This compilation highlights the costume prep for Apsara Dancers by Angkor Dance Troupe.
One of the prominent origin myths in Cambodia suggests the line of Khmer descended from the union of “Mera,” a celestial dancer, and “Kambu,” a wise man.
The following is quoted from “Dance in Cambodia” by Toni Samantha Phim & Ashley Thompson:
“An invocation of the mythical founders of Cambodia is part of a long Sanskrit poem that was inscribed on a stone temple doorway an Angkor in the tenth century AD.
Looking to ancient bas-reliefs for inspiration, court dance masters in the mid-twentieth century created the Apsara dance. Surrounded by four or six dancers crowned with elaborate golden headdresses, the central figure, the Apsara Mera, leads her coterie on an outing to a selectable garden.
The Apsara Dance was created for the modern stage out of an ancient tradition. While it is not overtly ritual in nature, by exploiting the deliberate and subtle flow of movement in the classical tradition, the dance maintains an intense ritual-like atmosphere. The formalized poses of classical dance recall the virtuosity of Angkorian sculptors in representing figures in space. The Apsara Dance, in its explicit reference to Angkor Vat’s bas-reliefs, gives body to an association latent in all classical dances, which is the tension between earthly grounded and ethereal lightness, evinced in a strong vertical pull, weight low and centered, balanced by movement across a horizontal plane."
www.angkordance.org
