ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights one element of the situation of female classical dancers in contemporary Cambodia. On stage, even when performing the role of an ogre, Cambodia’s female artists dance in the service of stories about the complex relationships of good and evil, of honesty, loyalty, treachery, and greed. At every step of the way, women in Cambodia are vulnerable to being thwarted in their attempts for fulfilment and accomplishment. In 1999, Piseth Pilika, renowned classical dancer and movie star, was gunned down in Phnom Penh in broad daylight, assassinated, people assume, because of an affair with a high-level government official. The chapter looks at an even younger dancer, as yet unaware of all the doors possibly open to her, and of all the obstacles to walking through them. Women in Cambodia, in the arts as well as in other fields, do break through the silencing and the patriarchy to realize their dreams, and to find professional and personal fulfilment.
