Description
In Person: Sophiline Cheam, choreographer; Toni Shapiro-Phim, cultural anthropologist and dance ethnologist.
Watch the trailer
This documentary frames the long reach and heavy weight of history through the multigenerational lineage of classical Cambodian dance.
Chea Samy, a star dancer at the Cambodian royal court, lovingly raises her husband’s little brother as her own son, who she later discovers has become the Khmer Rouge’s violent leader, Pol Pot. As one of the only dancers to survive the regime’s brutal genocide, Samy returns to Phnom Penh determined to preserve the knowledge of traditional dance. One of her first pupils, Sophiline Cheam, continues to bear this lineage by teaching and choreographing historically relevant, site-specific dances for a classical Cambodian dance ensemble.
Archival and contemporary footage trace the transformative resilience of these culture-bearers as they channel embodied memory toward historical redemption. Description courtesy of the San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
(Dir.: Enrique Sánchez Lansch, Germany, 2023, 90 min., DCP, English and Khmer with English subtitles)
Bank of America is the Founding Sponsor of the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art “IlluminAsia” Arts and Culture Festival.
Image courtesy of New Docs
Cost
Free. Register in advance (recommended)
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Accessibility & Accommodations
Assisted listening devices, Captioning, Wheelchair accessible
