The Ritual Origins of the Classical Dance Drama of Cambodia

The Ritual Origins of the Classical Dance Drama of CambodiaAuthor(s): Paul CravathSource: Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 179-203Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1124400Accessed: 01/10/2009 13:03

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The Ritual Origins of the Classical Dance Drama of Cambodia Paul Cravath

The court-dance tradition of Cambodia is among the oldest and most refined theatre forms in Asia. Prior to 1970 dances of extraordinary beauty were performed by a single troupe resident in the royal palace, where

they were revered as a living symbol of the kingdom. Known to outsiders as the Royal Cambodian Ballet, the lakhon lueng (king's dancers) tradi-

tionally represented the earth over which the king was lord. Their performance in a ritual context was considered an offering to the spirit realm of deceased ancestors, capable of influencing monsoon rains and the land's

fertility. The relationship between dancer, spirit world, and monarch in

Cambodia developed from ancient indigenous roots to support the evolv-

ing needs of local kingship in the early centuries A.D. This essay examines the ways in which the ritual function of Khmer dance confirms its indigenous origin. My method will be to survey the ritual context of dance in earlier periods and to describe archaic elements still found in dance performance today, foremost of which are offertory rites honoring natural and ancestral spirits. In this continuity of ritual function we discern a structure of belief so fundamental to the Cambodian worldview that the dance which embodies it can only have originated among the Khmers themselves.

This view is radically different from the theory widely accepted throughout this century that the overall style, gestures, and repertoire of Southeast Asian classical theatre, dance, and puppetry are performed "exactly as in Indian choreography," a view espoused by French historian George Coedes ([1944] 1968, xvii) and reiterated by numerous scholars during the colonial period. Until his death in 1969 at age 103, Coedes was

Paul Cravath recently completed his doctoral dissertation on Cambodian theatre at the University of Hawaii, where he is an instructor of acting in the Department of Drama and Theatre.

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the most influential Southeast Asian scholar of the century, due in large part to his translation of many early stone inscriptions. His subsequent interpretation of virtually all early Southeast Asian culture as a colonial transmission by Brahmans and traders from India was never veiled: "It is interesting to note that even in prehistoric times the autochthonous peoples of Indochina seem to have been lacking in creative genius and showed little aptitude for making progress without stimulus from outside" ([ 1962] 1972, 13).

Minority views developed, however, with the Dutch historians in

particular tending to a more "Southeast Asia-centric" point of view. The most radical and, ultimately, the most influential of these was the economic historian J. C. van Leur, who wrote in 1934 that in Southeast Asia both Hinduism and Islam are a "thin, easily flaking glaze on the massive body of indigenous civilization" (1955, 169). During the past three decades, this claim has been dramatically substantiated by a widespread network of scholars whose dean is archaeologist Wilhelm G. Solheim. Their conclu- sions are the impetus for my rejection of the belief that Indian elements form the foundation of Cambodia's classical dance.

In an excellent summary of the spectrum of theories concerning the so-called Indianization of Southeast Asia, I. W. Mabbett summarizes Solheim's work as a series of claims which

uncompromisingly assert the primacy of Southeast Asians in all major Asian technical innovations and thus deny the region's dependence upon diffusion from China, India, the Far West, or anywhere else. On the contrary, many things are held to have been transmitted to parts of China, Japan, and the coasts of the Indian Ocean by Southeast Asian sailors and traders (1977, 5-6).

As evidence, recent excavation in northeastern Thailand has dated double-mold bronze casting at about 2700 B.C. (Bayard 1972, 1411), indicating bronze manufacture up to a thousand years earlier than in either China or India and allowing speculation that "early in the fourth millennium B.C. bronze was invented somewhere in Southeast Asia" (Solheim 1972, 14). Proponents of Solheim's interpretation of such archaeological data posit a "Hoabinhian technocomplex" or group of cultures sharing certain techniques (Gorman 1970, 82) which spread throughout the vast circle of Southeast Asia. Solheim believes that around 8000 B.C. or earlier, fully distinct cultures began to "crystallize" out of the Hoabinhian resulting ultimately in the cultural, ethnic, social, linguistic, and economic mosaic that we know today (1975, 151).

To date, the new discoveries have received little scholarly application to the study of Southeast Asian performing arts. In response, the

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THE RITUAL ORIGINS OF THE CLASSICAL DANCE DRAMA OF CAMBODIA 181

present interpretation of dance-related data presupposes a greater age, sophistication, and integrity of Khmer culture than historians have previously allowed and attributes to Khmer dance an indigenous ritual function within that culture from the earliest times. If the "new" view of Southeast Asian history is correct, then a new explanation of the significance of the dance drama in Cambodia is necessary. For that we must look carefully at the local indigenous cultural patterns.

Dance in Early Ritual

There is strong evidence that dance was an essential element in

early Southeast Asian religious ritual. The earliest evidence of dancing specifically associates this art with funeral rites and, by extension, the realm of ancestor spirits. Dancing figures are a primary motif in the elaborate ornamentation of large bronze kettledrums of a type found from southern China to Indonesia, including sites in Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia, dating from at least the fifth century B.C. (Groslier 1962, 32). The drums have been found in association with burial sites, suggesting a link between the dancing figures and the deceased.

As early as the seventh century A.D., written documents regarding the area of Cambodia also associate dancers with funeral rites (Ma 1883, 424), and the evidence as a whole suggests that drums and dancing were believed to assist the deceased in gaining rebirth in the spirit world.

Certainly that has been the case in the twentieth century. In 1927 when

King Sisowath died in Phnom Penh, his body was placed in fetal position in a silver urn filled with mercury for a lengthy period prior to the cremation

ceremony, which was largely a rite of rebirth into the ancestral world

(Poree and Maspero 1938, 147). Dancers attended the corpse of King Monivong during similar rites in 1941. They wore the traditional dead- white face makeup associated with the spirit world toward which they functioned as the king's escorts. Although this is modern evidence, we know that the custom of burial in fetal position was widespread and has been documented in the region as early as the fourth millennium B.C.

(Coedes [1962] 1972, 15); the associated custom of dancers accompanying the king's remains is undoubtedly ancient as well.

Beyond the context of funerals, dance was performed traditionally as an offering. To this day, Cambodians view dance as one of the most

powerful temple offerings to obtain assistance from the spirits, and what is known of Khmer temples from the sixth century A.D. onward suggests that the belief is ancient. While the soul of the deceased migrated to the abode of ancestors (believed to be on top of a mountain), a part of his essence could be enshrined within a rock or tree or structure from which he would continue to benefit the community if proper offerings and attentions were

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FIGURE 4. Royal dancers attending the funerary urn of King Monivong in 1941.

rendered. Thus, there has always been an ambiguous identity between the

spirit of the powerful ancestor and the spirit of the land with which he or she was associated. As Paul Mus concluded, ancestor worship and a

fecundity cult were the two primary, interrelated features of indigenous religious belief in mainland Southeast Asia (1933, 367). On the basis of the

many dancers known from the earliest written records to have been associated with temples, it seems fairly certain that ritual dance has been

intimately connected with ancestor communion and fertility rites in the area of Cambodia from the most ancient times.

Ritual Dance from the Third to Ninth Centuries

The earliest written records of dance in the area of present-day Cambodia are from the late sixth century, despite earlier Chinese accounts documenting a relatively advanced third-century "kingdom" which had

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books, libraries, taxes paid in gold, and a port city on the Mekong delta

controlling much of the earliest international trade through Southeast Asia

(Pelliot 1903, 254; Wolters 1967, 37). Numerous records from the sixth

century onward mention dance as a temple offering. One seventh-century account, for instance, details the gifts given by a high dignitary to a temple which he had erected. Included were nine female dancers, seven female

singers, and nine male musicians, together with three other female dancers and six female singers who presumably held a different position or function than those first indicated; all are mentioned by name (Coedes 1937, V,

64). Such accounts appear in stone inscriptions listing the property and

lands attached to particular temples. Female dancers, female musicians, female singers, and male musicians donated or belonging to the temple as "slaves of the god" often headed the lists. The "god" so honored was

traditionally a sacred tree or stone which embodied the spirit of that place, and dances were performed in its honor according to a strict schedule.

These inscriptions reflect certain forms of Indian influence now believed to have begun in the second half of the fourth century A.D.

(Christie 1970, 3) through a process that has been much debated. In a recent summary of all arguments, Kenneth R. Hall concludes that "entre-

preneurial activities of traders of various cultures stimulated the local rulers to selectively adopt Indianized patterns for their own purposes," namely to lend greater authority and legitimacy to a central overlord

capable of dominating regional patterns of maritime trade and enforcing a stable network of interdependence and loyalty among his lesser chiefs

(1985, 53). Sanskrit became a religious and socially cohesive force in the hands

of an increasingly powerful monarch whose authority was believed to emanate from his spiritual prowess rather than, as previously believed, from his military power (Hall 1985, 47). In the local temples to which dancers were attached, deities (sacred trees and stones) were given addi- tional Sanskrit names and Indian forms (Aeusrivongse 1976, 116). For

example, the oldest inscription in the Khmer language (dated A.D. 611) mentions that a single donation to a temple included seven dancers, eleven

singers, and four musicians offered to the local deity whose name signifies a tree but included the suffix -isvara, indicating Shiva (Coedes 1937, V, 18-19).

Temples which the dancers served in the pre-Angkorean period were ultimately extensions of the state temples, and in the dancers themselves we see evidence of the monarch's pervasive influence. Unlike other slaves who bore Khmer names such as "Cat," "Dog," or "Stinking," dancers in the earliest inscriptions bear Sanskrit names including "Ador- able," "Gifted in the Art of Love," and "SpringJasmine" (Lancaster 1971,

Cravath

9). Such names should not be viewed as revealing a link between their dance and the dance of India, but as a badge of their significance in the

royal cult. While kingship and its religious adjuncts betray Indian influence in

the pre-Angkorean period, the arts in general do not. We can document

drainage and irrigation systems of"astonishing" magnitude and engineering skill (Groslier and Arthaud [1957] 1966, 19). Large sculpture-portraits erected as a further means of maintaining contact with ancestors and which are among the most exquisite works of art in the ancient world

betray no Indian elements whatsoever (Giteau 1965, 55). Even Coedes observes that the architecture is clearly distinguished from that of India by "very remarkable differences" ([1944]1968, 255). Similarly, there is no evidence of Indian influence in the function of ritual dancers in pre- Angkorean temples.

Always associated in the eyes of the populace with ancestor worship and, ultimately, fertility, the dancer played an important role in reconcil-

ing those ancient concerns with new ideas of kingship emanating from India. The greatly enhanced political power of the monarch, the expansion of territory under his control, the construction of a capital, and the perpet- uation of an empire all evolved by "successfully integrating indigenous folk traditions, symbols, and religious beliefs into a cult which was visibly concentrated in the center" (Hall 1976, 8). The dancer lay at the very heart of that integration process, and her numbers and significance ex-

panded in proportion to the mystical power that was increasingly attri- buted to the Khmer king and to the vast temples of Angkor Thom, the "Great City" that was his capital.

Dance in the Angkor Kingdom The Angkorean period, conventionally dated from 802 to 1432, was

the most culturally and politically sophisticated age in Cambodian history. We look to it for significant evidence of the function of dance in traditional Khmer culture and note initially that the numbers of dancers in the state temples increased tremendously during this period. At one point near Angkor's zenith, for instance, KingJayavarman VII installed 615 female dancers in the temple dedicated to his mother's spirit (Coedes 1906, 77); 1,000 dancers in the temple dedicated to his father's spirit; and 1,622 dancers in other temples throughout the kingdom (Coedes 1941, 297) these in addition to the many dancers already in temple service at the time. The extent to which dance and dancers were integral to the social and religious fabric of Cambodia is perhaps unequaled in world civilization. To better understand the proliferation and significance of the temple dancers we must consider what they had come to symbolize in the Angkorean cosmology.

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The creation of the dancer in celestial form is the theme of an

important Khmer myth carved in bas-relief on the southern halfofAngkor Wat's east gallery. The myth is seminal to much of the temple and city architecture itself and objectifies the Khmer view of the interaction of earth and sky, matter and spirit, female and male, rice and rain-that is to say, the union of the Feminine and Masculine which engender all fertility, spiritual fulfillment, and life itself. The myth is sometimes known as the

"Churning of the Sea." 1 At the bottom of the sea a great ndga serpent stretches the entire

forty-nine yards of this mythical ocean, "symbol of the uncreated" (Gros- lier 1970, 33). Above this, the ndga appears a second time-a convention

suggesting a later action-supported by two groups of figures. On the left are ninety-twoyakkha (ogres) pulling on the head; on the right are eighty- eight deva (gods) pulling on the tail. The ndga, the most frequently used and oldest Khmer symbol of the earth's forces, is wound around the stone, mountainlike seat of a four-armed deity. The effect of the resultant churn-

ing is seen along the top of the carving: thousands of flying dancers emerge from the ocean's foam (PLATE 10).

These celestial dancers, conventionally termed apsaras, symbolize the welfare of the kingdom-the untold riches often said in the inscriptions to issue forth from "the earth in intimate union with the passionate vital

principle of [the] king" (Groslier and Arthaud [1957] 1966, 30). The two

contending forces ofyakkha and deva paradoxically work together to support the central male figure, and the bas-relief thereby depicts perfect fulfillment of the serpent power, or earth's potential (Feminine), in union with the dualistic forces of the king (Masculine). In short, the dancer revealed the form of the Feminine in its most perfect flowering.

The dancing apsaras were the embodiment of the life-creating energy resulting from a process for which Angkorean temples and entire cities were architectural metaphors. Bridges leading to the gates of several Khmer cities including Angkor had ndga balustrades supported by giant stone deva and yakkha, and the city gates at each of the cardinal points reproduced the central "temple-mountain" in miniature. The entire construction was a reflection of the "Churning of the Sea," since the vast reservoirs surrounding the city represented the ocean (as well as fertility for the broad areas they watered); the gate tower and central temple represented the ancestral mountain or king; and the ndga in the balustrade

supported by gods and giants represented the earth serpent. It is no wonder that at Angkor there were myriads of dancers both

in art and in human form. The king was surrounded by thousands of women as concubines, dancers, and even guards. His central position in this feminine world was believed to create the welfare of the kingdom, and one fundamental and timeless function of the Khmer royal dancers was to

provide a necessary harem-a function reputedly maintained until 1970.

Cravath

FIGURE 5. In a bas relief from Angkor, ogres (below) pull on the head of a serpent. The celestial dancers (above) emerge from the ocean's foam. (Photo: Groslier.)

FIGURE 6. A detail of the celestial dancers (Figure 15) being created from the foam of the churning sea. (Photo: Groslier.)

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':: ' ...


Whether or not the king's dancers were actually his sexual partners-and many were-they collectively symbolized in all periods the energy of the fecund earth itself and of necessity were in constant attendance on the monarch as an image of the fertility which together they represented and

mystically engendered. While there is some correspondence between the Angkorean cos-

mology thus described and the Indian model-as Vishnu is surrounded by heavenly dancers in paradise, for instance, so should his earthly correlate be similarly attended-its overall contour is nonetheless determined by Khmer beliefs regarding ancestral influence and fertility. There is one element, however, which has been widely assumed to reveal an Indian base for the Khmer performing arts and requires some analysis-namely the Rdmker, the legend of the Indian epic hero Rama (Ram in Khmer).

Excerpts from the Rdmker form one of the three most frequently performed pieces in the repertoire of Khmer classical dance drama, and the

story is known by virtually all Khmers in simplified form. Popular versions of the tale, however, are not necessarily to be identified with the classical Indian Rdmayana which was recited in Khmer temples under sponsorship of the Indianized, indigenous, ruling elite as early as the sixth century A.D.2 This sacerdotal function of the Ram legend was not maintained in Cambodia, and the Rdmker is not among the seven "sacred" stories tradi-

tionally performed in palace ritual. In brief, the Indian Rdmayana was known in Brahmanic Cambodian temples in early times, but it did not survive with either its form or religious function intact.

The Rdmker, the "jewel of Khmer literature," has, on the other hand, remained an important form of entertainment uniquely reflective of fundamental Khmer concerns. In the Ramker, for instance, as performed by all-male lakhon khol troupes-a village tradition conforming in most elements to the form of royal dance-Komphakar, the brother of Reap (Ravana), is the central focus. He has stopped the flow of the waters and only by trickery on the part of Ram's monkey cohorts are the rains liberated. The scene was often performed to bring an end to drought (Sem 1967, 161-162), as were a few other revered dances in the village folk dance tradition.

On such evidence, as well as careful study of many scenes from the Ram story carved by Angkorean sculptors, and on the basis of internal literary evidence, some scholars have concluded that the Rdmker was indigenous to Southeast Asia and appreciably different from the Indian Rdmdyana (Martini 1938, 1950, 1961; Przyluski 1924). The main difference lies in the primary focus of the Rdmker on control of feminine power and the resultant fertility. Thus, the Indian epic of Ram was not so significant to the Cambodian people as were selected motifs coinciding with their belief structure and the rituals which gave it life.

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A second important contribution of Ramker scholarship has been to demonstrate that following the demise of Angkor in the early fifteenth

century, the royal dancers continued to perform at the Khmer court, certainly on a less grand scale but without interruption. Saverous Pou has isolated a version of the Rdmker text evolved by a number of talented poets during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The five thousand stanzas in a carefully integrated style are in no way comparable to the Indian epic, particularly in their unelaborated "binary intellectual framework" of two fundamental forces in contention. Furthermore, Pou concludes, the Khmer poets created a text that is clearly Buddhist in its moral teachings and was unquestionably a work meant for recitation in theatrical performances (1977, 134). Pou's study strongly confirms the Khmer claim that the court-dance tradition in Cambodia remained unbroken from the pre- Angkorean period to the present.

The Form of Khmer Classical Dance Drama

In order to show the way in which the modern form of Khmer court dance-descendant of the ancient temple tradition-reveals its indigenous roots, we turn now to an examination of the dance as performed in the 1970s. I will consider a number of performance elements and attendant customs to demonstrate also that Khmer dance, whether in repertoire, music, choreography, or gesture, owes very litttle to Indian influence.

I first gained familiarity with the form of Khmer dance in 1975 when, after lengthy negotiation, I managed to arrive in Phnom Penh eleven days after the Khmer Rouge had begun their final siege of the city on New Year's Eve. The "Classical Khmer Ballet," as Norodom Sihanouk's personal dancers were known during the republic, had made their last foreign appearance in Bangkok a month earlier and now only rehearsed periodically and perfunctorily. By contrast, younger students of classical dance at the University of Fine Arts (UBA) continued to meet their teachers at least four days a week despite food shortages, a social world disjointed by refugees, and rockets falling daily into the city.

The dancers practiced a style and rehearsed a repertoire. The repertoire is of two types. First are the roeung (dance dramas), involving plot, characterization, and "dialogue" chanted by a female chorus of former dancers. The dramas originate from about forty stories; in some cases single episodes have remained popular, while in others the entire story is telescoped into a flexible series of episodes. While many of the dramas concern events in the lives of protohistorical kings, the pervasive theme of the dramatic repertoire is the eternal struggle for control of the Feminine (Cravath 1985, 289-343).

This struggle exists on two levels, the realistic and the archetypal.

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On the realistic level it concerns the timeless, painful passing of the female from father to husband. The hero-husband requires magic power and even

help from animal energies to wrest his beloved from her father, who is in most instances a yakkha. The yakkha does not represent evil but rather the older order with an incestuous aspect. The oldest Khmer myths concern the union of a female-male pair of progenitors. The contemporary repertoire of the dance drama adds pair after pair of characters to this list. It is by the action of the male upon the female that fertility must be achieved in the face of all opposition. This concern with fertility is a dramatic reflection of the dancers themselves, who symbolically enact its creation onstage and, as the king's harem, embody it themselves offstage.

The second branch of the repertoire is the robam ("pure dance"

pieces), of which some sixty are known to have been performed in this

century. The robam are group dances in which female and male roles are both danced by women (PLATE 9). The robam are much older than the

roeung and are believed to have originated as ritual dances to hasten the

coming of the rains. In the seventeenth century, robam were performed "on the occasion of ceremonies and also at the beginning of theatre presenta- tions ... to put the spectator in some way under the invocation and the

protection of the divinities incarnated by the dancers" (Coedes 1963, 499). Dancers are accompanied by a standard ensemble of male musi-

cians who play eight percussion instruments (drums, gongs, and xylo- phones) and a four-reed sralay, somewhat similar to an oboe. The high- pitched blend of the chorus leader's chant with the sralay is one of the

distinguishing features of the genre. Traditionally, Khmer music was

performed as an offering to the spirit world and was considered to be an ancestral heritage and, hence, sacred. French musicologistJacques Brunet has pointed out that:

contrary to the generally accepted notion, Cambodian music owes very little to Indian influence. It gradually evolved on the basis of the autochthonous stratum, systems that originated in the local culture, and instruments which for the most part are indigenous to the Indo-Chinese penin- sula (1970).

Apart from repertoire and music, formal elements of the dance

choreography itself indicate an indigenous origin associated with the spirit world or fertility rites. These include a hypnotic tempo, the spiritlike appearance of the dancers, a pervasive concern for the creative tension between female and male, offerings to the four directions, and a concern for social and sexual harmony.

Khmer dance choreography uses a loose vocabulary of movements which are individually fixed but may be combined with infinite variation.

Cravath

New works may be choreographed at any time. By almost any standard, the dance is "slow," with a wavelike rhythm of alternating moments of

expanding and suspended energy. Comparatively large movements of arms or legs, together with

various forms of turning, walking, and kneeling, alternate with long periods of standing in a single spot performing very small movements of hands, feet, and head, often in delicate interaction with a partner. None-

theless, the elbows are continually away from the body, one or both arms are usually extended at shoulder height, the fingers are always taut with

energy, the knees are bent, and one foot is often raised for long periods- all of which contributes to a hypnotic balance of movement and stillness.

Throughout the dance, there is a smoothness and continuity to all movement which gives the entire scene exceptional grace and lightness.

In terms of space, there is a very strong feeling that the dancers, who are considered in many robam to embody divine spirits, come from a sacred

place into a space which is in turn sanctified by their presence. The Khmer term for entering the stage is chaen ("to go out") whereas leaving the stage is chol ("to enter") -as though suggesting that the dancer goes somewhere in

performance and upon her exit from the stage reenters this world. In the

"pure dance" robam, the physical space is empty of props, furniture, or set

pieces. In the roeung dance dramas, this sense of appearing without reference to time or space is altered by plots and staging techniques which localize the dancers in palaces, forests, skies, and, in general, the human realm.

The dancer always moves in synchronization with others. In the robam, all the female characters on stage make identical moves simultaneously; the male characters do the same. Often the two groups dance the same movements with slight variations of degree appropriate to their character's gender-the male's gestures are broader, his stance is wider, and so forth. In scenes of seduction, for instance, with many couples on

stage simultaneously, all the princes' gestures are synchronized, as are the princesses' responses. In the robam, the dancer is rarely a solo performer. With the exception of cues for entrances, exits, and sequential movements with her partner of opposite character gender, the Khmer dancer is a member of a group which moves as one.

The floor patterns which the dancers execute show us that the dance is fundamentally offertory in nature. For Cambodians, dance is considered to be a requisite and effective element of rituals designed to achieve harmony with nature spirits. The dancers' movements over the ground must necessarily be respectful of those spirits, especially the huge ndga serpents believed to dwell just beneath the earth's surface. In plowing a field, for instance, one must take care to follow the contour of the naga body, particularly in the first ritual soil-breaking of the season. In an earlier

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FIGURE 7. In a performance of robam circa 1973, male and female characters dance in pairs.

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age, such considerations undoubtedly played a major role in determining the elaborate choreographic patterns of dancers who today still move

swiftly in curves and circles around the dancing area, especially upon entry and prior to exit.

On the modern Khmer stage, spatial orientation is based on a center and four distinct corners or directions. Upon entering the stage, dancers proceed in a single file to each of the four corners and immediately prior to exit pass through the center. During the buong suong ceremony (discussed below) and in several robam, the choreography specifically includes symbolic offerings in silver cups made to the four directions in turn. Careful observation of group entrance and exit patterns used throughout the repertoire reveals that the circular floor movements are a shorthand, moving version of this offertory ritual.

A second conclusion can be drawn from studying the floor patterns in the main segment of each robam: Khmer dance is the artistic represen- tation of the tension between the Feminine and Masculine principles, ultimately portraying social balance and harmony between female and male. In the robam, dancers move through a choreography of lines and circles. The lines are generally stationary; that is, dancers are in a fixed floor location. The circles are usually transitional movements. Thus a row of female characters dancing at length beside or in front of a row of male characters is the most frequent configuration in Khmer dance. The lines of dancers are usually either perpendicular to or parallel with the audience's line of vision. Brief circular movement sequences are used to change from one linear configuration to another.

Never are all the female roles on one side of the performance area and all the male roles on the other; rather, the rows they form always alternate. When two of the rows move closer together-following a promenade-to form couples, all couples simultaneously perform in place the stylized movements of pursuit, seduction, or other subjects of the narration. Fre-

quently a pair of dancers, each of whom leads his and her respective row, move into the center of a circle formed by the other couples. These lead dancers are always the last to exit from the stage at the conclusion of a group dance. If the dance is part of a roeung, it is the prince and princess or the main character couple in the story who are thus featured.

Overall, the floor patterns suggest that in the Khmer view, the individual partners in the dance of life are always part of a society of equals. Within this society there may be a prince or superior person, but everyone is pursuing the same pattern of action. Never is the entire society severed by group-to-group confrontation, since the conflict or tension of any single couple disappears within the objectively viewed balance of the society at large. Never does one structure simply change into another; it is through the circular pattern of dissolution and rebirth that a new image emerges.

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The female/male polarity, both individually and socially, remains, and in the final closely formed lines and circular exit we see that social balance and harmony as well as rebirth are both represented and invoked.

One specific aspect of Khmer dance choreography which has been

widely misinterpreted merits scrutiny-namely the hand gestures, of which there are just four. The hands are often held in one of the four

gestures for long periods and, in various combinations, are used to mime the choral narration and portray formalized emotions (PLATE 8). There is no moment in Khmer dance-save for onstage "relaxation"-when the hands are not held in one of the four gestures.

To illustrate a certain sentiment in "expressive dance"-those

parts of performance accompanied by the chorus-the four gestures are used in conventionalized ways. But just as frequently-in "pure dance"

segments without choral accompaniment-the gestures are simply the

way the hands are held during a particular temporal unit of the dance.

One, for example, almost always signals the conclusion.

Although the hand gestures appear to have no names, they are sometimes referred to as the leaf, flower, tendril, and fruit of a plant. Khmer dance teachers claim that the choreography originated in imitation of natural forces. The positions for standing are inspired by the undulation of water; music comes from the sounds of nature and animals; dance movements derive from the trees represented by the dancer's body. These

images connoting nature, however, need not be strictly viewed as inher-

ently descriptive since they often simply add beauty rather than meaning to the dance. They are, in a sense, a dance unto themselves.

Observers have often used the Sanskrit term hasta in reference to the hand gestures in Cambodian dance, but this word is extremely misleading because it implies a link to Indian dance hasta which in many cases form an actual language of denotative gestures. That is certainly not the case in Khmer dance.

Moreover, Indian counterparts to the four Khmer gestures cannot be isolated.3 A study of 373 hasta used in South Indian kathakali, for instance, reveals somewhat similar gestures but no correlation whatsoever in meaning. The mudrakhya mudrd slightly resembles the Khmer "flower" gesture, but none of its twenty enumerated meanings includes "flower." On the other hand, the kataka mudra means "flower" but in no way resembles the Khmer hand gesture (Venu 1984, 28-33, 35). A similar absence of relationship obtains in regard to the other three gestures as well.

In the preceding examination of formal elements, we noted that the repertoire is primarily concerned with the theme of fertility. The music is an offering to the local spirits, choreography reflects fundamental and ancient Khmer social values, and the hand gestures represent natural forces. Together these features strongly deny any significant influence from

Cravath

D) Fruit

Picking a Flc 7jwer

FIGURE 8. The four basic hand gestures of Khmer dance, and a specific mimed

application.

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India in either the form or function of the dance, especially in light of the fact that the basic structural pattern of large group dances by female and male partners (both played by women or otherwise) is virtually unknown in India. It is in the contemporary offertory function of these dances, however, that we discern the strongest circumstantial evidence for con-

cluding that Khmer court dance derives from indigenous roots and still reveals the essentially spiritual function that dance has always maintained in Cambodia.

Ritual Function of the Dance Drama Today

Performances in the royal palace by the king's dancers were tra-

ditionally believed to elicit assistance from supernatural powers in creating natural harmony throughout the kingdom, especially in regard to rainfall. In her study of the "sacred dances" of Cambodia, French ethnologist Solange Thierry pointed out that many Khmer folk dances were tradition-

ally considered to represent a point of contact between the celestial and terrestrial worlds (1963, 350). But in the Cambodian mind it was always the royal palace dancers who were believed to be the most potent means of such communion. Thus, we turn now to an examination of the evidence of ritual in this century, ritual performed within the memory of living dancers and showing through its continuity the power of its hold on Cambodia. We

begin with the royal palace ceremony of buong suong, in which the dancers were the most significant element.

The royal ceremony to bring rain was known as buong suong tevoda or

simply buong suong; loosely translated it means "paying respects to the

heavenly (feminine) spirits." Implicit in the ceremony is making an offer-

ing and requesting that a wish be granted. An ordinary person could do the

buong suong ritual in very simplified form at any temple. The royal version was performed as a general blessing for the nation or to alleviate unfavor- able conditions. It was usually performed in the throne room, in the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Preah Keo), or in some other important wat.

Due to the essentially private nature of performance by the king's dancers prior to 1970, little has been written about this ritual. Notable exceptions are brief announcements published in Kambuja magazine in 1965 and 1967. In both years, with continuing serious drought in a number of provinces, head of state Samdech Sihanouk received delegations of peasants requesting that he perform the buong suong tevoda ceremony to bring rain. The ceremony, which Sihanouk on both occasions ordered performed and over which he presided, consisted mainly of "sacred dances." In the presence of ritual offerings and following the invocation of both supernatural forces (neak ta) and the spirits of dead kings by the palace

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FIGURE 9. The buong suong ceremony being performed at Wat Preah Keo near the

royal palace. (Photo: Cambodian Information Department.)

astrologer (hora), the buong suong tevoda was performed first in the throne room of the palace and then in Wat Preah Keo in front of the statue of King Norodom (Anonymous 1967).

A number of dances regularly performed as late as the 1970s were considered sacred and the dances performed as the offering in buong suong were among them. According to Professor Chheng Phon of the Univer-

sity of Fine Arts, there are seven sacred dances: Robam Vorachhun, Robam Mekhala, Robam Ream Eyso, Robam Preah Thong, Robam

Baolut, Robam Sarahbarom, and Robam Baramit (Chheng Phon 1975). Of these, the first three form a unit and are the most important.

The buong suong in 1967 began with the entrance of the dancers, each holding a silver tray of offerings. They performed a dance in which these trays were raised to the four cardinal points in turn. They then

performed the three dances, culminating in a battle. First Ream Eyso, "the Thunder God," entered in the midst of his followers and danced wielding his magic axe. He exited and Mekhala, "Goddess of the Waters," appeared playing with her magic crystal ball and surrounded by her followers, the tepthida. Then Vorachhun, "King of the Divinities," all in gold, armed with a sword and surrounded by his followers, the tevoda, joined the goddess; Mekhala, Vorachhun, and their followers together executed a dance

expressing peace, joy, goodwill, and serenity. Into this harmony burst Ream Eyso, jostling both tevoda and tepthida

in trying to reach Mekhala. Three times she threw her magic ball into the air and caught it, representing three flashes of lightning that blinded Ream

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Eyso and knocked him to the ground. In the fracas, tevoda and tepthida as well as Vorachhun departed, leaving the two principals to their eternal contest symbolizing lightning and thunder, earth and sky, beauty and

ugliness, gentleness and violence, female and male. The dance concluded when Mekhala flung her lightning bolt one final time and ran away smiling, leaving Ream Eyso temporarily vanquished. "From their invisible confrontation in the skies there results ... the rainfall which fertilizes the earth" and causes the rice to grow (Anonymous 1967, 23).

Significantly, the dances included in the buong suong tevoda were not esoteric in nature. In fact, they were among the most popular in the

repertoire and would have been known by most classically trained dancers, including dance students at the University of Fine Arts. Within the ritual context of the buong suong tevoda, however, and following the preparatory rites, the dances assumed a unique power due to the fact that the tevoda

(celestial deities) actually appeared in the dances as main characters. A dancer performed the role of tevoda or other supernatural force, and the

giver, the gift, and the recipient became one. In a limited sense, the spirit entered the dancer.4

Until the 1940s, one important element traditionally identifying the dancer with the spirit world was her makeup, which obscured all

personal features under a layer of white paste. (Teeth and eyebrows were blackened and lips were reddened.) The color white is identified with death throughout much of Southeast Asia, and the female spirit mediums of southern Thailand still rub their faces with white rice powder in prepa- ration for going into trance (Gandour and Gandour 1976, 100). We cannot

say whether the Khmer dancer's makeup is the vestige of any similar

function, but unquestionably the thick white powder gave her the appearance of a dissociated, otherworldly spirit. Today, in fashionable

makeup, the dancer's face still remains immobile (in sharp contrast to Indian dance) except for a mysterious half-smile.

Royal Khmer dancers were believed to have a positive effect on natural disorders not only through buong suong but also by performance of their weekly ceremony to assure good health for themselves and proper rhythm for the musicians. This ceremony, known as tway kru ("salutation to the spirits"), was performed every Thursday in a large rehearsal space on the ground floor of the palace. The musicians were required to play at least five specified pieces of music, four of which corresponded to the four role

types: female, male, monkey, and ogre.5 Dancers trained in each of the role

types danced with the music; if dancers were not present to represent one of the four types, the musicians performed anyway. The king (or president) could ask that this ceremony be done in a more elaborate form-including thirty pieces of music lasting up to two hours-to "create security" for the country or to fulfill some national need.

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A third ceremony in which we see a ritual function for the classical dance was the annual ceremony ofpithi sampeah kru lokhon krop muk ("ceremony of homage to the spirits and teachers for wearing the masks"). Usually called simply sampeah kru, the ceremony's purpose was to make

offerings to the spirits of the dance, the kru, to gain their power. The word kru is always used ambiguously in Khmer dance because it also means "teacher," and the essence of the ceremony is receiving the teachers'

empowerment to perform the dance. The sampeah kru was presided over by a man, traditionally ap-

pointed by the king, who was very familiar with the dance tradition and was able to play the nondancing role of the eysei (hermit) in the roeung. He was called the tep robam and, together with the monkey roles and the clown, was one of the few men who performed with the female dancers. The cere-

mony, which took place in the palace and was attended only by teachers, dancers, and the king or queen, lasted two days. On the first day elaborate food offerings were made on altars erected at the eight cardinal points and on a main altar where all the masks (belonging to theyakkha roles), headdresses, and stage weapons were displayed.

On the second day further offerings were made and the core of sampeah kru was performed. Placing the mask of the eysei on his head, the tep robam took each of the masks and headdresses in turn, placed it on the head of the dancer who had learned that role, and then removed it. At that point and subsequently, according to Brunet,

the masks are in fact regarded as living spirits as soon as they are worn by the dancers. The purpose of all the invocations before the dance is to ensure that the masks are "possessed" so that the dancers may become one and the same person with the mask (1974, 221).

Popped rice was thrown to the spirits assembled to receive the offering of food and dance, and the sampeah kru concluded with a group dance in which each performer wore her mask or headdress-many for the first time- followed by a dance from each of the role types: yakkha, masculine roles, feminine roles, and monkeys, in that order.

The bond established between spirit and dancer in the ritual act of placing the mask on the dancer's head in the sampeah kru was highly respected by all performers. The dancer always saluted the mask with the sampeah salutation before wearing it, and she never put the mask on by herself. Even for simple dances she would take the mask and have it placed on her head by the teacher of that role, thus receiving the spirit (kru) of the mask from the kru of the role. When a young dancer feared performance or had difficulty remembering her role, the tep robam placed the mask of the eysei momentarily on her head to infuse her directly with the spirit of the

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dance, the chief kru. In this ceremony, then, we see the certification of the Khmer dancer's contact with the spirit world, since her art subsequently always had the ability to call forth the presence and life-power of the spirits to calm the aberrations of nature, if not of armies.

The Fading Flower of Khmer Dance

The matrix of the Khmer dancer as a ritual performer lies within a culture whose level of advancement has only recently been appreciated. The evidence suggests that dance was associated with funeral rites, with

large bronze drums, with ancestor worship involving sacred stones, with a

fertility cult, and with a pattern of kingship enabling communion with the

ancestor-spirit realm in order to assure sufficient rain for the earth's

fertility. In the early centuries of this era, dance flourished in a culture

dedicated to extensive navigation throughout the Indian Ocean and, at home, to the engineering of large stoneworks to control water and invoke

fertility. Dance was primarily performed in temples dedicated to ancestral

spirits residing in stones, the rites for which were transformed during a

period of religious syncretism with Sanskrit and Brahmanic practices around the fourth century A.D.

In the Angkorean period thousands of dancers served in the temples as an offering to the ancestral spirits who could influence the cosmic interaction of earth and water. In the modern period dance remained an

offering, and the choreography of contemporary dance drama continued to invoke fertility through the tension and harmony of female and male just as the Angkorean apsaras embodied the energy of nature's balanced forces.

Khmer dance reveals no Indian influence in music, gestures, or

choreography, and from a repertoire of some forty dramas and sixty dances, only the story of Ram shares similarities with the Indian epic. By moving beneath surface similarities such as adopted character names or selected story lines, however, we begin to view the ancient structure and function of Khmer dance as ritual to invoke natural harmony and prosper- ity. That ritual in the buong suong, the tway kru, and the sampeah kru takes the form of direct intercession with the world of spirits for the benefit of society.

The Cambodian palace dancers lost their raison d'etre with the demise of monarchy in 1970, but classically trained dancers remain today a powerful symbol of Khmer national identity-an image sustained initially by the government of the republic (1970-1975), then by refugees in camps along the Thai border, and, at present, in various Khmer communities in France, the United States, and elsewhere. Despite great effort to preserve the classical dance tradition, one significant function of Khmer dance appears to have been irretrievably lost-dance as a ritual offering to

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deceased ancestors believed to influence the fertility of the land. This function reflects an ancient indigenous method of invoking natural harmony and human happiness. Today there is very little dance in Cambodia and the classical tradition has been severed from its roots. The flower is without nectar, and an intimate link with mystical wisdom has been lost.

NOTES

1. Unlike the well-known Indian "Churning of the Sea of Milk" related in the Bhagavata Purana, the bas-reliefs show what is very much a Khmer sea filled with fish representing Angkor's food and livelihood. The most significant difference from the Indian variant, however, is that instead of the twelve sacred

objects appearing from the sea, only one treasure appears in the Khmer myth as a result of the churning: waves of dancers.

2. In those temples the Mahbbharata was also chanted, but today we find no evidence of that epic in either the court or popular performing arts traditions. A

process of selection seems to have favored stories conforming to Khmer values. 3. This point is only casually acknowledged in Jeanne Cuisinier's in-

fluential study (1927) of Khmer hand gestures-a study that insists upon an Indian origin for Khmer gestures and assigns them Sanskrit names.

4. The Cambodian dancer was never a spirit medium in the sense that she became possessed by a spirit manifesting itself in ecstatic behavior or a trance state. That role was traditionally fulfilled by a medium known as the rup, a word literally meaning "image" or "form," with whom village dance was often associated. One function of the village dancer was to attract the neak ta spirits into the medium.

5. Each dancer is trained in just one role type, but each role type includes numerous subcategories. All four role types appear in the roeung dramas, whereas it is primarily female and male role types that appear in the robam. Both female and male roles are performed by women. The ogre (yakkha) roles are usually played by women, but some men have been trained in them for use in extremely vigorous performances. Monkey roles were traditionally played by women also, but in the 1940s men came to be preferred for their greater stamina. No women were being trained in the monkey roles in 1975, although one of the oldest teachers had played them in her youth.

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Documents

The Ritual Origins of the Classical Dance Drama of Cambodia