Hand gestures and Cambodian court dance
by Chamroeun Yin

In Cambodian dance there are four basic hand motions - sprout, leaf, flower, and fruit. They can have many meanings. Thousands and thousands of years ago, no one marked these motions down. The teachers simply gave these movements their names. I think they were imagining the top of a tree. From way up there, you can see all of the everyday life of the people. So the motions are named after parts of a tree and they also represent everyday life.

For example, you use the leaf gesture and the flower gesture and bring your hand from your stomach to your lip, and that means laughter. Use the leaf gesture and the flower gesture and put your hand to your forehead, it means crying. And after the tears fall, and you want to clean them off, you can use a leaf gesture too. You see, it looks like the everyday life of the people.

Now, in another way, the gestures have meaning because they represent different parts of a cycle. Every plant has a life cycle. First you have a seed. Then you see a sprout. From a sprout, a leaf grows. After a while, the plant will produce a flower. And then when it is ready, from the flower will come a fruit. But when you see the fruit, it is the end of the cycle. It can't change anymore. It is old. It is finished. But after it dies, it has a seed in it. It drops down and the seed becomes a sprout again. When we use this motion of the fruit in a certain way, it means the dance piece is finished. It's a sign for the end of the piece. Once you make the motion, that part of the dance is over. If you want to continue after making that motion, you need to start a different dance.

If I am trying to tell a story through dance, I can't give a motion to every single word. Then it would be like sign language, not dance. We can use one motion or two motions to make a sentence. You can perform every song in different ways. You can use more or fewer motions. I like to use fewer motions. If you use all the motions, you can't see the dance too well. You would be moving too fast and jumping around trying to make a motion for every single word.

It isn't always easy to understand the dance. Most people - when a hand goes this way and points, they know you are pointing at something, but they may not understand the whole motion. Cambodian people listen to the words of the song. They can see the motions that match the words of the song. But the words of the song are not always easy to understand either. Most songs use a different kind of Cambodian language. This is a language used by the royalty, by kings and educated people, not common people. It is a kind of language we use for praying. Most people don't understand it. When I learned how to dance, I had to ask the teacher what the words meant. When I went to high school, I learned it from books because we had stories about royalty so I learned those words.

Now in America, I also need to teach my students this language. They learn about the language when they come to my class, not just dance. And they learn how to be polite also. For example, you can use a simple word to mean "eat," but if you are older than me, if you are my teacher, and I use that word when I talk to you, it is rude. I have to use a different, more polite word.

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