Phare Ponleu Selpak Newsletter July (English)
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/59503684?access_key=key-13p2fmiobqe3cla1tsrg
Phare Ponleu Selpak Newsletter July (French)
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/59503742?access_key=key-2inbcd9ajadf523a90xg
Showing posts with label Phare Ponleu Selpak school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phare Ponleu Selpak school. Show all posts
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Cambodian Circus Troupe To Perform Acrobatic Acts
Tuesday, 05 April 2011
Written by Aziz Idris
Borneo Bulletin
Written by Aziz Idris
Borneo Bulletin
Bandar Seri Begawan - Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) or 'the brightness of art', a seven-member circus troupe from Cambodia arrived in Brunei Darussalam yesterday for their special performance during the Francophonie Week, which begins from today and runs until April 10.
The comedy-acrobatic-circus troupe will perform a special show called 'Network' on April 10 for the Francophonie Week 'Family Day' at the Main Amphitheatre, Jerudong Park.
The French-speaking circus troupe was greeted upon arrival by the Director of Alliance Francaise (AF) de Brunei, Anais Maro together with officials from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Phare Ponleu Selpak circus to perform in Bohol, Philippines
Saturday, February 05, 2011
PIA Press Release
A circus group which has been promoting the brightness of art in Cambodia comes to Bohol to spread the understanding of their way of life and promote their arts and culture internationally, says a respected Capitol arts and culture consultant.
Lutgardo Labad, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Executive Committee Chair on Dramatic Arts bared this as a big event for the National Arts Month, the Philippine International Arts Festival celebrations as brought by NCCA, in cooperation with the TANGHAL 5 annual school based theater festival of the National University and the Performance Laboratory of Bacolod.
The Cambodian Circus Theater group will perform in Bohol on February 18 as part of a three-city tour of the Philippines, including performances in Bacolod and Dapitan, he added.
A section of the mother organization officially named as Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS) which means “the brightness of art”, the Battambang City based group belongs to a non-governmental organization providing education to children and youth by furthering artistic abilities and alternative source of livelihood as a means of alleviating poverty.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Artist on the move – yet again [-Ms. Khchao Touch]
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| Ms. Touch's Portrait (Photo Courtesy of Linda Saphan) |
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| A painting from Touch Khchao’s Care series. Photo Supplied |
Nicky McGavin
The Phnom Penh Post
SHE’S been tipped as one of Cambodia’s leading artists, and her work in Siem Reap has certainly been on the move – from one venue to another.
Touch Khchao, 28, is a Battambang artist; a graduate of the Phare Ponleu Selpak school of Art. A series of her work, entitled Care, has been on display at The Red Gallery at the FCC Angkor complex on Pokambor Avenue for some time.
But the shockwaves from the recession still reverberate, making running the gallery unsustainable. It closed last month, and much of the work formerly displayed in the space – a showcase for Cambodian painters and artists living here – has been returned to the artists.
But the Heritage Suites Hotel is the happy, temporary holder of the Care series of paintings.
An exhibition of the same series was held at the Art Café on Street 108 in Phnom Penh last year, and at the time the artist explained the concept behind her work.
“Where is the care? Where is the love in our world? When I see husbands and wives fighting, old people abandoned and left to beg in the streets or children fighting with their parents, I hurt inside.
“Why don’t people care for themselves, each other or the planet that we all share? The purpose of these paintings is to transmute this negative energy into the positive energy of care and love,” she said.
The radiantly colourful, dreamy and surreally blended pots in the paintings are used to represent people and the relationships that count. As receptacles, we are able to both give and receive that care that holds us together and gives us value, Touch Khchao says.
According to the artist, that care and love “radiates this energy through colour and form to the viewer, and to the world at large”.
Touch Khchao has been a full-time artist since 2008, and first stepped into the spotlight of the Kingdom’s art scene with an exhibition of works at Comme à la Maison in Phnom Penh in 2007.
Since then, she has received commissions from Spain, the UK and Australia, and she has exhibited internationally in both France and California.
Her works have also been shown at the Ministry of Culture, and at the French Cultural Centre in the capital.
Now’s the chance to catch her work in Temple Town before it heads off to Phnom Penh again.
Care is on show at the Heritage Suites Hotel in Siem Reap.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Tini Tinou ["Here and There"]: Cambodia’s circus extravaganza!
Tini Tinou 2008 (Photo: Expat Advisory Services)Tuesday, 3 February 2009
eTravel Blackboard
Tini Tinou 2009, Cambodia’s circus extravaganza now in its sixth year and bigger than ever, which attracts artists from around the world, will take place in both Phnom Penh (the country’s capital) and Battambang this coming March & April.
The spectacle is arranged and hosted by Phare Ponleu Selpak, whose roots are in the 1980s Thai refugee camps, caused by helpless people fleeing Cambodia as a result of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. Phare’s initial aim was to utilise visual arts to help children and young people overcome the Regime’s and subsequent 20 years of civil war’s torments. Today Phare Ponleu Selpak (meaning Light from Arts) is based in Battambang and goes from strength to strength, now providing fresh beginnings for disenfranchised and disaffected youth.
From March 10 to 26, prior to the festival officially commencing, their will be two weeks of workshops held by professionals and senior artists from around the world, such as France, Canada, Romania and Japan, to train the younger Cambodian artists.
The festival will officially open in Phnom Penh on March 28 with a colourful and exciting parade through the streets of the city, featuring all the invited artists, over 120 from 10 countries. Later that evening in the capital’s Olympic Stadium there will be a stage show, continued the following morning, with a cabaret afternoon; rich moments, unique & unmissable!
The international troupe then moves on to Battambang, where from 2 to 5 April the 12 companies from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, Romania, Germany, France, Belgium, Canada and Australia, will entertain the public with feats of acrobatics, juggling, trapeze flying, tightrope displays, contortionists, tumbling, and of course everyone’s favourite the antics of the clowns…
For people wishing to visit Cambodia during this time and experience the lively atmosphere, Asia Adventures Co. Ltd. - a Cambodia tour operator, is putting together a number of itineraries that will allow people to experience the event from start to finish, or just parts of it whilst visiting other destinations in the country such as the magnificent ancient temples of Angkor Wat. ‘This is truly a unique event in South East Asia, and it is a great time to visit Cambodia where not only can you experience the ancient cultural heritage of the country, but also witness the vibrancy of contemporary Cambodia’, explained Mark Ellison, Asia Adventures Managing Director. ‘The work Phare is doing with these youngsters, lifting them off the streets and filling them with hope, seeing how much they enjoy performing, shouldn’t be missed by anyone who is in the country during this time,’ he added.
The spectacle is arranged and hosted by Phare Ponleu Selpak, whose roots are in the 1980s Thai refugee camps, caused by helpless people fleeing Cambodia as a result of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. Phare’s initial aim was to utilise visual arts to help children and young people overcome the Regime’s and subsequent 20 years of civil war’s torments. Today Phare Ponleu Selpak (meaning Light from Arts) is based in Battambang and goes from strength to strength, now providing fresh beginnings for disenfranchised and disaffected youth.
From March 10 to 26, prior to the festival officially commencing, their will be two weeks of workshops held by professionals and senior artists from around the world, such as France, Canada, Romania and Japan, to train the younger Cambodian artists.
The festival will officially open in Phnom Penh on March 28 with a colourful and exciting parade through the streets of the city, featuring all the invited artists, over 120 from 10 countries. Later that evening in the capital’s Olympic Stadium there will be a stage show, continued the following morning, with a cabaret afternoon; rich moments, unique & unmissable!
The international troupe then moves on to Battambang, where from 2 to 5 April the 12 companies from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, Romania, Germany, France, Belgium, Canada and Australia, will entertain the public with feats of acrobatics, juggling, trapeze flying, tightrope displays, contortionists, tumbling, and of course everyone’s favourite the antics of the clowns…
For people wishing to visit Cambodia during this time and experience the lively atmosphere, Asia Adventures Co. Ltd. - a Cambodia tour operator, is putting together a number of itineraries that will allow people to experience the event from start to finish, or just parts of it whilst visiting other destinations in the country such as the magnificent ancient temples of Angkor Wat. ‘This is truly a unique event in South East Asia, and it is a great time to visit Cambodia where not only can you experience the ancient cultural heritage of the country, but also witness the vibrancy of contemporary Cambodia’, explained Mark Ellison, Asia Adventures Managing Director. ‘The work Phare is doing with these youngsters, lifting them off the streets and filling them with hope, seeing how much they enjoy performing, shouldn’t be missed by anyone who is in the country during this time,’ he added.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Cambodian Phare Ponleu Selpak circus troupe tours Japan
Phare Ponleu Selpak performance (Photo: Phare Ponleu Selpak)Weekend Beat: The circus comes to town every day for impresario
September 15,2007
BY MAYUMI SAITO, STAFF WRITER
Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
A six-member circus troupe thrilled Japanese children and their parents in Shibuya, Tokyo, last month, building human towers, juggling and performing back flips and other stunts as they portrayed the everyday life of Cambodian street children.
The two-day appearance was the last stop on the Cambodian troupe's monthlong Japan engagement.
The addition of a few Japanese words to the dialogue onstage and the troupe's beaming smiles kept the audience enraptured.
The troupe members--age 17 to 22--represented Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS), an NGO that operates a circus school located at a refugee camp near the Thai border. Six music school students from the same NGO played traditional Cambodian music during the shows. Also, works by students from the organization's art school were exhibited in the theater lobby.
The eight-city tour kicked off in Okinawa and wound up with the performances in Tokyo on Aug. 15-16.
"This Cambodian circus tour was the culmination of what I've been doing for years," the event coordinator, Keiichi Nishida, 63, says. "I wanted to work with these poor but tough kids and let people see their resilience through circus art."
Nishida is the general director of the nonprofit International Circus Village Association based in Midori, Gunma Prefecture. He has brought international circuses to Japan and coordinated workshops for more than 20 years while managing his own circus school.
Nishida visited Battambang, Cambodia--an area hard-hit by war and littered with land mines--for the first time in September last year with the help of a circus acquaintance from France.
There Nishida met Khuon Det, the founder of PPS, a commune operating the circus, art and music schools. "I was overwhelmed when I heard the music students playing and saw the art students working on drawings spread over their classroom floor," he says. "The circus school's gym was packed. You could feel the energy as the kids practiced. I left wanting to convey what I had seen and heard--the energy and the determination of the children--to kids in Japan."
Nishida's love-at-first-sight experience with the Cambodian circus children helps to explain why he became deeply involved in circus culture decades ago.
Born in 1943 in Tokyo, he grew up with little interest in circuses. He majored in German literature at Waseda University and initially planned to go on to grad school after obtaining his undergraduate degree in 1968.
However, the chaotic student movement in the 1970s changed his post-university direction. Nishida went to work part time for a weekly magazine covering social issues published by Waseda alumni. One day while gathering facts for an upcoming editorial, he met a playwright and soon found himself writing articles about underground theater culture.
Then his career took another twist. While he was involved in the theater, a friend took him to see the now-defunct Sekine Circus in Futako-Tamagawa, Tokyo. Ishida was fascinated. "I thought circuses were fading away. But the physicality displayed by the performers was powerful and captivating," he says.
After visiting the head of the troupe, Nishida was hired as a gofer for Sekine Circus in 1976. For a year and half he ran errands: coordinating shows; meeting with fire department officials prior to performances; recruiting roustabouts to set up tents and organizing props.
His passion for the diminishing art spawned the support group Sakasu Bunka-no kai (Circus culture group) in 1979 and involved 70 to 80 other circus fans. The same year, Nishida started publishing an affiliated circus journal Kyokuba to Kyokugei (Feats of horsemanship and acrobatics) that featured overseas circuses.
Nishida and like-minded circus aficionados spent a lot of time discussing their dream: to build a circus theme park containing a school, theater and library. The fan club lasted until 2004.
"But years went by without any visible achievement," he says. The circus theme park remained a pipe dream. There were five circus troupes in Japan at the time. Two later folded their tents. There are three active circuses today--105-year-old Kinoshita Circus; Kigure Circus, in business since before World War II; and 11-year-old Pop Circus, Nishida says.
He founded AfterCloudyCompany (ACC), initially an editing and planning company, in 1984. In 1988, he was asked to coordinate an overseas circus troupe's visit to Japan, when Duskin Co. built the circus-concept restaurant Carnival Plaza in Osaka.
Ishida's company eventually came to specialize in international circus troupes and performers. It brought the first circuses from Mongolia and Vietnam to Japan.
In 1994, 1996 and 1998 Nishida also produced an original circus performance, Merveille, at Takarazuka Family Land in Hyogo Prefecture. The amusement park is now out of business.
Guy Caron, who later directed the Canadian troupe Cirque du Soleil's 2000 Dralion show, directed Merveille, employing Canadian performers and using original music, costumes, lighting and choreography.
Nishida says Caron is one of his most valuable friends among his long list of circus acquaintances. Caron taught Nishida the importance of show presentation rather than simply the technical aspects. Further, "Caron, who was the executive director of the National Center of Cirus Arts in France, inspired me to lighten up even when I was distressed over the stagnant circus school project. He taught me to stay positive while doing my favorite circus work," Nishida wrote in one of his three books on circus.
In 1997, Nishida finally built his circus library in Midori, a mountainous district with a population of 53,000 in Gunma Prefecture. It soon took shape as a circus village, where performers, clowns or those hoping to learn the ropes live and work together. Some residents are from overseas.
"I hope the circus village provides a home where Japanese performers can spend their lives and initiate cultural exchanges with other countries around the world, as well as passing down the circus culture to the next generation," he says.
Nishida created the clown group Goninbayashi starring five women as a village project in 1998. He booked performances for the group in Japan in 1999 and overseas the following year.
The same year, the International Circus Village Association officially gained NPO status and started collaborating with ACC.
In 2001, Nishida turned a shuttered local elementary school building into the Sori International Circus School. As Japan's first circus school, it recruited students as young as junior high school graduates for a four-year program. Students were to cook their own food, while living near the Gunma campus.
Two instructors from Kiev teach basic acrobatic and aerial classes. There are now 17 students, up from an original enrollment of five, Nishida says.
"The circus demonstrates the power of life, and living together bonds the members in the village. I've seen kids who rarely communcated start talking," he says.
Two graduates, Atsushi Takamura, 23, and Hiromi Kayama, 28, received four-month contracts with the Moscow State Circus (popularly known as the Bolshoi Circus) touring in London this year. Takamura trained in Ukraine and Kayama in Mongolia after leaving Nishida's school.
Nishida sees a new trend in circuses worldwide. "Circuses used to be all about technique. Now more artistic and spiritual expression is blended with the original physical technique," he says. "The story-telling, artistic characteristic is quite visible in European circuses, especially in France and Belgium," Nishida says. Meanwhile, he considers the world's most successful troupe, Cirque du Soleil, commercial entertainment that falls somewhere in between art and technical demonstration.
Nishida has been honored with numerous awards for his contribution to Japan's circus culture, including the Ashiwara Eiryo Award in 1990 and the Tokyo distinguished cultural award in 2003.
This summer Nishida worked as the circus-act coordinator for popular singer Yumi Matsutoya's spectacular show "Shangri-La III." He arranged for the Moscow State Circus to take part in the show.
He has served as a judge for the street performance event Tokyo Heaven Artist since 2002. Nishida just finished screening applicants for the event that will take place around Tokyo in October.
He is currently preparing vaudeville comic, clown and juggler Iori Mikumo's solo show "Sabaku-ni Kakaru Niji" (Rainbow over the desert) scheduled for Tokyo's Theater X on Oct. 16-17.
Nishida says: "Today, the popularity of the circus is picking up a bit due to the emergence of Cirque du Soleil and street performances. I still hang on because I feel the straightforward, physical performances and daily training give us something to pass on to the next generation."
Nishida's mission to pass on this way of life continues. Six students have graduated from his circus school and are now working as street performers in Japan or at circuses overseas, he says.
* * *
For more information, visit International Circus Village at <> and AfterCloudyCompany at <>.
The two-day appearance was the last stop on the Cambodian troupe's monthlong Japan engagement.
The addition of a few Japanese words to the dialogue onstage and the troupe's beaming smiles kept the audience enraptured.
The troupe members--age 17 to 22--represented Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS), an NGO that operates a circus school located at a refugee camp near the Thai border. Six music school students from the same NGO played traditional Cambodian music during the shows. Also, works by students from the organization's art school were exhibited in the theater lobby.
The eight-city tour kicked off in Okinawa and wound up with the performances in Tokyo on Aug. 15-16.
"This Cambodian circus tour was the culmination of what I've been doing for years," the event coordinator, Keiichi Nishida, 63, says. "I wanted to work with these poor but tough kids and let people see their resilience through circus art."
Nishida is the general director of the nonprofit International Circus Village Association based in Midori, Gunma Prefecture. He has brought international circuses to Japan and coordinated workshops for more than 20 years while managing his own circus school.
Nishida visited Battambang, Cambodia--an area hard-hit by war and littered with land mines--for the first time in September last year with the help of a circus acquaintance from France.
There Nishida met Khuon Det, the founder of PPS, a commune operating the circus, art and music schools. "I was overwhelmed when I heard the music students playing and saw the art students working on drawings spread over their classroom floor," he says. "The circus school's gym was packed. You could feel the energy as the kids practiced. I left wanting to convey what I had seen and heard--the energy and the determination of the children--to kids in Japan."
Nishida's love-at-first-sight experience with the Cambodian circus children helps to explain why he became deeply involved in circus culture decades ago.
Born in 1943 in Tokyo, he grew up with little interest in circuses. He majored in German literature at Waseda University and initially planned to go on to grad school after obtaining his undergraduate degree in 1968.
However, the chaotic student movement in the 1970s changed his post-university direction. Nishida went to work part time for a weekly magazine covering social issues published by Waseda alumni. One day while gathering facts for an upcoming editorial, he met a playwright and soon found himself writing articles about underground theater culture.
Then his career took another twist. While he was involved in the theater, a friend took him to see the now-defunct Sekine Circus in Futako-Tamagawa, Tokyo. Ishida was fascinated. "I thought circuses were fading away. But the physicality displayed by the performers was powerful and captivating," he says.
After visiting the head of the troupe, Nishida was hired as a gofer for Sekine Circus in 1976. For a year and half he ran errands: coordinating shows; meeting with fire department officials prior to performances; recruiting roustabouts to set up tents and organizing props.
His passion for the diminishing art spawned the support group Sakasu Bunka-no kai (Circus culture group) in 1979 and involved 70 to 80 other circus fans. The same year, Nishida started publishing an affiliated circus journal Kyokuba to Kyokugei (Feats of horsemanship and acrobatics) that featured overseas circuses.
Nishida and like-minded circus aficionados spent a lot of time discussing their dream: to build a circus theme park containing a school, theater and library. The fan club lasted until 2004.
"But years went by without any visible achievement," he says. The circus theme park remained a pipe dream. There were five circus troupes in Japan at the time. Two later folded their tents. There are three active circuses today--105-year-old Kinoshita Circus; Kigure Circus, in business since before World War II; and 11-year-old Pop Circus, Nishida says.
He founded AfterCloudyCompany (ACC), initially an editing and planning company, in 1984. In 1988, he was asked to coordinate an overseas circus troupe's visit to Japan, when Duskin Co. built the circus-concept restaurant Carnival Plaza in Osaka.
Ishida's company eventually came to specialize in international circus troupes and performers. It brought the first circuses from Mongolia and Vietnam to Japan.
In 1994, 1996 and 1998 Nishida also produced an original circus performance, Merveille, at Takarazuka Family Land in Hyogo Prefecture. The amusement park is now out of business.
Guy Caron, who later directed the Canadian troupe Cirque du Soleil's 2000 Dralion show, directed Merveille, employing Canadian performers and using original music, costumes, lighting and choreography.
Nishida says Caron is one of his most valuable friends among his long list of circus acquaintances. Caron taught Nishida the importance of show presentation rather than simply the technical aspects. Further, "Caron, who was the executive director of the National Center of Cirus Arts in France, inspired me to lighten up even when I was distressed over the stagnant circus school project. He taught me to stay positive while doing my favorite circus work," Nishida wrote in one of his three books on circus.
In 1997, Nishida finally built his circus library in Midori, a mountainous district with a population of 53,000 in Gunma Prefecture. It soon took shape as a circus village, where performers, clowns or those hoping to learn the ropes live and work together. Some residents are from overseas.
"I hope the circus village provides a home where Japanese performers can spend their lives and initiate cultural exchanges with other countries around the world, as well as passing down the circus culture to the next generation," he says.
Nishida created the clown group Goninbayashi starring five women as a village project in 1998. He booked performances for the group in Japan in 1999 and overseas the following year.
The same year, the International Circus Village Association officially gained NPO status and started collaborating with ACC.
In 2001, Nishida turned a shuttered local elementary school building into the Sori International Circus School. As Japan's first circus school, it recruited students as young as junior high school graduates for a four-year program. Students were to cook their own food, while living near the Gunma campus.
Two instructors from Kiev teach basic acrobatic and aerial classes. There are now 17 students, up from an original enrollment of five, Nishida says.
"The circus demonstrates the power of life, and living together bonds the members in the village. I've seen kids who rarely communcated start talking," he says.
Two graduates, Atsushi Takamura, 23, and Hiromi Kayama, 28, received four-month contracts with the Moscow State Circus (popularly known as the Bolshoi Circus) touring in London this year. Takamura trained in Ukraine and Kayama in Mongolia after leaving Nishida's school.
Nishida sees a new trend in circuses worldwide. "Circuses used to be all about technique. Now more artistic and spiritual expression is blended with the original physical technique," he says. "The story-telling, artistic characteristic is quite visible in European circuses, especially in France and Belgium," Nishida says. Meanwhile, he considers the world's most successful troupe, Cirque du Soleil, commercial entertainment that falls somewhere in between art and technical demonstration.
Nishida has been honored with numerous awards for his contribution to Japan's circus culture, including the Ashiwara Eiryo Award in 1990 and the Tokyo distinguished cultural award in 2003.
This summer Nishida worked as the circus-act coordinator for popular singer Yumi Matsutoya's spectacular show "Shangri-La III." He arranged for the Moscow State Circus to take part in the show.
He has served as a judge for the street performance event Tokyo Heaven Artist since 2002. Nishida just finished screening applicants for the event that will take place around Tokyo in October.
He is currently preparing vaudeville comic, clown and juggler Iori Mikumo's solo show "Sabaku-ni Kakaru Niji" (Rainbow over the desert) scheduled for Tokyo's Theater X on Oct. 16-17.
Nishida says: "Today, the popularity of the circus is picking up a bit due to the emergence of Cirque du Soleil and street performances. I still hang on because I feel the straightforward, physical performances and daily training give us something to pass on to the next generation."
Nishida's mission to pass on this way of life continues. Six students have graduated from his circus school and are now working as street performers in Japan or at circuses overseas, he says.
* * *
For more information, visit International Circus Village at <> and AfterCloudyCompany at <>.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Exposition dedicated to Yantras at the French Cultural Center in Phnom Penh
Neath Phileap, a guardian of traditions (Photo: Cambodge Soir)07-09-2007
By Ung Chamrouen
Cambodge Soir
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
At the heart of the magic belief and practice in the country, a Yantra exposition is being organized to display the works of an artist-monk from Battambang.
The supernatural and the belief to magic forces are deeply attached to the Cambodian psyche. The Yantra (“Yoan” in Khmer) which an object bearing a Mantra – a magic formula – exists in the form of amulets or diagrams on which sacred formulas are drawn onto them, and they serve as magic protection instruments. These are practices with Brahmanic (Hinduist) origin which continue to be observed nowadays.
Neth Phileap, a young 21-year-old monk, does not want to see the disappearance of these traditions. He takes the opportunity of the monk retreat season to show his Yantra works (a mixing of sacred writings, paintings and collage) in the exposition hall of the French Cultural Center. Net Phileap became a monk at the age of 15, and he studied since 2002 at the Phare Ponleu Selpak (art light beacon) school in Battambang. “My goal is to present ancestral Cambodian customs and to bring peace to the public mind,” he said during the opening of the exposition on Thursday 06 November.
The artist-monk took 6 months of work to create this huge display. “Even if science progresses, the supernatural things (belief and Mantra) still remain as an engine to encourage us and to protect us, morally,” he said while affirming that his goal is to safeguard this particular type of magic.
His works mix Buddhist and Brahmanist worlds. Each yantra was created for a specific aim. The one showing Ganesha favors the learning of magic, another protects against bad luck, yet another is used during ceremonies to avoid dangers, to appease the water and the earth spirits, to protect the construction, etc… According to this artist-monk, the Yantras are not created to be read, but are there to generate magic protection. The exposition “Belief and Mantra” at the French Cultural Center Hall will end on 09 October.
The supernatural and the belief to magic forces are deeply attached to the Cambodian psyche. The Yantra (“Yoan” in Khmer) which an object bearing a Mantra – a magic formula – exists in the form of amulets or diagrams on which sacred formulas are drawn onto them, and they serve as magic protection instruments. These are practices with Brahmanic (Hinduist) origin which continue to be observed nowadays.
Neth Phileap, a young 21-year-old monk, does not want to see the disappearance of these traditions. He takes the opportunity of the monk retreat season to show his Yantra works (a mixing of sacred writings, paintings and collage) in the exposition hall of the French Cultural Center. Net Phileap became a monk at the age of 15, and he studied since 2002 at the Phare Ponleu Selpak (art light beacon) school in Battambang. “My goal is to present ancestral Cambodian customs and to bring peace to the public mind,” he said during the opening of the exposition on Thursday 06 November.
The artist-monk took 6 months of work to create this huge display. “Even if science progresses, the supernatural things (belief and Mantra) still remain as an engine to encourage us and to protect us, morally,” he said while affirming that his goal is to safeguard this particular type of magic.
His works mix Buddhist and Brahmanist worlds. Each yantra was created for a specific aim. The one showing Ganesha favors the learning of magic, another protects against bad luck, yet another is used during ceremonies to avoid dangers, to appease the water and the earth spirits, to protect the construction, etc… According to this artist-monk, the Yantras are not created to be read, but are there to generate magic protection. The exposition “Belief and Mantra” at the French Cultural Center Hall will end on 09 October.
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