Under the Big Top in Siem Reap - Cambodia blog entry #23

Maybe this week’s Sunday post has nothing to do with the religion I practice. Maybe I’m not sharing any Bible verses or Jesus stories today. But this experience was one of the most inspirational we witnessed while in Cambodia.

Monday, after touring another three temples, having a two-hour spa experience, and eating another delicious dinner in a nice restaurant, we went to The Phare Circus in Siem Reap. Other than sitting in the round “big-top”, this was more than just a circus. 

It is a venue where the performers use theater, music, dance and modern acts to tell unique Cambodian stories; historical, folk and modern. The energy, emotion, enthusiasm and talent of the young circus artists was breathtaking. 

And more importantly, the stories they told, using very few words but mostly actions and facial expressions, were riveting.  

 The show we saw was titled “Khmer Metal”. It presented the wilder side of modern urban life as the artists shared the kinds of challenges that Cambodian young adults face. 

The setting is a grungy Phnom Penh rock bar, where patrons demonstrate problems with alcoholism, cheating, lying, stealing, and relationships with the opposite sex, as well as (surprisingly to me) the same sex.

These are all issues which young people in Cambodia struggle with, and I think we are all aware of the same problems in our cities.

But the entire enterprise is so much more than the show.

(From their website) The performers are students and graduates from Phare Ponleu Selpak’s vocational training center in Battambang. The association was formed in 1994 by nine young men coming home from a refugee camp after the Khmer Rouge regime. They were greatly helped during that time by an art teacher using drawing classes as therapy and wanted to share this new skill among the poor, socially deprived, and troubled youngsters in Battambang. They founded an art school, and a public school followed to offer free education. A music school and theatre school were next and finally, for the kids who wanted more, the circus school. Today more than 1,200 pupils attend the public school daily and 500 attend the alternative schools. Phare Ponleu Selpak also has extensive outreach programs, trying to help with the problems highlighted in their own tales.

The Cambodian Circus offers these students and graduates a place to hone their skills and earn a decent wage. Money that will take them out of poverty and give them self-respect and freedom.

The Phare Circus is reviving the arts that was nearly destroyed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, while providing an education for the poor children of Cambodia and giving them the opportunity to learn acting and high-flying tricks by joining the Phare Circus.

I'm sorry that the pictures don't come close to telling you what the show was really like or that I don't have more of them. The show was just so mezmerising that I didn't want to take my eyes off the performers to point my camera. Plus, it was dark in there. I hope you at least can pick up a little of their vibe.