Le panier percé
Ayai Theatre - Ayai Roeurng
Company Nhem Borin, Cambodge
Director: Chen Neak
Thursday 7 October, 7.00pm
English subtitles
This play is about a poor fisherman who is married to a spendthrift wife. So he decides to change wife...
Ayai roeung is an improvised folk musical theatre based on ayai song, a form of alternating duet singing between a male and female singer. Resembling a call and response folk chant, ayai songs are largely improvised with simple dance movements.
"Khmer poetry is both a performance discipline and a precious form of Cambodian literature. There are 53 forms of Khmer poetry, each of which can be recited in as many as 60 different ways." From "Rehabilitation of Cambodian Performing Arts", final project report, UNESCO Cambodia, March 2002.
For a PDF, search at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/
Ref. Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Cambodia, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Cambodia and UNESCO, 2004
Here is a sound sample from early on in the performance. Three minutes fifteen seconds of heavily compressed sound.