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121 CHAPTER 4 Cambodia’s Artistic Renaissance or a New Culture of Dependency? Before 2006 if you walked straight up Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard past the art deco Psar Thmei (Central Market) on the right and Boeng Kak lake on the left, you could easily find the dilapidated but charming “north campus” of the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA). In 1958 the university was formally known as École Nationale du Théâtre, or Sala Cheat Phneak Lakhaoun Niyeay (The National School of Spoken Drama). In 1965 it became RUFA when it included all of Cambodia’s traditional performing arts, and then in 1970, after the Lon Nol coup d’etat, it was renamed the University of Fine Arts. It was closed in 1975 with the onslaught of the Maoist Khmer Rouge (KR) revolutionaries who forcibly evacuated nearly the entire population from the capital. The school reopened in 1981 under the direction of Chheng Phon, the then Minister of Culture and Fine Art who single-handedly did much to revive the Cambodian performing arts. “Royal” was restored to the name when Norodom Sihanouk became king again in 1993. The school was easily accessible to students, teachers, and visitors. From the sparsely furnished classrooms and studios, you could hear both choruses of Khmer folk song and strains of Western classical violin. In the otherwise empty offices teachers sat at rickety desks and chatted over glasses of tea. A shrine to Maha Eysei, guardian of the arts, was set up near the entrance, not far from a statue of the twelfth-century king Jayavarman VII—who consolidated Buddhism in the Khmer territory and expanded the Angkor Wat temple complex . The small theatre, upgraded with private donations and UNESCO aid, hosted many of the school’s public productions that were beginning to occur on a monthly basis. But only the large breezy pavilion with a smooth tiled 122 | ChAPTer 4 floor where the classical dancers practiced could be said to somewhat resemble the palace terrace where the dancers of the royal troupe once practiced. Acknowledging the poor condition of their school and the lack of government assistance, students tried to raise funds to fix the leaky roofs and broken storeroom locks by putting on performances.1 Despite their attempts, in 2006 the campus was razed to make way for a shopping mall, “China Town” by the Mong Reththy development group, which then assisted in building a new campus in Russei Keo, seven kilometers out of town, in the middle of an empty paddy field.2 Inconvenient for both students and teachers, the location also posed a threat to girl students who complained that its isolation made it dangerous for them to go. When he heard the problem, King Norodom Sihamoni, a former ballet dancer and choreographer who came to the throne in 2004, donated three minibuses to ferry them.3 On the other side of Phnom Penh was the National Theatre, the Grand Theatre Preah Bat Norodom Suramarit, which had been built especially to showcase Cambodia’s fledgling modern spoken drama. It opened in 1968 with an ambitious production of Midsummer Night’s Dream that adapted Shakespeare’s Athens to the Cambodian court.4 The theatre’s external shape resembling a ship’s prow was designed by the leading modernist architect Vann Molyvann and was a great source of national pride. But the theatre’s grandeur and elitism meant that it was not a place ordinary people felt comfortable in. In 1970, the theatre was renamed the Tonle Bassac National Theatre, as it has been more commonly known since. It survived the Khmer Rouge devastation, and in the late 1980s, Arts Minister Chheng Phon made a concerted effort to woo all surviving artists who had been dispersed to the countryside or were living in refugee camps back to the area surrounding the theatre. Many masters of music, song, dance, and drama returned. They inhabited the derelict Bassac apartments and built makeshift houses around the theatre. Though terribly impoverished, the artists were once again practicing, and NGOs were helping them pass on their arts to new students. A community feeling evolved among the residents as they waited to see what would happen with the theatre. In the early 1990s, the French government paid for its refurbishment, and just as it was due to open in 1994, it caught fire, leaving little but a charred shell. Nonetheless, troupes continued to rehearse and dance teachers taught in the ruins while concerned patrons again tried to...

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