Archaeological and palaeo-environmental investigations of the Pre-Funan period in the Mekong delta of South...
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In the 1930s members of the royal family set out to reconstruct the troupe, and the Minister of Palace named Thiounn wrote a book in which he described the court dance as Angkorean “tradition.” His book can be considered to be an attempt to appropriate colonial discourse and to construct a new narrative for the Khmers.
After independence in 1953 French colonial discourse on Angkor was incorporated into Cambodian nationalism. While new repertoires such as Apsara Dance, modeled on the relief of the monuments, were created, the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh reprinted Thiounn’s book.
Though the civil war was prolonged for 20 years and the Pol Pot regime rejected Cambodian culture with the exception of the Angkor monuments, French colonial discourse is still alive in Cambodia today. The dance has not ceased to be presented as “tradition” through the media.
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In Cambodia today, performances of court and folk dances are frequently shown to tourists and local people at hotels, restaurants, or temporary stages set up in the Angkor monuments.
The costumes and choreography mimicking the bas-relief are a means for the audience to imagine that the dance is of the Angkorean “tradition.” Needless to say,“traditions” have often been invented.
In the case of Cambodia, the idealized Angkor has been the frame of reference for the invention of “tradition” ever since the French colonial period.
The French writings glorified the Angkorean history and monuments, and this glorification affected the discourses on the dance.
However, since the reign of King Ang Duong (r. 1847–59), the Cambodian court had been under the influence of Siamese culture.
The Siamese influence is detectable in Khmer classical literature and temple murals too.1 ) When Ang Duong ascended the throne, the Siamese court backed him. King Norodom (r. 1860 – 1904) and King Sisowath (r. 1904 – 27), both of whom were Ang Duong’s sons, were raised at the royal palace in Bangkok. The cultural influence from Siam derived from these circumstances.
Nevertheless, most of the French works have regarded the court dance as belonging to the Angkorean “tradition.”
In the following chapters, these works will be scrutinized not as “academic” writings, but as discursive formation which has had a relation to French colonialism, and even to Cambodian nationalism.
On the other hand, the English handbooks on the dances in Southeast Asia described the Siamese influence from the middle of the nineteenth century.
But these books did not discuss how the “tradition” had been invented in the colonial period
Other than these handbooks, two Ph.D. dissertations on the Cambodian dances were written in English.
One was written by Paul Cravath, who depicted Siamese influences such as the change in the costumes during the reign of King Ang Duong [Cravath 1985: 150–152], and mentioned that many Siamese dancers had belonged to the royal troupe of King Norodom [ibid.: 159].
But in his conclusion, he insisted upon the “continuity” of the ritual dance from the Angkorean period, and in an article issued in a magazine, he described only the “continuity” and paid no attention to the Siamese influence [Cravath 1986].
A powerful affinity for French colonial discourse on the “tradition” can be seen in Cravath’s descriptions.
The other dissertation was written by Toni Shapiro, who interviewed many dancers and teachers of the dance through participatory observation, and wrote an ethnography of good quality. In her dissertation, Shapiro described how well a teacher had been aware of the Siamese influence upon the court dance [Shapiro 1994: 105], but she did not discuss the reason why such an awareness had not been revealed in public, and her other articles mentioned nothing about the cultural influence from Siam [Shapiro 1995; 1999].
Thanks to Shapiro’s works we know what the dancers said about the dance, but then one begins to wonder as to why they spoke like that.
In order to analyze the process of constructing narratives by the Khmers, it is necessary to discuss the kind of discourse which French colonialism created, and how colonial discourse influenced the colonized.
Angkor was politicized in the colonial period, and it has been incorporated into Cambodian nationalism.
Since 1863 when Cambodia was colonized by France, the Angkor monuments had been explored by Henri Mohot, Doudart de Lagrée, and others. The stone inscriptions had been deciphered so as to describe and glorify the history of the Angkorean civilization.
On the other hand, the post-Angkorean era was, and has been, considered as an age of “decline.”
Anthony Barnett remarked that these explorations and historiography had a close relationship to the justification of colonial rule, and that French-educated Cambodian elite such as Norodom Sihanouk and Pol Pot had accepted colonial historiography and a sense of “crisis” that the Khmers were to become extinct [Barnett 1990].
His article is a pioneering work criticizing the relationship between French colonialism and Cambodian nationalism.
However Sihanouk and Pol Pot were not of the first generation of the Francophone elite, because the acceptance of French colonial discourse on Angkor can be traced back to the middle of the 1920s.
Penny Edwards’ Ph.D. dissertation, in which the activities of the Cambodian elite in the 1920s are mentioned, is the most comprehensive work on Cambodian nationalism [Edwards1999].
According to her, the Angkorean studies, museums, and expositions contributed to constructing a colonial discourse on Angkor, and to justifying colonial rule. Edwards surveyed newspapers and magazines to see how the politicized Angkor influenced the Cambodian elite.
In this way, the connection between the French colonial discourse on Angkor and Cambodian nationalism was discussed in a few English articles, but these works did not mention the differences between colonial and postcolonial discourses on Angkor.
Taking notice of the differences, it becomes obvious how consciously and selectively the Cambodian elite appropriated colonial discourse.
Among Cambodian culture, attention has been paid par excellence to the court dance.
It was often depicted in French writings, and troupes were sent to the metropolis on the occasion of the Colonial Expositions. After independence, the court dance has been presented as the quintessence of Cambodian national culture. In order to discuss cultural politics in colonial and postcolonial Cambodia, and to historicize the Angkorean “traidtion,” the dance plays quite an important role.
VI Conclusion
In The Invention of Tradition, a well known book discussing nationalism and modernity, Terence Ranger scrutinized a case of invented “tradition” during the English colonization of Africa. The “tradition” was invented by the English colonizers, for the purpose of differentiating themselves from the colonized, and it was imitated by the latter. Ranger concluded that a social fluctuation caused the invention of “tradition”[Ranger 1983].
Discourse which regarded the Cambodian court dance as the Angkorean “tradition” was also invented under such a fluctuation of colonial encounters.
Not only the court dance, but the discourse on Angkor as a whole was invented by the French so as to justify colonial rule.
Historiography which glorified the Angkorean era and looked down on the post-Angkorean era was related to the French “protection,” that is, the French discourse on colonization.
Since 1907 when France obtained the Angkor monuments, the restoration had contributed to the propaganda for the renaissance of the “glory” under French rule.
The more powerful the influence George Groslier exerted upon the cultural policies, the more prevalent his discourse on the “tradition” became. The “protection” of the “tradition” which had come to a “crisis” of “decline,” resulted in the seizure of the royal troupe by Groslier.
The Colonial Expositions clearly show the process by which the court dance became the Angkorean “tradition.” Although the Cambodian dance as such had been appreciated during the 1906 Exposition, it was understood in connection with Angkor in 1922.
Then, the colonial authority singled out a private troupe as the maintainer of the “tradition,” and sent it to the 1931 Exposition.
The relationship between the Colonial Exposition and dance was illustrative of the colonial way of thinking.
However, Angkor had been a part of the Khmer past. Though they had to learn the history of Angkor from the French historians, Khmer folktales and the Cambodian royal chronicles had mentioned the monuments.
In the 1930s, the Khmer intellectuals obtained oppotunities to talk about the dance through the publishing media. Along with the translation of the Thai texts, an integration of French discourse on Angkor and the existing Khmer narratives was attempted.
After independence, the “tradition” which had been promulgated by Groslier and adopted by Thiounn became the offical view towards the dance.
Because colonial discourse on Angkor was incorporated into Cambodian nationalism, the court dance which had been connected with Angkor was utilized to serve the nation-state.
Moreover, the French “academic” writings reinforced nationalistic discourse on the “tradition.”
Nationalism has been based on collective memories and oblivions. Since Angkor was appropriated by Cambodian nationalism, the “glorious” age of Angkor has been memorized as the “true” past of the nation.
In order to share this kind of a historical view, the origin of adopting Angkor from the French colonial discourse had to be forgotten.
In the case of the court dance, the Siamese influence too needed to be expelled from their remembrances.
These double oblivions have been indispensable for inculcating the newly constructed “origin” of the Angkorean “tradition,” in the mind of the Cambodian nationals.
Even after the civil war which was prolonged for 20 years and the tyranny under the Pol Pot regime, the national memories of this “origin” have been influential in Cambodia.
Discourse on the “tradition” has been repeated and reproduced through books and TV shows.
Above statements are nonsence. Angkor (wat) as a national symble appearing on Khmer currency since Ang Duong times (pre-french colonal influence). The Coin money was called prak prasad?temple money. The word cheat/nation and ratha/state appearing in khmer texts since before AD and later on Kkhmer inscriptions. The French copied the idea from the khmer.
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