New dance studio on the art void in Cambodia and how they plan on filling it

When Jill Clement visited Cambodia earlier this year for a holiday, she was not planning on having her flight to France getting cancelled, let alone starting a dance studio with her friends.

Phnom Penh Dance Studio, located in the trendy Boeung Keng Kang area, was partly a product of Clement’s lockdown boredom. The 19-year-old hip-hop dance teacher and manager said that after her university in France closed for a month due to Covid-19, she and her friends who worked at a dance academy in Cambodia had gotten bored. They then came to a unanimous decision: create another dance school.

The studio’s contemporary dance group rehearsing for the grand-opening recital on December 20th. (Mollie Hib)

Though some of the studio’s backstory is almost comical, the team is unmistakably passionate. “I really wanted to give art and dance visibility, because I feel like here, all of the people are dancing and no one knows about it. I want the world to know that Cambodia has the power in arts and dance,” Clement says.

Historically, Cambodia is no stranger to the arts. Dating as far as 900 CE with beautiful dancers called Apsara adorning the walls of Angkor’s temples, to the golden age of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s and 1970s, the country thrived artistically. It wasn’t until the Khmer Rouge regime came that culture and art began to slip from the nation’s fingers, with sources estimating that 90% of Cambodia’s artists and intellectuals were killed.

Jill Clement, hip-hop dance teacher and manager for Phnom Penh Dance Studio. (Mollie Hib)

When asked why there’s an art void in Cambodia, the 32-year-old director of the studio, Minyu Zheng, said: “The realistic reason is… art is costly.” She added that due to the lack of resources, the studio is struggling to even find good ballet pointe shoes for their students.

Zheng also likened the state of Cambodia’s art scene and development to that of what her home city, Shenzhen, China, used to be like. She recalls people focusing only on business and making enough money to survive in the first 30 years of the city’s development.

Minyu Zheng, director of the Phnom Penh Dance Studio. (Mollie Hib)

She adds, “when it comes to the second generation, we don’t need to worry about our living” and that the mindset is no longer working to survive, but rather figuring out how to have more fun. Zheng believes that Cambodia is still in its very early stages of growth, so it’s not all too surprising to her that there hasn’t been much focus on the arts. 

Despite this, the amount of Khmer dancers is growing, especially with the help of K-pop. Clement says that many of her students, despite never having been to a professional dance class before, can dance well because they watch K-pop dance videos on Youtube. K-pop’s influence on the growth of dance in Cambodia was especially notable last year when local dance group OMG gained international recognition for their performance at the Changwon K-pop World Festival, which has now racked up more than 800,000 views.

As the dance community continues to grow, Clement and Zheng are continuously trying to find ways to help accelerate that process. They have partnered with schools such as Singapore (Cambodia) International Academy to provide dance as an extra-curricular activity and plan on giving scholarships to passionate dancers.

They are also having their grand-opening recital on December 20th at Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra with 120 dancers showcasing their skills in genres such as ballet and Apsara dance with the theme of the new social philosophy, convivialism, and Netflix. After preparing for two months, the two hope that audiences can simply enjoy the performance and be able to finish 2020, an unusual year, on a good note.

To purchase tickets and find out more about the studio, visit this website.