Two dancers, costumed as a god and a demon, act in a Khmer Ro bam dance performance

The Mekong Delta’s 1.3 million ethnic Khmers have dancing in their blood.

Traditional dancing plays an important part in the spiritual life of the Khmer ethnic minority community and is a part of an ancient culture that has been well preserved for centuries.

Traditional dancing is an indispensable part of almost all Khmer festivities and is in the blood of many Khmers from all walks of life and all ages.

According to choreographer Vinh Phuong of the Vietnam Dance troupe, traditional Khmer dances are still popular across the Mekong Delta.

Several troupes including Tra Vinh Province’s Anh Binh Minh (Light of dawn), Soc Trang province’s Ron Ron are operating well.

The Khmer people boast two styles of traditional dances: communal folk and royal dances.

Folk dances in communal activities such as Ram Vong, Lam Leo and Saravan, are fixtures at major ethnic Khmer festivals like Ok Om Bok (The Moon Prayer Festival on April 13), Chol Chnam Thmay (Khmer Lunar New Year, April 12- 15), and Don Ta (“Amnesty” Festival for the Dead, October 12-14).

The dances, which lend to a relaxed, convivial atmosphere are also popular on special occasions such as weddings and new house celebrations.

Couples young and old move to the rhythm of the drums and women elegantly sway their arms in front of their chests, fluidly swinging them to the left and right, while the men outstretch their arms as if they are protecting their partners.

The dancers, standing in a circle, keep moving forward so that the more circles the formation moves in, the faster the movements become, urged on by quickening drum beats.

When the drums stop, everyone stops dancing and bows to one another with their hands clasped together.

Everyone, especially youths, can perform the dances as the movements are quite simple but there are certain rules.

One of the rules requires that those who are younger and are of lower social status dance first before inviting dignitaries and older people to join in.

Besides the folk dances, Khmers also have traditional royal dances, one of which is Ro bam which employs body language to portray the characters and convey the content.

It also uses spoken words and songs as part of the performance which is quite technically demanding, so only seasoned dancers can perform it.

The dancers look in the same direction to where their hands point with movements imitating the postures of the Apsara fairies, commonly found on the reliefs which decorate Khmer pagodas.

With its royal origins, characters in the Ro bam dance are usually the king, royal family and mandarins.

The animals in the art form are personified sacred animals such as the monkey, bird, snake and ogre.

Most of the performances depict the fierce struggle between good and evil and have happy endings.

As traditional dance is losing its place to other modern entertainment forms, only a few troupes across the Mekong Delta still perform Ro bam.

Duke, a kind of theater, came into being after the Ro bam dance was born.

The art portrays characters’ psychology by means of description and imitation and incorporates stereotypes, symbolism and conventional imagery.

Some of the common characters are sacred animals in the Khmer culture such as Krud, the bird-god; Naga, the snake-god and Hanuman, the monkey-god associated with Hinduism and Khmer Buddhism.

There are a fixed number of movements for each type of character, for example, the monkey has 12 movements including laughing, scratching, crying, jumping, kowtowing and caressing.

According to Phuong, each dance requires distinctive make-up styles and costumes.

There are around 1.3 million Khmers in Vietnam, concentrated mostly in the Mekong Delta provinces of Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, An Giang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau.

Reported by Diem Thu