Dance/Xiqu

Event at the Zoo
Heavenly Palace of Monkey Business

During the Angkor Empire, classical Cambodian dancers performed religious rituals in royal temples and shrines and enjoyed respectable status.

Considered as a Chinese national treasure, Peking Opera was proclaimed as a representative on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Cambodian dance artist, Nget Rady specialises in the monkey role of Lakhaon Kaol, the Cambodian classical male masked dance form. Nget’s every move is reminiscent of Hanuman, the monkey god of the epic poem Ramayana, who warred against the evil king Ravana to rescue the consort of his Lord. From Taipei, Chang Yu-chau specialises in the monkey play of clown of Peking opera and masters martial arts skills. Chang portrays Sun Wukong from the classic Chinese tale, Journey to the West, who after rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, accompanied the monk Tang Sanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from “the West”.

From Zurich to Taipei, from classical Khmer dance to traditional Peking opera, these two monkey leads tour across the Eurasian continent to compare two cultures and the propagation and innovation of two traditional arts.