Visal’s wedding had many morning ceremonies. Charlotte’s favorite was, no surprise, the traditional dance.
This style of dancing is named Apsara and dates back to the 7th century. It is a slow, intentional dance with a lot of focus on stretching and turning at certain angles. Each movement is deliberate and has a meaning, but I don’t know enough to interpret the meaning behind the dance. The name Aspara comes from celestial nymphs inHindu mythology.
There was a live band playing traditional Cambodian instruments. I’ll be sharing more about them in a later post.
Appears similar to dances we witnessed in Yojakarta, Indonesia when we lived there some decades ago. We decided to allow our children to learn how to do a bit of the dances which was cute…and a little strange for all of us as well. Having the whole gamelan musical accompaniment is impressive and would have been a great alternative musical instrument for our children to learn than, say, violin! We also witnessed elaborate ceremonies kind of like this wedding one ( to our eyes) during final months of pregnancy and then several months after a child was born. Your posts bring back ( trigger) so many good memories! Thanks!
I enjoyed this!
On Thursday we’re attending a Cultural Performances on the Sustainable Development Goals event. It should be interesting to compare this traditional apsara performance with apsara dancing on a different theme.