Elephant Guide to Cambodia
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Curtain call for an icon of Cambodia's artistic healing |
Phnom Penh's Bassac Theatre has been drummer Nop Sambona's home
since the Khmer Rouge were pushed from power 28 years ago, leaving
behind a ruined country, its singers, dancers and musicians among
the 1.7 million people murdered by the regime.
Those who survived the apocalypse unleashed by the Khmer Rouge,
which was particularly brutal in pursuing of Cambodia's artists,
trickled back into the city and began trying to rebuild their
lives. The theatre became the soul of this battered community, a
bright spot in an otherwise dead world that evoked a cultural
richness which would never be fully revived.
Nearly three decades on that bright spot is dimming as the site on
which Cambodia's national theatre sits has been leased to a
private developer and the building doomed to be razed. Its artists,
who have soldiered on against darkness, wet and neglect since a
fire gutted the auditorium and stage area in 1994, were offered 300
dollars each and told last month to leave.
This place has produced hundreds of artists. The theatre produced
the nation's great culture," says Nop Sambona, taking a break from
what will be one of the last rehearsals to resonate through the
Bassac's now derelict performance hall. "It's a landmark. We're
so sorry that we've lost it," he says, gesturing over his shoulder
at the Bassac's flame-blackened foyer.
Constructed in 1966, the 1,200-seat Bassac was designed by Vann
Molyvann, Cambodia's most famous modern architect, as a monument
to Cambodia's thriving performing arts scene. It is not hard to
imagine the capital's elite, dressed in elegant evening wear,
gliding through the Bassac's imposing triangular foyer and up the
cantilevered staircases suspended over shallow pools of water,
about to view a performance of the Royal Ballet.
The Bassac was one of dozens of gems built by Vann Molyvann, whose
wide boulevards and stunning public buildings transformed Phnom
Penh from a tiny backwater into a graceful capital during
Cambodia's short period of prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s.
The era, known as the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, or Cambodia's "golden
age," also spurred on a strong revival in performing arts, with the
Bassac at its heart. "During the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, the
government considered the theatre a part of our national heritage,"
an angry Vann Molyvann says. "Heritage cannot be sold, changed or
denied-now they are destroying it. Now they've sold our national
heritage to a famed businessman.
Khim Sarith, secretary of state at the Ministry of Culture, says
the site had been leased to Cambodian tycoon Kith Meng, who plans
to develop a "cultural building". In an earlier deal struck in
2005, Cambodia's culture ministry ceded land around the Bassac on
the condition that the theatre be renovated, retaining its original
name and architecture.
Kith Meng was to get an undisclosed amount of property around the
theatre in exchange for building a conference centre and office
blocks. But Khim Sarith explains that the government is unable to
afford the "millions of dollars" it would cost to restore the
Bassac. "The theatre will be knocked down because it is burned and
is old," he says. "There is nothing there," he says, adding the new
theatre that Kith Meng has agreed to build elsewhere in exchange
for the property "will be better than the old one".
Buth Choeun, chief of administration at the culture ministry's
performing art department, says the theatre's state of decay has
made it increasingly dangerous to work in. "If we stay here it will
be difficult for us-we fear the old walls will fall on us," he
says. Vann Molyvann is not satisfied by the deal. "They do not care
about heritage," he says. "I am very worried. I have no hope that
Cambodian artists can spread our culture anymore -- Cambodian
culture will die. The land prices at that site have reac hed more
than 1,000 dollars per square metre (yard). So it's no longer
about national heritage.
Leng Sithul, director of the Khmer Actress Association, says the
proposed site for the new theatre is "not suitable," suggesting
instead that the Bassac be restored. "If the old site has a
beautiful theatre, it will help add value to our culture," he says.
But like all of those facing eviction, he is heartbroken about the
end of the Bassac. "We have nothing but regret. We have only
sympathy for the theatre and can only say goodbye to our poor home.
In the background Nop Sambona has begun rehearsing again, his
drumming heard from behind a glass window on which someone in a
desperate effort to stave off the inevitable has scrawled" "Please
help to preserve, don't destroy."
Source: AFP
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