Classical Cambodian Dance and Music Help Children Embrace Heritage

Holding a three-foot wood dowel, Madame Sam-Oeun Tes studied the children as they practice thier poses.

"Straighten!" shouted Oeun, touching the small of young girl's back with the dowel.

Oeun founded the Cambodian American Heritage group, which teaches and performs Cambodian classical dance. She and the other Dance Masters teach Cambodian dance to second generation Cambodian American children at the Cambodian Buddhist Society in Silver Spring and the Arlington Mill Community Center in Arlington. (for more information about the group, go to http://www.cambodianheritage.org/masterdancers.html)

Ouen's job, and that of the other Dance Masters, is to keep alive a culture that was nearly erased by Cambodia's forgotten genocide.

The Washington area has some 5,000 Cambodian Americans, many of whom immigrated to the United States during or after the fall of the Communist Khmer Rouge government in 1979. They left their homeland to escape a ruined society in which some 1.7 million people were murdered by Pol Pot's regime.

The refugees brought with them vestiges of Cambodian culture, which they now pass to the children.

"My kids don't know the culture yet," said Nalen Smith, 38, who arrived in the United States in 1988 after spending five years in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp on the Thai border. "I bring Meghan to dance because I want to keep the culture alive. Also, I want her to behave herself as Cambodia woman."

The youngest children, such as Meghan, 5, (pictured left) and Grace, are in the beginner's classes. The oldest students are in their mid-20s. Nearly all are second-generation Cambodian Americans.

"Grace wailed at first because she doesn't understand the importance," said Kathy Rafferty of her daughter, 5. Rafferty adopted Grace in Cambodia in 2003. Now she brings Grace to classes on Sundays to learn Cambodian dance.

"Ninety percent of dancers were killed," Rafferty said of the Khmer Rouge slaughter of artists in the mid-to-late 1970s. That's what makes these lessons so important, Rafferty said. "Passing it on to this generation."

Cambodian musical lessons are also part of the cultural education held on Sunday's in Silver Spring and Arlington.

Jonathan Dos, left, a fifth grader at Carlin Springs Elementary, practices playing the roneat ek, a xylophone-like instrument with a rich eastern tone.
The instructor, Ngek Chum, closed his eyes and listened to Jonathan play.

"I use my ear," Chum said.

Many of the children are unaware of their parent's past.

"I've not really been told about it," said Paula Chea, 12, a dancer in the advanced class.

Like most adult Cambodians, the parents here—with the exception of Rafferty—have seen unthinkable hardship. Many lost mothers, fathers, siblings and friends to the Khmer Rouge labor camps, prisons, and execution squads. It seems to some parents that the past has been forgotten.

Most of the parents think the children should be older before they hear the stories. Others want to forget about the past altogether.

"Day by day it fades away," Smith said of her people's hardship. "People don't pay attention anymore."

"Some parents are fed up," said Victoria Yap, whose children learn dance on Sundays. "They say, 'I don't want my kids to know or speak the language.'"

Yap and Smith, however, disagree.

"We want them to know," Yap said. "We are the bridge."

And some of the children, particularly the oldest, are starting to understand. "I know that all of my grandfathers and grandmothers died. All my mom's brother and sisters died," said Chea. "I like to dance because I don't want to lose my Cambodian identity."