Khmer Voices Rising: An International Freedom-to-Write Literary Festival March 17, 2011 After the Silence: Songs Rise Up: A panel discussion with Keo Chanbo, Catherine Filloux, Rithisal Kang, Tararith Kho, Samkhann Khoeun, Prach Ly and Geoff Ryman
Location: McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street , Followed by: On-stage readings of two contemporary Cambodian plays: The Tooth of the Buddha by Morm Sokly & Phka Champei by Chhon Sina, Curated by Catherine Filloux and directed by Connie Crawford. Intermission reading: Keo Chanbo; Followed by a conversation with Catherine Filloux and Erik Ehn. Location: McCormack Family Theater, 70 Brown Street. (The festival is sponsored by the International Writers Project at Brown University with support from Literary Arts, the Watson Institute for International Studies, the Creative Arts Council and the Office of International Affairs.) http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Literary_Arts/IWP/IWP2011/IWP2011Speakers.htm
Filloux has written a chapter “Alive on Stage in Cambodia: Time, Histories and Bodies”, about Cambodian theater artists, Morm Sokly, Him Sophy and Ieng Sithul, for the two-volume anthology, Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict, Dr. Cynthia E. Cohen, Roberto Gutiérrez Varea, and Dr. Polly Walker, Editors. Published by New Village Press, 2011. (With an accompanying website and “toolkit”.) http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/peacebuildingarts/actingtogether/casestudies/filloux/index.html
Filloux’s work in Cambodia is part of the Documentary Film “Acting Together on the World Stage" co-created by Dr. Cynthia E. Cohen, Director of the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts of Brandeis University, and filmmaker Allison Lund, in collaboration with Theatre Without Borders, 2011.
http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/peacebuildingarts/actingtogether/documentary/index.html
In 2010 as a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, Filloux organized with Fordham University’s Theater Department to bring theater artists Chhon Sina, Ieng Sithul and AMRITA’s Rithisal Kang, now a Fulbright student in Arts Management at SUNY Buffalo, to a Theatre & Peace Building in Cambodia Symposium at Fordham University at Lincoln Center Campus in Manhattan. An Open Rehearsal of Chhon Sina’s play Frangipani was followed by performances and a panel discussion. There was also a Brown Bag Lunch Discussion at the Fordham Law School. http://www.fordhamobserver.com/social-issues-and-theater-come-together-at-fordham-1.2351280
Chhon, Kang and Ieng then participated in Theatre Without Borders – 2010 La MaMa’s ACTING TOGETHER ON THE WORLD STAGE: A Conference on THEATRE and PEACEBUILDING in CONFLICT ZONES, co-panned by Filloux, Levitow, Banks and Diamond. They were on panels and performed, as well as engaging in dialogue with conference participants. AFTERMATH: HUMAN RIGHTS AND RECOVERY: Facilitator Catherine Filloux (TWB, USA) With Ieng Sithul, Chhon Sina, and Rithisal Kang (CAMBODIA); Pauline Ross (NORTHERN IRELAND); Hjalmar-Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn (AFGHANISTAN); William Yellow Robe, Jr. (ASSINIBOINE TRIBE, PART OF THE SIOUX NATIONS). Please see ful program at this link: http://lamama.org/archives/2010/TWB.html
In 2009 Filloux received a New Generations-Future Collaborations award (Mellon Foundation/TCG) to develop Morm Sokly and Chhon Sina’s plays, The Tooth of Buddha and Frangipani was developed as part of a workshop facilitated by playwright Filloux also provided private funding for this development and workshop, which took place at AMRITA. www.tcg.org/pdfs/press/NewsGensTravelSummerFall2009.pdf
In 2008 the musical Where Elephants Weep premiered at Chenla Theater in Phnom Penh, composed by Cambodian composer Him Sophy, with book and lyrics by Filloux. Where Elephants Weep starred the well-known Cambodian theater artists, Ieng Sithul. Cambodian Living Arts and AMRITA produced this sold-out show, which was also broadcast on Cambodian TV channel, CTN. BBC WORLD NEWS “Where Elephants Weep” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P23Q_KC90A&fmt=18
In 2005 Khul Tithchenda directed Eyes of the Heart in Khmer for her Final Directing Project at RUFA. http://khmer.cc/community/t.c?b=1&t=2301
When Eyes of the Heart premiered at National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) in New York City in 2004, Filloux arranged through a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ (NEFA) Fund for Cambodian Culture, for her RUFA student, Khul Tithchenda, to be a Theater Apprentice on the production. Cambodian-American Sophy Theam, who had been an Assistant Director on productions of Photographs from S-21 and also played the Young Woman, served as an Associate Producer on Eyes of the Heart, also through a grant from NEFA. (“Seeing Eyes: How contemporary plays open eyes and hearts to the legacy of Cambodia’s killing fields”; American Theatre, January 2005.) http://www.catherinefilloux.com/seeingeyes.html
In 2003 Filloux taught playwriting at the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) in Phnom Penh, through a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant, and with matching funding from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. Rithisal Kang worked with her on this playwriting workshop and subsequently became the Program Coordinator at AMRITA. Morm Sokly and theater artist, Chhon Sina took the playwriting workshop as part of their teacher certifications. (“Ten Gems on a Thread II”; The Drama Review, Winter, 2004.) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_drama_review/summary/v048/48.4filloux.html
Filloux also did research for her play, Silence of God, commissioned and produced by Contemporary American Theater Festival in 2002.
http://www.catherinefilloux.com/silenceofgod.html
In 1998 Filloux wrote the play Photographs from S-21, which went on to be widely produced and anthologized. In 2001 Filloux received an Asian Cultural Council Artist’s Residency Grant in Cambodia, where she produced Photographs from S-21 in the Cambodian language, Khmer, at the French Cultural Center, with Fred Frumberg of AMRITA Performing Arts. Cambodian theater artist, Morm Sokly, played the role of the Young Woman in the production. (“Ten Gems on a Thread”; Manoa: In the Shadow of Angkor: Contemporary Writing From Cambodia, 2004.) http://manoajournal.hawaii.edu/text/issues/descriptions/cambodia04.html
http://www.catherinefilloux.com/s21.html
Catherine Filloux is a playwright who has been writing about human rights for the past 20 years. In the late 1980s she began researching her play Eyes of the Heart, about Cambodian refugee women who suffer from psychosomatic blindness after what they witnessed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Filloux developed an Oral History Project, "A Circle of Grace", with the Cambodian Woman's Group at St. Rita’s Refugee Center in Bronx, New York, for which she received a Community Arts Grant from the Bronx Council on the Arts. http://www.catherinefilloux.com/eyesoftheheart.html |
