Shakin' It Khmer Style

Last week was the annual FHCambodia staff retreat. Monday morning, all the Anlong Veng staff headed south, and the Phnom Penh staff headed north, and we all converged in the middle in the city of Siem Reap. Siem Reap is one of the big tourist destinations in Cambodia, because of it's nearness to the Angkor Wat ruins. This means that there are lots of hotels around, hence it being the site of our retreat. The upsides of staff retreat: air conditioning in the room for sleeping, hot water to shower with, and Western food to sneak out and buy during the afternoon breaks. The downsides: eating lots of sketchy Cambodian hotel food, spending many hours in teaching sessions on the hot hotel roof (see above picture), and attempting to understand and stay awake for said sessions. Although, while my understanding of the retreat speaker was limited, the Khmer staff seemed to soak it up. He gave a week of discipleship on the basics of Christianity--a good review for those staff who have been believers for awhile, and a good intro for those staff who are new Christians or are still Buddhist.

All in all, the retreat went fine, and Thursday evening was our big special banquet--meaning even more Khmer food, although this time the meal was sandwiched between speeches at the beginning and dancing at the end (see the picture at the bottom--the blond lady is our Swiss staff member, not me :) ). If you ever spend much time in Cambodia, you will get your fair share of chances to experience Cambodian dancing. Traditional Cambodian dancing (similar to Thai dance) is a very slow, stylized type of movement, with hand gestures and body position taking on significant meaning. It tells a story. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WEIPMPW0U or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjteFhfRphw. These positions and gestures are called "apsara," and carvings of apsara dancing are found at Angkor Wat. Professional dancers start as children and study for years to master the art.

This restraint and hand twisting carries over into dancing in day to day life--at our retreat celebration, other big shindigs, and especially at weddings. Whoever feels like dancing (and whoever gets pulled out of their chairs to join in) forms a big circle, walks around the room, and does their best attempt at classical hand gestures (amazing how sweaty you can get walking in a circle and flapping your hands). In this type of dancing, there's a lot of repetition, and not much choreography or big movement. Sometimes things get exciting and they speed the music up a little faster, and sometimes you can change up the way you step around the circle (i.e. cross one foot in front of the other instead of behind!).

And that's about it. I find I have a little too much rhythm for this type of dancing...a little too much wanting to bust out some other moves. Although in all fairness, there are some variations: some dances you move towards and away from a partner instead of in a circle, some dances are very reminiscent of the Electric Slide, and sometimes for the last song all rules go out the window and people dance however they want (mostly however they see their friends dancing). It's pretty great--if you've ever wanted to do the Funky Chicken or Cabbage Patch or just flap your arms around, and have a dozen Khmer people start doing exactly the same thing--this is your big chance :) Never forget, too, that Cambodian dancing is accompanied by (loud) Cambodian pop music and live karaoke, so if singing is more your bag...you'll be right at home, too. Come on over.