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A documentary performance based on Pol Pot's massacre of the royal court dancers of Cambodia. The real life story of seventy-five year old Em Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance in Cambodia. This is a unique form of dance which has women cross dressing in male roles. Em Theay has survived the scourge of the Khmer Rouge to live on, teaching her skills to the national troupe after the trauma. This story of dance, passed through generations of mothers and daughters, becomes all the more horrific when one learns that nine out of ten royal dancers, musicians, actors, playwrights, poets, artists were killed by Pol Pot in his fanatical attempt to set his country back to year zero. Pot's vision was to realise a peasant nation of self-reliant agricultural work brigades modelled on Mao's China. Reminiscent of Nazi Germany's genocide of the Jews' technicians, teachers, monks or doctors were executed. Those who spoke French, English or who had studied abroad, were likewise liquidated. Simply having fair skin or wearing glasses was cause for execution. Em Theay, often known as the tenth dancer, the one who survived, tells her story. Persecuted for being an artist, she never falters, a conscience, a memory of the gash which tore Cambodia apart... after 25 years Cambodia still waits for its war crimes trials to come to fruition.

Creatives/Company

Author: Keng-Sen Ong