Dance Fever

Each delegation to the Festival for Hope 2010 is supposed to put on a performance for the other delegations which is representative of their country and culture.  There are 32 delegations, each with eight players and two coaches, thus 300 plus people as the audience.  Plus, African dance, enough said.  It was time to take this performance seriously.

In our experience, soccer players aren't often known for their dance or musical skills, except maybe Alexi Lalas.  We needed to bring in the experts so the Cambodian squad wouldn't totally embarrass themselves or the Khmer culture.  We went to the Phare Ponleu Selpak, a widely-respected arts NGO in Battambang who got its start using art to help children in refugee camps on the Thai border to overcome the trauma of war.  After a discussion of the performance options, we chose a simple traditional Khmer dance, the Plowing Dance, or so we thought.

Session One - the team, fully kitted out in their bumble bee uniforms (see photos for futher explanation), as soccer practice was to follow the dance lesson, descended on the NGO complex, which trains and houses hundreds of children, holds a weekly circus and other performances.  The team did not seem especially enthusiastic about dance class, but as obedient Cambodian youth, they quickly set to work helping the dance instructor ready the stage for class - hauling speakers, chairs and props into position.

The class began with some simple warm-up exercises where it was quickly apparent the dance instructor was the most flexible man on earth while the team could hardly touch their collective toes.  In yoga classes, you are told to spread your toes and try to work each toe like it is a finger, something most westerners are incapable of doing.  The dance instructor's toes are more flexible and nimble than my fingers and he could easily play the piano with them.  Another early observation was the overall lack of rhythm by the majority of the team.

The Plowing Dance depicts the rice harvesting process, which, as you can imagine, is very important to Cambodian culture.  It is set to a beautiful, haunting song and the male part is much more difficult than the female part, requiring two bamboo poles as props, which must be maneuvered and pounded on the ground in a graceful fashion to the beat of the music.  Our boys gave it the old college try, but it was easy to see the instructor's frustration due to the lack of ability from the team.  The girls weren't much better, but luckily, a dance pixie, in the form of a ten year old resident, who was watching in disgust from the side lines, took the girls under her wing and taught them their part with grace and patience.  The session ended with some progress having been made, but with the understanding that a lot more work was needed.

Session two - practice began with a costume viewing, with Vaneath as the guinea pig.  After he was swaddled in yards of Khmer cloth, similiar to a baby's diaper, we decided we might find our own more comfortable and dignified costumes at the local market.  Surprisingly, the team seemed to have retained some muscle-memory of the dance and actually seemed to enjoy it, unlike the scowling faces from the first practice.  Mabye they had resigned themselves to the fact that there was no way to get out of this, so why not have some fun.  After a few hours practice, timing, synchronization and rhythm still leave a lot to be desired, but they seem to at least know the dance.  Luckily, there is one more practice before taking this show on the road.  Wish us luck!!