Charya Burt Cambodian Dance

Charya Burt

Master Dancer/Choreographer/Teacher
Founder of Charya Burt Cambodian Dance

Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer, choreographer, vocalist and teacher of Classical Cambodian Dance. After the Khmer Rouge genocide, Burt trained extensively with Cambodia’s foremost surviving dance masters, eventually joining the dance faculty of Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts. A Hewlett 50 Commission was awarded her in 2021 to create The Rebirth of Apsara: Artistic Lineage, Cultural Resilience and the Resurrection of Cambodian Arts from the Ashes of Genocide. An inaugural Dance/USA and 2022 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellow and Isadora Duncan Award recipient for Individual Performance, Burt’s mission is to continue to preserve and renew her art-form, elevate the professionalism of community dance groups, and to create innovative new works firmly rooted in tradition. A true culture bearer, Burt is founding artistic director of Charya Burt Cambodian Dance, based in the San Francisco North Bay

Announcements

The Rebirth of Apsara, Charya’s full-length dance/theatre production exploring how Khmer arts have embodied the essence of Cambodian culture from ancient mythology to its post-genocide revitalization was performed in the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University on February 1 and again on February 4 to a sold out house at Z Space in San Francisco, both receiving sustained standing ovations. Originally developed with support from her Hewlett 50 Arts Commission produced in partnership with New Performance Traditions/Paul Dresher Ensemble with a commissioned musical score by Chinary Ung and commissioned text by Kalean Ung, Charya is looking to remount this production soon for a national tour.

With the support of a 2021 grant from Creative Work Fund and in partnership with Mosaic America, Charya is developing Beautiful Dark, a dance/theatre work with a new music score by Vân-Ánh Võ exploring the social psychological impacts of colorism within South and Southeast Asian communities. It premieres May 18, 2024 at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theatre.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beautiful-dark-tickets-815939175037?aff=oddtdtcreator

https://creativeworkfund.org/news/creative-work-fund-announces-1-1-million-in-grants-to-25-projects

Please visit The Charya Burt Cambodian Dance Digital Library for on-line resources that include authentic dances from the classical repertory, innovative new works by Charya Burt rooted in tradition, and instructional dance and costuming videos. Support for this project has come from an ACTA Living Cultures Grant and a Dance/USA Summer Archiving Fellowship.

https://www.actaonline.org/profile/charya-burt-cambodian-dance-company/