Beyond the Killing Fields

The above photo is from the docu-performance, The Continuum - Beyond the Killing Fields, which has played across the globe and which participated in the Gothenberg Festival at the end of August in Sweden. On the right is Kulikar Sotho, who usually acts as the show's translator and organiser but had to miss the Sweden trip after a courier lost her passport. The performance premiered in America in 2001 and has since played in Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna, Singapore, Phnom Penh and London. Its the tale, in spoken word, dance, song, shadow puppets, video and music, of the lives of Cambodian artists who survived the Khmer Rouge massacres, including 75 year old Em Theay, principal dancer of the royal classical ballet and master puppeteer Mann Kosal. Theay is known as the Tenth Dancer; for each one who lived, nine others didn’t. Three of her sisters, all dancers, perished, along with seven of her children, a granddaughter and a son-in-law. She is now a kru, a master teacher, imparting her art to a generation robbed of its traditions. The show is produced by Singapore's Theatre Works company. To read the background behind the show, click here. And to find out more about Kulikar, click here. Photo courtesy of Mara Lavitt.