Cambodian circus offers poor children in Siem Reap a future
A circus in Siem Reap is allowing impoverished young Cambodians to vault into the limelight, writes Douglas Thompson
The thought of a circus can take many of us back to our childhoods, evoking memories of sawdust and cotton candy, high-wire acts, clowns squeezed into tiny cars, pretty girls being shot out of a cannon and, perhaps, an animal trainer with a whip.
The more modern-minded might think instead of Cirque du Soleil, but imagine for a moment if that company hadn't been conceived in Montreal, Canada, but in a Cambodian village - and it produced edgy, powerful, hour-long stories steeped in culture.
Phare, the Cambodian Circus, has no clowns (at least none wearing grease paint or fright wigs), cannons, animal trainers or high-wire acts. There is no cotton candy, not even an elephant. What it does have is a cast of brilliant young people, all of whom attended the Phare Ponleu Selpak ("brightness of the arts") school, in the town of Battambang. Each cast member studied for about 10 years before being allowed to perform with the circus.
Although the school has been staging and taking on tour performances for more than 10 years, the circus was born only in 2013, in an empty lot in Siem Reap, the three-stop-light town 180km from Battambang that stands guard over Angkor Wat. The circus has proved such a sensation, drawing capacity crowds of tourists and locals, that word has spread; Phare's productions are now touring Europe.
Phare's repertoire currently consists of three shows, which are staged inside its tent in Siem Reap and are told through live music, acrobatics, contortion, juggling, fire, passion and sweat. They are operas without singing, ballets without dancing, plays without dialogue. Phare promises to offer "an astonishing immersion into Cambodian modernity" and it does not disappoint.
