Southeast Asian After-School Program Focus Group Meeting
Subject
Heu Lee
(Hmong)
Subject
Boua Tong Xiong
(Hmong)
Subject
Khandarith Hay
(Cambodian)
Subject
Somaly Hay
(Cambodian, 1959 - 2016)
Subject
Manola Sidara
(Laotian)
Subject
Lynne Williamson
Date2001 September 30
Mediumreformatted digital files from audio cassette
DimensionsDuration (tape 1, side 1): 45 Minutes, 59 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 45 Minutes, 37 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 1): 46 Minutes, 55 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 2): 22 Minutes, 25 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 2 Hours, 41 Minutes, 12 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.643.1-.2
DescriptionTwo audio cassette tapes from a focus group project planning meeting for the Southeast Asian After-School Program on September 30, 2001. Hmong participants included Heu Lee and Boua Tong Xiong. Cambodian participants included Khandarith Hay and Somaly Hay. Manola Sidara was the Lao participant. Lynne Williamson facilitated the discussion.
2015.196.643.1a-d: (tape 1) two digital files, tape information sheet, and cassette tape
2015.196.643.2a-d: (tape 2) two digital files, tape information sheet, and cassette tape
NotesSubject Note: The Hmong Foundation of Connecticut became a separate organization in 1996, after the Connecticut Federation of Refugee Assistance Agencies, an umbrella service group, disbanded. Hmong leaders started the Foundation as a way to keep the community together and continue to provide many kinds of needed assistance. The Foundation, which is led by a Board of Directors, is open to all Hmong living in the state. Members provide services such as translation, transportation, family relocation to Connecticut, assistance with finding jobs and access to health care, Hmong language classes, and traditional Hmong advising and dispute resolution. All activities and services are on a volunteer basis with a small budget based on dues from members of the community. Cultural leader Boua Tong Xiong is a past president, as are Cha Lor, Heu Lee, and Shawn Moua. The group sponsors a Hmong New Year celebration in November and a celebration for Hmong high school graduates in June. The Foundation has received its non-profit status and developed by-laws. In the early and mid 2000s, the Hmong Foundation organized students from the community’s families to participate in language and culture classes as part of a Southeast Asian After-School Project that CCHAP developed in partnership with several communities with NEA funding. The Hmong Foundation provided teachers for the classes, presented the students’ work, and participated in project meeting with other partners. As part of this project, Hmong comedian/educator/activist from Minneapolis Tou Ger Xiong visited the community’s classes. The Foundation continues to serve Connecticut Hmong. 2015.196.643.1a-d: (tape 1) two digital files, tape information sheet, and cassette tape
2015.196.643.2a-d: (tape 2) two digital files, tape information sheet, and cassette tape
Biographical Note: Heu Lee (txawjthaiv) has served as the president of the Hmong Foundation. He came to the U.S. in 1976, at the age of 15, as a refugee from the Vietnam War. His father had fought with the U.S. forces against the North Vietnamese. Heu Lee lives in Stafford Springs and is an aviation/aerospace machinist at Paramount Machine Company in Manchester, Connecticut.
Biographical Note: Boua Tong Xiong came to Connecticut in 1979, after fleeing from northern Laos with his family to Thailand, as so many Hmong had to do after the Communist takeover of Laos. Tong played an important role during the Vietnam War by assisting the U.S. government as part of the Special Guerilla Forces fighting in Laos. Because they were farmers in Laos, many Hmong chose to live in Enfield, a small town north of Hartford rather than settling in a larger urban area. The Hmong community consider Tong to be an important culture bearer, and many of his extended family members followed to live near him in Connecticut. Hmong communities throughout New England ask Boua Tong Xiong to preside over funerals and weddings, because of his experience, his beautiful voice, and his knowledge of the ritual songs, a necessary skill within this very traditional community. He also serves as a counselor to the community, helping to resolve disputes and lead diplomatic outreach to other Hmong families and communities especially in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. Because the men who understand the complete rituals (which take days) are so few, Boua Tong is committed to passing on his knowledge, teaching young men to play the ritual bamboo instrument qeej and sing the wedding and funeral songs. He has participated in CCHAP’s Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program for several years. In the early 2000s, he held regular weekend classes attended by between twelve and sixteen young men, either in his house (wedding songs) or in a nearby park - because the funeral rituals are traditionally performed outside. He also knows the joking and courtship songs sung by men and women. Tong regularly visits relatives in larger Hmong communities in California and Minnesota to refresh his knowledge of the rituals and songs. He worked with other veterans including Maj. Sar Phouthasack to establish a memorial in Middletown dedicated to Special Guerilla Unit veterans (including several Connecticut Hmong) who fought for and supported the United States in the Vietnam War. As a result of their efforts to pass the Hmong Veterans Service Recognition Act in Congress in 2018, Lao and Hmong veterans are now entitled to a military burial in Connecticut.
Biographical Note: Somaly Hay was a Cambodian court dancer trained from a very young age at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh by revered teachers Soth Sam On, Aum Prong, and Chhea Samy. Cambodian classical dance has been part of royal court life in Cambodia for over a thousand years. On the walls of the temples at Angkor Wat, apsara, celestial dancers carved in stone, have provided the inspirations for court dance characters. Court dance is essentially a female tradition, with women performing the main roles of prince, princess, and Giant. An unusually versatile artist, Somaly could dance each of these characters, and specialized in the difficult role of the Giant. For this role she was mentored by the master of all masked dances who also had extensive knowledge of all roles, dances, songs, history, and repertoire in Cambodian court dance. This teacher gave Somaly deep insights into the secret things that she had done when she was a dancer. Somaly dedicated her own teaching to the memory of this master, Soth Sam On.
During the Khmer Rouge reign of terror from 1975-1979, eleven members of Somaly’s family were killed. Surviving the upheaval in their country through strength, intelligence, and determination, Somaly along with her husband and brother escaped to the U.S. in 1981, and other family members followed later. She was one of the few court dancers remaining alive who had learned in the traditional way. In the U.S., Somaly’s husband Khandarith sometimes accompanied her performances as a vocalist, while her brother Sotha and sister Sophanna created elaborate costumes for her roles. From 1991 to 1995 she was a master dancer in the Cambodian Artists Project at Jacob’s Pillow, and contributed to an important film documentary project on Cambodian dance. As a performer Somaly danced with the Apsara Ensemble led by the renowned musician Sam Ang Sam. She performed either solo or as part of a troupe at organizations including Connecticut College, Angkor Dance Theatre, and Cambridge Multicultural Council, as well as in New York at the Asian Music Society and World Music Institute. Somaly was deeply involved in New England Cambodian community activities, especially New Year celebrations and performances at local temples.
The Connecticut Commission on the Arts recognized Somaly as a Master Teaching Artist, and she won a Commission Fellowship Award for choreography in 1999. In addition to residencies in schools from Connecticut to Alaska, Somaly taught folk, social, and classical dance to many young Cambodians in their communities. Somaly also trained her daughters and nieces to dance with her, and mentored three apprentices over four years in CCHAP’s Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. Somaly produced an instructional video of the roles and gestures of Cambodian dance for distance learning students. In 2015 Somaly received a special Governor’s Citation from the State of Connecticut. She passed away in 2016.
“As a classical Cambodian dancer trained at the Royal Palace from childhood, I continue to perform in America. I also teach Cambodian classical, folk, and social dance to Cambodian students in Connecticut and Rhode Island, because my whole family feels a commitment to preserving and passing on our culture. Many Cambodian children are born here now - we want them to understand themselves as Cambodian AND American. I serve as a CT Commission on the Arts Master Teaching Artist, giving residencies in schools, performing with children, and working with teachers to incorporate my art into their curriculum.
One of my greatest loves is to create new dances based on Cambodian myths and folk tales performed in the classical court style, as I did for the Cambodian Artists Project at Jacob's Pillow and for the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Massachusetts, where there is a very large Cambodian population. In 1994 I developed and choreographed a story called Strength of Spirit at Connecticut College. The story is, sadly, very appropriate to young Cambodians today in the US, as it deals with the problems of peer pressure and substance abuse. My dance presented culture and family as ways to strengthen a young girl's resistance to temptations and forge her own identity. It is hard to find the number of trained Cambodian dancers needed to perform the traditional dance stories or my new pieces. That is why I am eager to teach the next generation of dancers - including my two daughters - who can then become part of a New England Cambodian dance ensemble. I have worked with a videographer to record the essential elements of Cambodian dance: the kbach (postures) which are crucial to the correct portrayal of the central characters in the dance dramas. I can demonstrate these "building blocks" of choreography, then show how they are woven together through movement and expression to create the dance. This video provides young dancers with the best examples of form, so they can practice outside of class, and it documents the thousand-year-old memory of Cambodian dance.”
Biographical Note: Manola Sidara is a Lao dance educator and community activist whose life has been devoted to serving her community. Born in 1969 in Vientiane, Laos, Manola joined the National Dance School at the age of five, along with her sister. After her family fled Laos, she continued learning traditional dance with master dancer Sone Norasing in Colorado until moving to Connecticut in 1989. From her grandmother and aunts Manola learned to make pah khuane, the ornaments of bamboo leaves and flowers which are part of every Lao ceremony and celebration in both temple and home. She worked as a wedding consultant, organizing all the arrangements for traditional Lao weddings, and became known as a brilliant cake decorator. Manola helped to produce the exhibit The Ties That Bind: Southeast Asian Wedding Traditions at the Institute for Community Research (ICR) in 1995. In 1999-2000 she served as the Bilingual Program Assistant at Garfield School in Bridgeport, teaching ESOL, computers, and cultural awareness to elementary school children both Lao and Latino. Manola taught traditional dance at the Lao Saturday School in New Britain from its inception. With her high-school age students from the school, Manola formed the Lao Narthasin Dance Troupe, instructing the members in classical Laotian dance, folk dances of different ethnic groups in Laos, and traditional values and manners such as respectful behavior, honoring elders, and service to the family and community. The dance group, which has performed throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island at cultural centers and Lao temples, now includes a third generation of dancers. From 1998 to 2001 Manola was the New Britain Coordinator for the Urban Artists Initiative, a statewide training program run by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and the Institute for Community Research. In 2001 Manola received an award from the Lao Association of CT at New Year for her work with the Lao Narthasin dancers and was selected as a CT Commission on the Arts Master Teaching Artist. In 2011 Manola coordinated the community oral history project After the Trauma: Holocaust Survivors and Laotian Refugees Confront the Past, displayed at the University of Hartford. Manola is also known as a master chef at East West Grille, her award-winning and beloved Lao-Thai restaurant on New Park Avenue in Hartford from 2000-2019, and the East-West Grille Food Truck. Manola is very active in assisting the Lao Temple in Morris, CT, with cultural programming, social service, and providing food for the monks and their ceremonies. For Manola, her tireless activities in dance, education, ceremonial decorations, and cooking all promote wellness, spirituality, bonding, and healing.
Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to this event and artists.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
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