Thursday, November 15, 2007

Pamina Devi Cast Returns from Triumphant U.S. Tour

Ambassador Mussomeli with the cast and crew of Pamina Devi at the U.S. Embassy upon their return to Cambodia. (Photo: US Embassy in Cambodia)

November 2, 2007

U.S. Embassy, Phnom Penh

The cast and crew of Pamina Devi: a Cambodian Magic Flute met with U.S. Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli upon their return to Cambodia from a five-city, five-week performance tour of the U.S. Pamina Devi is an original, concert-length classical dance drama by Cambodian-American choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro featuring Cambodia’s Khmer Arts Academy. Ambassador Mussomeli told the group, "Through your performances, you have exposed many Americans to a new side of Cambodian culture and made them think about your country in new ways. This is just what we need, and the entire Embassy is proud of your achievement."

The U.S. tour opened at the Phillips Center of the University of Florida, Gainesville and went on to Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; New York City’s Joyce Theater; the Power Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Maryland, College Park. In preparation for the tour, friends, family and supporters were invited to a special dress rehearsal at the Khmer Arts Academy in Takhmao.

Reviewers gave the show extremely high marks. New York Times dance critic Gia Kourlas wrote, "Pamina Devi...unfolds like a silent film, taking such gradual measured hold that by the time it's over, you can't help feeling as if you've crossed over to another world." While the Village Voice's Deborah Jowitt wrote, "The tale unfolds at a leisurely, ceremonious pace, but Cheam Shapiro...manages most of the dramatic moments very skillfully. In this gracious, tranquil universe, rage is formalized and warfare dissolves at the sound of a magic flute. Would it were so easy!"

The Khmer Arts Ensemble is a 31-member independent classical dance and music troupe that specializes in the original choreography of artistic director Shapiro, as well as rarely performed works from the classical canon. The Ensemble tours internationally and performs at its own breathtaking pavilion-style theater in Takhmao, Cambodia. Its performing artists were trained at Phnom Penh’s National School of Fine Arts (Cambodia’s official fine arts conservatory), the Royal University of Fine Arts and the Royal Palace.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great job for evilized Khmer culture.

Anonymous said...

If Khmer culture can be so civilize and why Khmer politic is so uncivilized? Why? What went wrong here?!

I believe that Khmer politic must reflect Khmer culture!

Anonymous said...

An what is so uncivilized about Khmer politic?

Anonymous said...

What? You don't know and maybe something is in your eye!

Anonymous said...

Well, no one see anything uncivilized about Khmer politic. Your eyes is deceiving you. You better poke it out. They say the more eyes you have, the easier it is for you to get fuck.

Anonymous said...

To 11:58AM!

What? Tell me that you are not magician! I know who I am and I don't know about you and I certainly don't have plastic eye like AH HUN SEN dictator who can be deceived all the time by the Vietcong! Ahahhah!

How is it that having more eyes can get anybody fucked? Three eyes? Two eyes are enough to attract the opposite sex and have a good time! Do you see how twisted your logic is!

Somebody need to fuck you in the eye with knuckles!

Anonymous said...

No, it is a lot easier to fool people with normal eyes than people with one plastic eye, especially when they can't tell what the eye is looking at.

Anonymous said...

To 4:14PM!

It is no wonder that when AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave looks into the camera and he really try to open his eye to show his plastic eye that it is actually a real eye ball!

I swear that the more AH HUN SEN try to open his eye and the more his eye cross and he look like a fool! Ahahhahhaha!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but that will happened only if the eye is made of round or spherical plastic. The one that PM Hun Sen wear is not round and it stayed center most of the time.