The continuum : Beyond the Killing Fields

“Bright red blood which covers the towns and plains of  Kampuchea, our motherland, sublime blood of workers and peasants,  sublime blood of revolutionary men and women fighters!”         
– National anthem during Khmer Rouge bloodbath.

Based on Pol Pot’s massacre of the royal court dancers of  Cambodia, this documentary performance has played in USA, Berlin,  Rotterdam, Vienna, Singapore, Phnom Penh, London, Stockholm, Oslo,  Goteborg, Rome, Lyon, and Istanbul. 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. 

Pol 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 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 of 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 while Cambodia still waits for its war crimes trials to  come to fruition. 

Source: TheatreWorks

More information: www.theatreworks.org.sg