Out of the shadow

Charlotte Chadwick

When  I was 10 years old, I saw a film about the Killing Fields,” Lomorpich Rithy recalls. “I said, OK, that’s a Cambodian-Hollywood film. “But 15 years later, it’s still all about the Khmer Rouge. Khmer Rouge and Angkor Wat are the only two things that outside people know about us. What about my generation?”

While Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father may have reminded the international community of Cambodia’s heavy history, the nation’s arts still remain unknown to the outside world. That’s set to change, however, if Rithy has anything to do with it. Along with her sister and friends, she’s the driving force behind Bonn Phum festival. A free three-day celebration of traditional performing arts, games, and food, it grew out of Rithy’s friendship with one of Cambodia’s best known artists, Mann Kosal. 

Kosal established Sovanna Phum, the first independent art association in Cambodia, in 1994. At his small theatre in Phnom Penh, he directs actors and musicians in weekly shows combining music, dance, and Sbek Thom: the sacred art of vast-scale shadow puppetry that dates back to pre-Angkor Wat times, used for tales based on ancient Sanskrit epic the Ramayana. Unesco declared Sbek Thom an “intangible cultural heritage” in 2005.

Rithy knew nopthing about it then. “I had zero knowledge about my own country’s art,” she says. In 2012, when a Japanese exchange programme required her to research cultural heritage, she went along to a performance. “I remember the darkness and the sound of the drum. Master Kosal started to sing. It was the key to my soul.” Afterwards, she and her sister, Lomorkesor, began volunteering at the theatre.

Rithy’s post-show talks with Kosal gave rise to the idea of Bonn Phum. “We talked about a setting for people to see performances in a traditional environment.” The festival was a success and became a yearly event.

However, Rithy’s mentor was growing increasingly desperate. In 2016, after 20 years of running the theatre, Kosal almost quit to become a tuk-tuk driver. Income from ticket sales couldn’t keep up with expenditure. After years of hand carving 2m-high puppets from animal hide, Kosal suffered from chronic back pain. To pay hospital bills, he sold his car, then some of his puppets. Finally, he announced his intended change of career. So she took on his fight. Determined not to let Sovanna Phum close, Rithy and the team behind Bonn Phum launched a Kickstarter campaign, organised puppet-carving workshops and garnered support from Cambodian franchise Brown Coffee. Pop star Tena was even inspired to use Sbek Thom in a music video. 

“It was for the first time we saw the culture of sharing money in Cambodia for art,” she says. Rithy is passionate about modern Cambodia’s duty to critique itself through art. “We only ever look 1,000 years back and say, ‘We are the sons and daughters of Angkor Wat’,” she says. “But how about now? Who are we now?” She hopes that the festival whose fifth edition was held in April will answer that question. — The Independent