Music and Dance School

The Music and Dance School was introduced in 1997 after the coup. The children were traumatized and even older ones were wetting their beds and displaying other post traumatic stress symptoms. On the advice of a western psychiatrist, Geraldine was advised to use the arts to calm them and this worked almost instantly. When the children could see that they could dance and play their traditional music they were transformed into confident and captivating performers. We perform locally at hotels for functions, weddings and other Buddhist festivities.

Want to book us for your next function in Phnom Penh? Send us a message via our Contact Us section.

In 2002, through the generosity of John Singleton, an Australian entrepreneur and Ogilvy, an advertising company in Hong Kong, who paid for all our airfares, we performed at the Adelaide Festival of Arts to sell-out performances. It was a resounding success and we travelled again with 55 of the students plus teachers in September 2007, to Adelaide to perform in private schools, the Adelaide University and for the public in general to raise funding.

Wonderful Singapore Airlines gave us a great discount on airfares and also hosted the group on the way back paying for our accommodation, food and sight-seeing. What an airline!

Eb Chea, our beloved original music teacher is now retired, due to age and ill health, but is on a Sunrise pension and often visited by staff and children. His son and daughter have stepped into his shoes as our music teachers.

Our dance teachers are a married couple who have a long history of dance in Cambodia, even dancing in the Cambodian Royal Ballet and teaching in the Royal Fine Arts School.

These four teachers are more than that. They are family and are there for the children through all sorts of crises, just like parents and uncles and aunts.

These four teachers earn US$225 a month and perhaps there are people out there with an interest in music and dance, who might like to cover these annual costs of US$2700 each?