Manoora sojourn for Cambodian dancers

The Cambodian group uses the mystical language of dance to tell the story of their culture, traditions, life experiences and challenges.

09 April 200
Glenys Quick
Northern Argus (Clare, South Australia)

Thirty members of a Cambodian dance group visited Manoora on the weekend as house guests of Deirdre and John McInerney.

A garden lunch was arranged for the visitors to relax and meet the Manoora community before their performance at St Michael’s Hall, Clare, on Saturday night.

The group arrived in Australia in March from the village of Tahen in northeast Cambodia which has encountered many adversities.

They are touring Australia performing “Dance Together for Peace” using the mystical language of dance to tell the story of their culture, traditions, life experiences and challenges.

Aged from 14 to 22-years, most are high school students while a few attend university, travelling up to 20km by bicycle every day to attend school.

Accompanying the group was tour organiser Sacha Goldman SJ and Bishop Kike Figaredo SJ who is very well known in various parts of the world for his humanitarian work, particularly in Spain where he has just received a distinguished award (while on tour) presented to his mother in his absence by Prince Phillip of Spain.

The dancers have previously performed for the Queen of Spain when she visited Cambodia in 2004, and are now planning a five-week tour of that country in October.

The dancers were a happy and friendly group with plenty of enthusiasm and are willing to interact experience in new environments and activities and share their country’s culture.

The toupe performed in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, and will wind up their 2008 Australian tour with two more performances in Melbourne this week before returning home.

The Kroma head dress, which is a symbol for Cambodia, has multiple roles such as a towel, in the Temples for prayer, carrying goods to and from market, protection when working in the rice fields, and a shirt to name a few.

Gang leader held over murder

Thea Kheave was fatally stabbed last December.

February 11, 2008
DOUG ROBERTSON
The Advertiser (Adelaide, South Australia, Australia)

POLICE have arrested and charged the leader of a northern suburbs Asian gang for the murder of stabbing victim Thea Kheave in December.

The man, 20, of Paralowie, was arrested yesterday at Parafield Gardens and police have not ruled out further arrests.

Bail was refused and he is expected to appear in Adelaide Magistrates Court today.

"Investigations into this murder are ongoing and further arrests cannot be ruled out," a police spokesman said.

The charged man, head of a gang known as Team Revolution or TR, was a victim of a firebombing at his home last Sunday.

It was one of two similar incidents that night and happened after several Asian youths rampaged a Gouger St karaoke club.

They were reportedly waving swords and knives and looking for a man.

The fire bombings happened shortly after the gang left the bar.

The family of Mr Kheave, 21, said he was not a gang member but he had had run-ins with Team Revolution several years ago.

Paramedics were unable to revive Mr Kheave, who died in the street after a fight with gatecrashers outside a party in Vartue St, Parafield Gardens, on December 2.

His three brothers, who were guests at the Vartue St party, said then they knew the attackers and that they feared retribution by the gang.

Their family had been forced to move home in the past three years because of escalating threats made by Cambodian gang members, they said.

Educated at Enfield High School, Mr Kheave was one of six siblings who left Cambodia with their parents 20 years ago.