Performance introduces Khmer salon series

By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer

LONG BEACH - On Thursday night the stage is bare, illuminated by a lone halogen spotlight as dancer Sothavy Khut and curator Prumsodun Ok go over preparations for her upcoming performance.

Khut sorts through the bracelets, anklets, headwear and clothing she will wear, while Ok wrestles with the light and Serey Pep adjusts the backdrop.

If all goes well, there will be magic tonight on the stage in the spare industrial space at 1364 Obispo Ave. that is home to the Khmer Arts Academy.

That's because, when a dancer performs the classical Cambodian Robum Tiyae, she attains a semidivine status as a medium between the material and physical world.

At least that's how Ok describes the solo performance Khut will give.

"It remains one of the most sacred works of the canon and according to Chheng Phon, a former dancer of the palace and Minister of Culture from 1980 to 1990, the audience in Robam Tiyae is not human but spiritual," Ok wrote about the work.

Tonight's performance will kick off a series of monthly events called the Khmer Arts Salon Series.

The series will consist of once-a-month performances intended as intimate lecture demonstrations by a diverse group of artists. The events, which are planned and funded to include 20 shows over the next two years, will spotlight Southeast and South Asian performance styles, ranging from classical Khmer dance and song to Balinese shadow puppetry to classical Indian music.
The series is the brainchild of Prumsodun Ok, an ebullient 21-year-old Long Beach native who is a self-described dancer, instructor, choreographer, curator, cultural activist and media artist/filmmaker.

He has studied traditional Cambodian dance with Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, founder of the Khmer Arts Academy, and Charya Burt, an internationally renowned Khmer dancer in Northern California.

He is currently teaching at the Khmer Arts Academy. He came up with the idea of the salon series and pitched it to John Shapiro, husband to Sophiline, who had been wanting to take on such a project and helped get funding for the series.

Khut, 28, is a dancer with the Shapiros' Khmer Arts Ensemble based in the Takmao District of Cambodia near Phnom Penh. She has toured with the dance troupe to the United States, Vienna, Austria and Holland, and is spending the year as an artist-in-residence at Khmer Arts Academy.

Ok, who spent two years studying film at the San Francisco Art Institute and is contemplating enrolling at UCLA for the California Institute of the Arts, has high hopes for the series.

"I talked to John (Shapiro) and we really want to make (Khmer Arts Academy) a hub for arts again and make it visible by bringing other artists to the community," Ok said.

Although Sophiline Shapiro spends much of her time with her troupe in Cambodia and on tour, she still has a place in her heart for Long Beach and the inner-city Cambodian-American kids her academy serves.

"I'm keeping that connection and sense of attachment in both places," she told the Press-Telegram last year.

A survivor of the Cambodian genocide of the mid-1970s, Sophiline founded the Khmer Arts Academy in 2002 with her husband, whom she married in 1991.

Former students of Shapiro continue to teach classical dance, but Ok wants to take it a step further.

"I want to find a way to engage (young artists)," Ok says. "We're looking for ways to connect (through) different art forms."

Khut, who speaks no English, has modest goals for tonight's performance.

"I want to inspire people to come and take classes," she says through translation. "And for them to remember the dance and its significance."

While the Salon Series is evolving, Ok has the first five performances booked. He says he looks forward to exciting shows and surprises to come as he meets more artists and delves into the intricacies of Southeastern and Southern Asian performance arts.

Although Los Angeles has a remarkably lush and diverse arts scene, Ok says it's often hard to get people out to far-flung sites.

"I want to bring those arts here," Ok says. "Plus some of our students are poor. I want to bring the richness of art to our community."

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291


KHMER ARTS SALON SERIES EVENTS

Today: Cambodian Classical Dance - Robam Tiyae and the Spirit Medium

Feb. 21: Cambodian Clasical Dance - Chea Samy and the Language of Dance

March 21: Balinese Shadow Theater - maRia Bodmann with Bali and Beyond

April 18: Khmer Mourning Music - Smot: Songs of Healing

May 16: Indian Classical Music - New Directions with Gautam Tejas Geneshan and Anantha Krishnan

All show times: 7 p.m.

Where: Khmer Arts Academy

1364 Obispo Ave., Long Beach

Admission: Free

Information: 562-472-0090