Cristina Maza

 

The dancers glide across the stage, backs arched, elbows curved, fingers trembling, a vision of elegance and grace. They are performing a version of robam kbach boran, the national dance that’s seen as one of Cambodia’s most important symbols of national identity.

 

But the dance performed last weekend at Phnom Penh’s Department of Performing Arts is different from other traditional Khmer dance performances for one key reason: the dancers are men executing a dance traditionally dominated by women.

 

Prumsodun Ok is a Khmer-American interdisciplinary performance artist and dancer who arrived in Cambodia in 2008 to study Khmer dance. Over the past eight years, he’s become a Khmer cultural icon for his work reviving the role of men in traditional dance. Natyarasa, his all-male, all-gay dance troupe, is the first of its kind in modern-day Cambodia.

 

LONG AND COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE:

 

 http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/all-male-all-gay-dance-troupe-stages-its-cambodian-debut

 

Brave souls in search of acceptance.  Tough place to begin an all male dancing career.  May the gods be in your favor.

  Khmer and dance with me!