L’khoan Bassac (Bassac Opera) is a traditional Khmer form of theater that uses song and is among the most popular of all Cambodia theater forms. It is strongly influenced by Hy (Chines Opera) and Kai Loeung (Vietnamese theater), which is evident from not only its scenery, costumes and make up but also in the extremely physical and almost acrobatic acting techniques.

L’Khaon Bassac Performance during the Cambodian Youth Arts Festival in Battambang

MASTER NONG CHAK, b. 1947
“Basaac Opera”
Nong Chak was a member of the bassac folk opera company led by CLA Founder Arn Chorn-Pond’s father before 1975. A skilled singer and actor, he performs dramatic and humorous parts and teaches a class in Banteay Meanchey, near the Thai Border.

You are cordially invited to attend a Press Conference for the opening ceremony of the Cambodian Youth Arts Festivals 2010 (CYAF 2010) on August 3, 2010, aimed to open the curtain to allow audiences to enjoy, understand, and learn about their artistic heritage which has almost faced extinction. Well-known masters such as Kong Nay, a Cambodian living treasure and master player of the chapei, or long neck guitar, Ieng Sithul, former Khmer Opera artist, and Hun Pen who will dance a recent classical dance creation, called Tevak Srey Sou, will be among the many artists to present their art forms.

During the conference, Hnuch Heun, a renowned Mem performer, will show a unique music form belonging to Kreung indigenous group. The mem instrument, currently preserved by UNESCO and the Department of Culture and Fine Arts in Ratanakiri province, has only one string, attached at the bottom of the instrument and then drawn up to the tuning pegs which are made of bamboo and can take different shapes.

I hope you will join us August 3 for the press conference about this exciting festival. Following the conference at 7:00pm we will have a benefit concert for the festival. The concert will feature two of the lead international stars of the popular Khmer Rock Opera, Where Elephants Weep, and will include songs from the opera and the popular Broadway musical, West Side Story.

NOTE: Cambodia Living Arts, together with 23 other arts groups from around Cambodia and the world, will host the Cambodian Youth Arts Festivals 2010 (CYAF 2010) from 7th to 12th August 2010 at Chaktomuk Theatre presided over by H. E. Him Chhem, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts. 500 artists from different places will perform various art forms, both modern and classical. 3500 audience members, both young and old alike, are expected to attend the five night festival and learn more about our rare and beloved arts heritage.

For further information, please contact:
Media Team: Chap Vithur: (855) 012 650 229, Email: vithur@cambodianlivingarts.org
Sok Sokunthea: (855) 12 839 268, Email: kunthea.s@gmail.com
CHAN Soratha: (855) 12 726 117, Email: chan.soratha@gmail.com
Address: 128G9, Street Sothearos Boulevard,
Website: www.cambodianartsfestival.org

Preparations are under way for the country’s largest ever youth arts festival, with stars from rock opera “Where Elephants Weep” performing a benefit concert at 7 pm on Tuesday to raise money for the festival, organizers said.

The three-day Cambodian Youth Arts Festival, which starts Saturday at Chaktomuk Theatre, will bring together approximately 500 young people from 24 arts organizations across 10 provinces for workshops and performances, said Prim Phloeun, the executive director of Cambodian Living Arts, which organized the festival.

“We want to engage more people in understanding their own culture and identity… It will showcase Cambodian arts from before, today and tomorrow,” Mr Phloeun said.

The diverse performers, who include ethnic minorities from Ratanakkiri and disabled artists from Kampot–use different styles, ranging from traditional Khmer to modern pop.

The arts groups will learn from each other during daytime workshops–for example, traditional apsara dancers will teach moves to Tiny Toones breakdancers, who in turn will teach hip-hop to wedding musicians.

International performers Diane Phelan and Marc de la Cruz said that the benefit concert for the festival brought them back to Cambodia, where two years ago they took lead roles in “Where Elephants Weep,” the nation’s first Broadway-style show, which combined Khmer traditional music with rock.

“It was the perfect opportunity to perform the music again and reunite with the musicians,” said Mr de la Cruz, who played a Cambodian-American returning home in the 1990s.

Rehearsals for the concert at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Center have been emotional and brought back memories of the original production, he said.

Both “Where Elephant Weep” and the youth arts festival share a vision to not just support traditional arts but also inspire emerging voices in Cambodian arts, said the rock opera’s executive producer, John Burt, who helped arrange the benefit concert.

“It marries [the] Western pop and rock heard so prevalently here with traditional Cambodian music to create a new voice of Cambodia,” he said.

Throughout the festival, you will be treated to performances in classical dance, varieties of traditional music and dance, rock opera, shadow puppetry, and many other exciting art forms. This inaugural festival event is all the more important because these artists have been gathered from across the nation to participate for the very first time in such an historic event.

Secondly, this festival is important because the main target audience and stakeholders in this event are the youth of the nation. In our country, where 70% of the population is under 30 years old, it is essential that the diversity and the depth of the arts be made known to our younger generations.

We have learned through organizing this festival that the complex and delicate history of our culture and art forms are of great interest to Cambodian youth. It is our fervent hope that this festival will serve to pique their interest, to engage them in the arts, and to generate greater public awareness and appreciation for these valuable art forms.

Finally, those of us engaged in the promulgation of the arts and culture recognize that preservation cannot succeed without popularization.

Cambodians of all ages and walks of life must be given the chance to embrace their cultural and artistic heritage, to be proud of it, and to take measures to ensure that it is taught in schools, performed on stages and theaters across the country, and maintained for the benefit of future generations.

I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to work as a Director of the Performance Production for this valuable project. I encourage my fellow Cambodians to participate, to enjoy, and to develop a deep respect and love of the arts in Cambodia.

Equally important, I hope that the artists themselves will gain a new appreciation for the importance of their craft, as this is vital for the arts to grow, develop and flourish.

They are a profound part of our identity, our past, our present, but also an integral aspect of the future of our nation.

Hun Pen

Performance Production Director
Cambodian Youth Arts Festival 2010

Preserving traditional Khmer music and art is important not only as a link to the past, but also as a foundation for the evolution of modern Cambodian art and music.

Technology will be a part of these developments. In music, there is little today that does not involve technology.

Whether it be recording the masters to preserve the great traditions or using it to create new works, technology has and will continue to have a huge impact on the arts.

We hope that the music technology workshops we offer here will inspire young artists to consider ways to use it to create new traditions in Cambodian music.

Warmest Regards,

George Hess, Apple Distinguished Educator
Assoc. Professor, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, National University of Singapore
TI:ME– Technology for Music Education; International Advisory Board

In Khmer, click here.

On behalf of PR/Media Committee, I am very excited and delighted to help organize this great Festival. And this is my first time to partake in this kind of solemn event.

Although my background is more relevant in arts than in PR/Media, I keep persisting and doing my best to lead this Committee so it can run in a very smooth, coherent and understanding way. These can be achieve d through the kind support of our team members, Kon Khmer Koun Khmer, and close co-operation with Cambodian Living Arts staff, who initiated this Festival.
I hope that the arrangements of our Committee will help make this event more recognized and admired before, during and after the celebrations and that my work will help Cambodian arts, both traditional and modern, spread across the country and around the world.

Finally, I’d like to extend my deep thanks to Cambodian Living Arts for taking initiatives to create this arts forum, to local authorities for allowing our work to run seamlessly, to other Committees for their support where lacking, to all reporters for helping broadcast and support us, as well as to other relevant organizations that contribute to this Festival.

My strong expectation is that you, dear reader, will help forward what we’re achieving to your friends and other people to directly attend or actively watch this event.

I am so delighted to participate in this event. Cambodian Youth Arts Festival is the testimony of working as a team, networking and cooperation of the arts community.

This festival offer opportunities for participating groups to perform and exchange their experiences of the arts between one another. According to this model the horizon of knowledge of the arts will be broaden.

I hope this event that we have spent time and energy to arrange will become the greatest event and enjoyable for the participating artists (Masters and student artists).

We hope that Cambodian Youth Arts Festival will become a model that will be used to organise other events not just the arts events. Moreover, this year festival is different from previous ones because this year the organisers consist of brave and talented youths who are the valuable assets in society development.

Please accept our deepest regards.

Ms. Tith Kanitha and Mr. Chap Vithur

The Co-Chairs of PR & Media Committee
2010 Cambodian Youth Arts Festival

To read this message in Khmer language, click here.

To All Participants of the 2010 Cambodian Youth Arts Festival:

The Festival’s Logistic committee is excited be part of the 2010 Cambodian Youth Arts Festival! We are currently working hard in preparation for the upcoming Festival.

Our planning has come a long way in the past three months. We began organizing the Festival in April 2010, and now it is nearly upon us!

We see the Festival as an opportunity to establish strong relationships between Cambodian arts and education NGOs. We have been working with twenty various NGOs to prepare for this year’s festival.

We hope that the festival will provide an opportunity for the Cambodian people and others around the world to gain a greater understanding of the artistic tradition that is so essential to their culture.

We also view the Festival as an opportunity for artists to exhibit the works to which they have given so much dedication and to share these art forms with other artists and students.

We are looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Best,
Ros Ratanak

Program Committee Co-Chairs
2010 Cambodian Youth Arts Festival

Sin Sokunthea

Program Committee Co-Chairs
2010 Cambodian Youth Arts Festival

To read this message in Khmer, please click here.

Previous festivals have been wonderfully successful for many reasons, but what we have found particularly important is that they have provided a setting for meaningful partnership and a sharing of ideas. We are very excited to see so many different organizations taking part in this year’s event and are sure it will serve as a springboard for further great things to come.

We are energized to see so many talented young people coming together at this festival and we believe that the event will see the emergence of a new youth leadership in the arts scene.

Identifying and investing in young people is paramount for the development of Cambodia and we think that the Cambodian Youth Arts Festival takes on more significance because of this.

Finally, Cambodia has come a long way over the past years and we at Cambodian Living Arts feel that this country’s wondrous arts and cultural traditions have an important part to play in the further development and rebuilding of this amazing country.

We wish all participants and guests at this year’s Youth Arts Festival a wonderful week!

Dickon Verey
President of CLA

Phloeun Prim
Director of CLA

To read this text in Khmer language, please download a PDF here.

L’KHAON BASSAC
Led by Master Nong Chak

L’khoan Bassac (Bassac Opera) is a traditional Khmer form of theater that uses song and is among the most popular of all Cambodia theater forms. It is strongly influenced by Hy (Chines Opera) and Kai Loeung (Vietnamese theater), which is evident from not only its scenery, costumes and make up but also in the extremely physical and almost acrobatic acting techniques.

MASTER NONG CHAK, b. 1947
“Basaac Opera”
Nong Chak was a member of the bassac folk opera company led by CLA Founder Arn Chorn-Pond’s father before 1975. A skilled singer and actor, he performs dramatic and humorous parts and teaches a class in Banteay Meanchey, near the Thai Border.

CHAPEI DANG WENG

By Master Kong Nai and Suon SAN

The Chapei Dang Weng is an instrument that is played in both the Areak and Apea Pipea (wedding) orchestras. Additionally, the Chapei is also played on its own as an accompaniment to poetry, narrated stories, vocal duets of an argumentative style and riddle telling (a special feature of the instrument which has allowed its popularity to continue form early times up to the present day.)

MASTER KONG NAI, b. 1944

Sometimes called “The Ray Charles of Cambodia”, he was blinded by smallpox at age four. He plays the chapei DANG WENG, a long neck guitar, played both for traditional songs, and with improvised, satirical rhyming verse. Know to most Cambodian’s through frequent television performances and for his wit and raspy voice, Kong Nai has performed on four continents. His young family barely escaped execution by the Khmer Rouge, but eventually he fathered 11 children and has 33 grandchildren.

MASTER SUON SAN, b. 1950

A virtuoso of the “Chapei Dang Weng”, renowned for his improvisational prowess, he embodies the fluid poetry of Chapei. This inventive performer wins audience enthusiasm through his playful, mischievous humor and intimate style of engaging each listener with eye contact. Wounded during the Khmer Rouge period, he lost partial use of one leg and until discovered by CLA lived in poverty and relative obscurity, but is now teaching a new generation and enchanting both live and television audiences.

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