Previously I showed a film called The Flute Player, about Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian living in the US, who was leading a revival of the arts in his home country under the auspices of Cambodia Living Arts.
The film today is a rough-cut preview about his work, and especially about his discovery of a young peasant girl Srey Pov, who is now one of the foremost recitors of sung Buddhist poetry called Smot.
Smot in these days is mainly sung at funerals, and is an emotional retelling of scenes from the Buddha’s life, among other things. It is sung by lay people, as monks are not allowed to sing, of course.
Arn also takes Srey to the US (besides other places) for a concert tour, including live Cambodian-style opera performances, which is where the art form originally began before being confined more-or-less to funerals.
We also see Srey singing with her Master teacher Keot Ran, and with a young American master of the art form, Trent Walker, who has a number of excellent performances on youtube himself.
As soon as I find the full film is posted, I will include it here, but for now enjoy these snippets (be warned the last couple of minutes fall apart completely, and seem to have been included by mistake).
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to see an album of stills click here