienna and Leipzig in 1908, Rodin mixed many of the drawings of Cambodian dancers with those of Psyche, juxtaposing modesty and sensuality, and pursuing in this a graphic synthesis beyond beauty.
"This fusion has graces," he wrote.
He later had an ambitions project for a fresco representing Paradise. Rodin wanted to integrate paintings of Cambodian dancers around the Gate of Hell in a dazzling ether of light. Envisaged for a time in the chapel of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, this project never happened.
In a tribute to Auguste Rodin, the Royal Ballet of Cambodia lends itself to the game of metamorphosis by proposing an adaption of the myth of Psyche and Cupid through the history of the Princess Vaddhana Devi and the god Samidha. To be faithful to Rodin's time, the piece borrows from the style of yesteryear the gestures, the costumes and the white make-up which covers the body of the ballerinas.
It ends with a final piece, in which three dancers from the Royal Ballet give magically body and life to the master's watercolors by taking up the poses of their elders, like angels from Paradise in front of the Gate fo Hell.
Suppya-Hélène Nut and Jean-Hervé Vidal
Synopsis
Metamorphosis
Vaddhana Devi and Samiddha - an adaption of the story of Psyche and Cupid
Princess Vaddhana Devi: Psyche
The god Samiddha/the golden man: Cupid
The godess Raki: Venus
The Kennori: Zephyr
The god Indra: Jupiter
Princess Vaddhana Devi is known for her perfect beauty.
The godess Raki, fiercely jealous of her, orders that Vaddhana Devi be offered to the monstrous Sambali, king of the Garudas.
Raki gives her son, the god Samiddha, the mission to shoot an arrow of love at Vaddhana Devi so that she falls in love with Sambali.
As Samiddha points her arrow at Vaddhana Devi, she lets her beautiful face be seen. The god instantly falls i love with her. Samiddha then transformed into a "golden man" and fought Sambali until victory.
The Kennori, half birds, half women, take the princess to Samiddha's magnificent palace, who under the guise of the golden man, declares his love to her and seduces her. He tells her that he would disappear if she discovered his face.
The princess' sisters, jealous of so much wealth, convinced her to kill the golden man on the pretext that he was a demon.
Approaching to kill him, the princess discovered that he had the face of the most beautiful god. Surprised, she lets a drop of wax run down Samiddha's neck: he wakes up and runs away.
The princess goes in search of the god.
The godess Raki then appears to her and succeeds in gaining her trust by giving her a magic box which, according to her, will help her to find Samiddha. However, she forbids her to open it.
Curious, the princess opned the box and fell into a deep sleep. Samiddha wakes her up by pouring sacred watr on her face.
In the paradise of the gods, the union of the princess and Samiddha is celebrated. She becomes immortal.
Their child is blessed by the god Indra.
[from the Abu Dhabi program, December 2018.]