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As for other
kinds of Shadow Theaters (Indonesia, China, India, Greece, Turkey
etc.) the performance is based on the projection of light on a white
screen, on which puppets, manipulated by players, produce shadows.
The Cambodian art
of Shadow Theater utilises puppets made by leather, called Sbaek
in Khmer language. The leather puppets are pieces of art in
themselves. The design of the panel, made out of a entire cow tanned
skin, refers to an ancient tradition, and require drawing skills,
chiselling skills, and the capacity to balance light and shadow
within the panel, so to let the figures emerge from the panel.
The large leather
puppets are better known as Sbaek Thom. The Sbaek Thom
Shadow Theater is a unique form of art compared with other forms of
shadow theater. Puppets, the large leather panels which includes the
figures, can be handled by the puppeters in front of the screen, or
moved away from the screen. The players are dancers, their bodies are
not hidden and, while handling the panels, they show the movement
typical of the classical dance. Music, and in some case, narrators and
singers, complete the performance.
The stories are
mainly based on the Khmer version of Ramayana, the Reamkher. This fact
is conferring to the whole performance sacred and magical contents.
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Beside the sacred
representations of the Sabek Thom, based on the Reamkher, a more
popular form of Shadow Theater developed in Cambodia, inspired by
everyday life and based on traditional stories and tales orally
trasmitted. Because it utilises small leather puppets, it is called
Sbaek Touch, little leathers. The art of performing Sbaek Touch
was completely lost in Cambodia, and his resumption and restauration
is due to the wrok of Sovanna Phum.
The stories of
Sbaek Touch are mainly comic, representing everyday life people, and
the players are hidden beyond a band of dark tissue at the bottom of
the screen. The puppets are small and articulated, and are moved by
the players. The performance is not constrained, as for the Sbaek
Thom, by traditional or sacred rules, and the players and puppets’
makers are free to choose their preferred themes, shapes and stories.
The performance is a masterpiece of comic art, where players, hidden
by the dark screen, improvise, defy each other in a sort of verbal
competition that the public follow with increasing amusement.
The Shadow
Theater performance that Sovanna Phum is proposing is a new creation,
based on the elaboration of these art forms. The Sbaek Thom
tradition and the Sbaek Touch one merges together, while
dancers, players, narrators and musicians are all together linked in a
continuos passing from shadow to real figures from puppets to actors
and dancers. |
