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SNEAP Year 2 Presentation: Cambodian Court Dance

PerformerPerformed by Somaly Hay Cambodian, 1959 - 2016

PerformerPerformed by Linda Heng

PerformerPerformed by Tath Heng

Date2000 June 28

Mediumreformatted digital file from VHS tape

DimensionsDuration: 34 Minutes, 29 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionVHS tape of a required public presentation of the Year 2 Southern New England Apprenticeship team in Cambodian court dance with teaching artist Somaly Hay and apprentices Linda and Tath Heng. The performance took place in Providence, Rhode Island on June 28, 2000. The following dances were performed: Phoung Neary, Tang You (Umbrella Dance), Best Wishes, and Pestle Dance.

Object number2015.196.782a-b

CopyrightIn Copyright

NotesSubject Note: Year 2 (1999-2000) and Year 3 (2000-2001), Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program - Master Court Dancer Somaly Hay taught Cambodian dance to many Rhode Island children in the 1990s and early 2000s. Her goal was to increase the number of young girls who could perform roles as part of a small dance company and who could give performances for schools and the community. In Year 2 Somaly's apprentices were Linda and Tath Heng, daughters of Song Heng, master xylophone player with the music group of Somaly’s husband Khandarith. Somaly and the apprentices, with musical accompaniment, performed together at the OpSail Festival (tall ships) event in New London, Connecticut and at the Rhode Island Ethnic and Heritage and Labor Festival.

Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

Subject Terms