New Performance Traditions & Paul Dresher Ensemble to Present THE REBIRTH OF APSARA in February

In February Charya Burt's dance/theater work, The Rebirth Of Apsara will have its final performance in San Francisco on February 4, 3 pm at Z Space's Steindler Stage presented by New Performance Traditions & Paul Dresher Ensemble (https://www.zspace.org/apsara). This performance follows a premiere on February 1, at Weill Hall Green Music Center. The Rebirth of Apsara is a full-length dance/theatre work that investigates the relationship between art and war exploring how Cambodian arts and in particular Apsaras, fabled female celestial beings, have embodied the essence of Cambodian culture from ancient mythology to its post genocide resurrection. 

The Rebirth Of Apsara is a regenerative ancient Cambodian classical dance set to music by Chinary Ung, with a text by Kalean Ung featuring an international company of Cambodian dancers. Preeminent dancers from Cambodia's Ministry of Culture who share Charya Burt's passion for regenerating the dance join Burt and her international company of dancers to explore the impact artistic lineage has had on the rebirth of Cambodian classical dance. Mirroring Charya Burt's own life's journey as an artist to explore the impact Apsara has had on both Khmer civilization and Cambodian artists of today. Charya Burt Cambodian Dance: Charya Burt, Ryan Boun, Mea Lath, and Virginia Prak with featured dance artists from Cambodia: Narim Nam, Rady Nget, and Chanmoly Vuth. Costume Design is by noted Cambodian designer Vannary San, Video Projection Design is by Hsuan-Kuang Heish, Lighting Design is by David Robertson.

Charya Burt comments “In the last two years I traveled to Cambodia 3 times to create this production with professional dancers in Cambodia. This production is a defining moment for Khmer people in California, one that builds and shares our narrative, elevating this work beyond community performances, preserving traditions, and sharing with the world this production with talented Khmer artists from both sides of the Pacific.” 

Burt sets her re-imagined classical dance gestures to a musical score by renowned Cambodian - American composer Chinary Ung. Preeminent dancers from Cambodia's Ministry of Culture who share Charya Burt's passion for regenerating the dance join Burt and her international company of dancers to explore the impact artistic lineage has had on the rebirth of Cambodian classical dance. Charya Burt Cambodian Dance: Charya Burt, Ryan Boun, Mea Lath, and Virginia Prak with featured dance artists from Cambodia: Narim Nam, Rady Nget, and Chanmoly Vuth. 

The production's Costume Design is by noted Cambodian designer Vannary San who has been involved in the efforts to revitalize traditional Cambodian silk creation and her leadership of Cambodian women. Video Projection Design is by Hsuan-Kuang Heish. Her practice includes experimental film, projection art, photography, and video installation across diverse mediums. Lighting Design is by David Robertson who has worked with many Bay Area companies including the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company,  Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, Post: Ballet, Opera Parallèle, The Paul Dresher Ensemble, Shotgun Players, The Magic Theatre, SF Playhouse ana  As ODC Dance's lighting director since 2003.

Cambodian-American theater artist Kalean Ung's text provides social and historical context using poetry and narrative to dramatize how today's multigenerational Cambodian-American artists are empowering the Cambodian diaspora and redefining the Khmer spirit. 

The music is performed by a unique ensemble consisting of traditional Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ (performing on the Dan Bao, Dan T'rung and the Dan Tranh) violist Susan Ung and the Dresher Davel Invented Instrument Duo (performing on Dresher's invention, the Hurdy Grande and Davel performing on the Marimba Lumina).

“Like the dance itself, which bridges classical Cambodian Dance and contemporary modern dance, the music for "The Rebirth of Apsara” combines traditional Cambodian music, new compositions by young Cambodian composers who are steeped in the Cambodian classical tradition, and musical contributions from American composer (and music director for the project) Paul Dresher, and most significantly, celebrated Cambodian American composer Chinary Ung, who has been commissioned to compose music for several major dance sections of the work,” remarks Paul Dresher. 

New Performance Traditions is a hub for incubating multi-disciplinary arts projects from conception and production through performance, recording, and broadcast. NPN is dedicated to creating risk-taking and challenging performing artworks and supporting the artists who conceive them to engender a more equitable, inclusive, and creative community. 

Produced by New Performance Traditions/Paul Dresher Ensemble with the generous support of a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission in the Traditional Arts and Lyna Lam and A Khmer Buddhist Foundation 

Creative Team 

Charya Burt: Creator - Lead Choreographer - Lead Dancer/Performer

Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer; choreographer, vocalist and teacher of Classical Cambodian Dance who has injected new life into the dance form by creating classically inspired, inventive new works. Her training began shortly after the Khmer Rouge genocide with the foremost surviving dance masters of

Cambodia at the Royal University of Fine Arts, serving on the dance faculty there from 1989-1992. As a member of Cambodia's Royal Dance Troupe, Charya toured nationally and internationally. After emigrating in 1993, Burt has performed throughout the USA, including LA's Getty Museum, the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Opera House and has been featured countless times at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Her original works have been presented by Jacob's Pillow Festival, World Arts West, CounterPULSE, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many others. 

Chinary Ung: Lead Composer 

“Louk Kru” Chinary Ung was born in Cambodia, and spent his early childhood in Prey Lovea, a small village surrounded by rice paddies. His first exposure to Western classical music was as a teenager, and he was so drawn to it that he came to New York in 1964 to study clarinet performance (at the Manhattan School of Music), and, later, composition with Chou Wen-chung at Columbia University. During the Cambodian genocide, where nearly 2 million people died, Ung feared that the country would lose its precious musical heritage because artists were targeted by the Khmer Rouge regime. He devoted himself to learning the roneat-ek, the Cambodian xylophone, and performing traditional pinpeat music (the Cambodian gamelan ensemble) throughout the United States. 

Kalean Ung: Writer/Performer 

Performer and playwright Kalean Ung is an award-winning Cambodian-American multi-disciplinary theater artist whose professional career ranges from Shakespeare to experimental theatre to contemporary opera and solo performance. She has performed at The Kirk Douglas Theatre, Disney Hall, REDCAT, The Getty Villa, among others, collaborating with critically-acclaimed theatre and opera companies including Critical Mass Performance Group, The LA Philharmonic, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Independent Shakespeare Company, and CalArts's Center for New Performance. Kalean's voice acting can be heard as the lead in Denis Do's award-winning, animated feature about the Cambodian genocide, FUNAN. 

Vân-Ánh Võ: Instrumentalist 

Vân-Ánh Võ dedicates her life to creating music by blending the unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with varieties of music genres, and fusing deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions. Since settling in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001, Vân-Ánh has been focusing on collaborating with musicians across different styles, cultures and genres to create new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience and preserving her cultural legacy through teaching. Her music reimagines traditional music to contemporary forms, bridging the previous with the current while bringing Vietnamese art music to the next generation. 

Paul Dresher: Music Director, Instrumentalist/Composer and Co-Producer

Paul Dresher is an internationally active composer and performing arts producer noted for his ability to integrate diverse musical influences into his own coherent and unique personal style. He pursues many forms of musical expression including experimental opera/music theater, chamber and orchestral composition, live instrumental electro-acoustic music, musical instrument invention, and scores for theater and dance.Dresher has a life-long engagement with and passion for the performing arts of South and Southeast Asia, having lived and studied in the region in 1979-80. He has subsequently been invited to perform in and/or to collaborate with artists from India, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, and Cambodia. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition in 2006-07, he has received commissions from the Library of Congress, St. Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival USA, the Kronos Quartet, the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, Seattle Chamber Players, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and Chamber Music America. He has performed or had his works performed throughout the world at venues including the New York

Photo Credit: RJ Muna

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