Prumsodun Ok: The magic of Khmer classical dance
بروسمون أوك: سحر الرقص الخميري الكلاسيكي
TED Fellow Prumsodun Ok heals, empowers and advocates using the ancient art of Khmer classical dance. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
for an agricultural society.
between heaven and earth.
of the people up to the gods,
إلى الألهة
was delivered back through them
create a serpentine impression,
the introduction of major religions,
practiced animism.
الأرواحية
in this belief system
curvilinear movement,
in your dancing body then
of rivers cutting across the earth:
is a transformation of nature,
and of our own internal universe.
hand gestures that we use.
with which dancers express themselves.
through the dance as well.
transformed and put together
in the royal palace,
originally took life.
almost completely destroyed.
that you could afford health care.
indicated your elite education.
you didn't have to work beneath the sun.
of rigid inequality.
and comforts of the world
suffered from backbreaking labor
to see that this is true.
as knhom preah robam,
to end slavery in Cambodia,
everyone into slaves to do it.
that they sought to end.
against their own parents.
and being killed,
of Cambodia's population was lost
of Khmer dance artists.
for the tradition and future were lost.
has been revived to new heights.
in a vulnerable environment.
still haunt Khmer people today.
and language barriers.
to grow anywhere and everywhere
through time and place.
our culture and country,
in which to move forward into the future.
don't know the dancer's names,
honestly and openly from "khnhom."
by many as female,
gay dance company.
of the beauty, dreams and power
of past, present and future,
that ancient and ageless role
for anyone's permission to bloom.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prumsodun Ok - Interdisciplinary artistTED Fellow Prumsodun Ok heals, empowers and advocates using the ancient art of Khmer classical dance.
Why you should listen
Prumsodun Ok groundbreaking performances have been described as "radical beauty" by the Bangkok Post and have been staged throughout Cambodia, Thailand, Mexico, Greece and the United States. Ok's 2013 book Moni Mekhala and Ream Eyso was reviewed in the Asian Theatre Journal as “a sampeah kru ritual of a sort: an offering to teachers living and deceased and to Moni Mekhala [the Goddess of the Ocean] herself.”
Ok has brought a diverse group of artists, activists and scholars together for Children of Refugees, a program of talks and performances raising awareness for the Syrian refugee crisis. Among many honors, Ok is a TED Senior Fellow and was named by Tea Uglow, creative director of Google Creative Lab in Sydney, an LGBT+ Creative Leader of Tomorrow for The Dots's and WeTransfer's Championing Diversity Initiative. Ok is based in Phnom Penh where he founded Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA, Cambodia’s first gay dance company.
Prumsodun Ok | Speaker | TED.com