Vol. 49 No. 4 (2005): Antropologia i sztuka
Articles and essays
Theatrical Performances of the Khmer People: Between Royal Entertainment and Ritual Sacrifice
Abstract
Classical Khmer ballet (lakhon kbach boran) began at the royal court in the latter part of the first millennium AD (probably around 802 AD), and continues to be performed in Cambodia. The ballet is dominated by women, while men are the sole performers in another form of traditional dramatic dance, known as lakhon khol. Although this masked theatre also functioned as “royal theatre”, its popular, ritual version is more widespread. Lakhon bassac, the newest genre of traditional Khmer theatre in what is today Cambodia, has its origins in the early twentieth century. It is a popular form of musical drama that shows considerable Vietnamese influence. In Cambodia, two types of shadow theatres exist: ayang, which is a theatre of small, individual figures, whose origins probably lie with an Indonesian-Malyasian or southern Thai model, and sbaek thom, which uses large figures and would appear to be a type of theatre unique to Cambodia.
References
- Brandon James R., 1976, Brandon’s Guide to Theatre in Asia, The University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu.
- Brown Ian, 2000, Cambodia, Oxfam, Great Britain.
- Dagens Bruno, 1995, Angkor. Heart of an Asian Epire, Thames & Hudson, London.
- Dumarcay Jacques, Smithies Michael, 1995, Cultural Sities of Burma, Thailand and Cambodia, Oxfam University Press, Kuala Lumpur.
- Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, 1994, Dictionary of Traditional South-East Asian Theatre, Oxford University Press, New York.
- Mabbett Ian, Chandler David, 1995, The Khmers, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
- Miettinen Juka O., 1992, Classical Dance and Theatre in South-East Asia, Oxford University Press, Oxford–New York.
- Phim Toni Samantha, Thompson Ashley, 1999, Dance in Cambodia, Oxford University Press, New York.
- The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, t. 5: Asia/Pacific, Don Rubin (red.), Routledge, London–New York 1998, zwłaszcza hasło „Cambodia”.
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