ABSTRACT
Though Samritechak was well received for the most part, its formal innovations, including asymmetry, caused some dance authorities to call it ‘foreign’ and ‘weird’. The best dancers, who are employees of the ministry, are in constant demand for performances and tours and often abandon one commitment for a higher paying opportunity or one in service of a higher authority. In January 2007, the Khmer Arts Ensemble signed year-long contracts with 31 dancers and musicians. During the post-independence era, Cambodian architecture, theatre, dance, music, and filmmaking flourished in an environment of hope, energy and imagination. Even if the Ensemble’s artists were dancing askew of central authority, they had proven their ability to equal or surpass the quality of those who performed in its service, and they did so on the central authority’s most highly prized real estate. Likewise, dances created under the socialist government in the early 1980s celebrated Marx and Lenin.
