The Circus is in Town!

The night before we began the disaster at the orphanage, Kristina, Becs, and I went to the circus. Phare, The Cambodian Circus was created in 1994 by eight survivors of the Khmer Rouge who wanted to help bring back the arts to Cambodia. These eight opened a school in Battambang focusing on visual and performing arts. The school began taking in disadvantaged students and offering them free food and education.

I didn't know any of this before going to the circus and went to the event expecting clowns and a lot of laughs. However, what we got was the story of Sokha. This is based on the life of one of the co-founders and how she survived the Khmer Rouge. What I thought was going to be a night of laughs turned into a beautiful, gut wrenching, acrobatic performance.

Sokha was the only female performer and stayed in the same role throughout the show. There were six main acrobats that changed from roles to include, Sokha's friends, civilians doing their best to survive during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, and in the end students at the Battambang school for performing arts trying to recover from the horrors they had witnessed.

There were many times during the performance that gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes. The performers clearly love what they do and are capable of stunts that leave the audience gasping.

Phare is currently trying to raise funds to get their own land space in Siem Reap for a permanent home. I don't know if Phare goes on tour, but all I can say is if you ever see The Cambodian Circus advertising a performance, drop everything and go. Seeing this, topped even some of the temples in the Angkor area.