The roster of American musicians was impressive: Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Booker T. and the MGs. They arrived in Europe in 1967, bringing with them the powerful, soulful Memphis Sound. Ahead was a tour with stops in London, Paris and elsewhere.

These artists from the Stax Records music studio captivated audiences with their music born from blues and gospel — a mesmerizing sound created from the black experience in the U.S. last century.

Fifty years later, a group of young musicians educated at Stax Music Academy are newly bringing the music of Memphis back to Europe. They are set to perform at festivals and music halls in England, France and Ireland from July 9 until July 22, joining Stax legends Mavis Staples and William Bell for a couple of shows.

The teenage musicians are eager to follow in the footsteps of their influential predecessors. Created in 2000, their academy is an after-school program for youngsters from some of Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods who learn how to dance, sing and play instruments. They pay nothing to attend.

“Just to be able to say that I was part of this upcoming overseas tour, being able to sing songs by Otis Redding and William Bell, it’s monumental not only for Memphis, but for Stax,” said Johnathon Lee, a 17-year-old academy vocalist. “To know that Stax music is still relevant today, and to know that was done in 1967, that’s monumental as well.”

Before it went bankrupt, Stax Records in Memphis generated some of America’s most memorable soul music of the 1960s and 1970s, including songs like Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” and Booker T. and the MGs’ “Green Onions.” Driven by tight horn and rhythm sections and strong-voiced singers, the Memphis Sound had a raw, emotional quality to it. Some Stax songs were energetic and raucous, others smooth and sexy.

Stax had a sister record label called Volt, so when they put together the 1967 trip, it was called the Stax/Volt European Tour.

The tour came at a time when Stax was having trouble getting its music aired on larger U.S. radio stations because of racial issues during the civil rights era, said Al Bell, who at the time was the music label’s national promotions director. So, when the Stax musicians hopped off a plane in London, they were surprised by the welcome they received.

“It stunned us. We didn’t know how to act,” Bell said. “All these white people in the airport and everywhere, hollering about Stax, calling the artists’ names.”

In Paris, fans “were going crazy” over the Stax musicians, especially Redding, Bell said.

“If there was ever a question in my mind about our music being acceptable to the masses and to whites, Paris, France, removed that completely from my mind,” he said.

Bell said Europeans told him that they viewed the music as an art form that comes from the African-American culture.

“And I’m saying, what?” Bell said, laughing. “We hadn’t even thought about having a `culture,’ let alone our music being considered an art form because it came out of slavery.”

When they returned to Memphis, the Stax artists used the momentum from the successful tour to churn out hits.

“When we came out of Europe, you couldn’t tell us nothing,” Bell said. “Writers got to writing, producers got to producing. You couldn’t get the musicians out of the studio.”

Some of the momentum stalled when Redding was killed in a plane crash in December 1967.

Bell later ran Stax before the company was forced into involuntary bankruptcy in 1975. Bell was indicted on bank fraud charges related to the company’s demise, but was acquitted.

The glory days of Stax Records are gone, but the Stax Music Academy is going strong. About a dozen teenagers ranging in age from 15 to 18 will be on the Europe tour, and they’ve spent hours rehearsing in the academy’s studios.

It will be the first time Lee will travel out of the country, and he’s looking forward to staying in new places and eating foreign foods. He called the trip “a big deal.”

“I’m a little nervous, but I’m excited,” Lee said. “I’m ready to venture out.”
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Manny Pacquiao lost his WBO welterweight world title to Jeff Horn in a stunning, unanimous points decision in a Sunday afternoon bout billed as the Battle of Brisbane in front of more than 50,000 people.

The 11-time world champion entered the fight at Suncorp Stadium as a hot favorite but got more than he bargained for against the 29-year-old former schoolteacher.

Still, Pacquiao dominated the later rounds and had Horn wobbling at the end of the ninth.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said the result was a close call after some close rounds late in the bout as both fighters looked for a decisive blow.

“It was a close fight, it could have gone either way,” he said. “A couple of close rounds, but you can’t argue with the result.”

Pacquiao’s long-time trainer Freddie Roach predicted the fight would be short and sweet but Horn, unbeaten in his 17 previous professional fights, applied pressure by winning some of the early rounds, and Pacquiao needed treatment during the sixth and seventh rounds for a cut on the top of his head that resulted from a clash of heads.

The judges scored the fight 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113, with Horn immediately calling out Floyd Mayweather Jr., after the fight, declaring himself “no joke.”

Roach had said earlier in the week that he’d think about advising Pacquioa to retire if he lost the fight, but that would depend on how he fought.

Pacquiao’s camp had talked about a rematch with Mayweather if he got past Horn, hoping to avenge his loss on points in the 2015 mega fight. That seems to be a distant chance now.

Pacquiao, who entered the fight with a record of 59-6-2, 38 knockouts, was defending the WBO title he won on points against Jessie Vargas last November.
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Reigning champion Chris Froome wasted no time flexing his muscles at the Tour de France as he powered to sixth place Saturday in a treacherous opening time trial won superbly by Team Sky colleague Geraint Thomas.

Heavy rain turned what, on paper, had looked like a regulation 14-kilometer circuit alongside the Rhine river into an incident-packed Grand Depart that could have major consequences in the three-week battle for the yellow jersey.

While it was a great start for Team Sky, with Thomas, three-time champion Froome and Vasil Kiryienka all in the top six of the 198 riders to start, a sickening crash ended the Tour for Movistar’s Alejandro Valverde.

Several riders continued after crashing on the greasy roads, but there was no getting up for Valverde, third overall in 2015, after he skidded off the route and careered into crowd barriers. He was taken to a hospital with leg injuries.

It was heartbreaking for Valverde and also a huge blow for teammate Nairo Quintana, who was counting on Valverde’s experience in the mountain stages to come.

Welshman Thomas, riding his eighth Tour, looked completely at home in the puddles as he became the eighth Briton to wear the yellow jersey — making up for the disappointment of crashing out of the Giro d’Italia as team leader.

Five seconds up

He displayed brilliant handling to cross the finish line at the huge Messe Duesseldorf exhibition complex in 16 minutes, 4 seconds. He was five seconds ahead of BMC’s Swiss rider Stefan Kueng, who was two seconds ahead of Kiryienka in third.

Froome, the last rider out, was 12 seconds slower than Thomas, but significantly quicker than all his main General Classification (GC) rivals.

Quintana was 48 seconds slower than Thomas, with Australian Richie Porte one second quicker than the Colombian. French GC hopefuls Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet were 50 and 51 seconds off the pace, with Spain’s Alberto Contador 54 down.

Thomas said it had been a great day for Welsh sport, after Sam Warburton captained the British and Irish Lions to victory over the New Zealand All Blacks in rugby.

“That inspired me, to be honest,” he said. “I didn’t believe I would hang on, felt sure Tony [Martin] or someone would beat my time. This is amazing for me after what happened at the Giro, and massive for the team. The jersey is a huge bonus.”

Hopes that Martin would mark the first German Grand Depart since Berlin in 1987 with a home win were washed away as he could only manage fourth quickest.

While Porte will be concerned to be trailing Froome before the Tour starts for real, he said at least he had not suffered the same fate as Valverde.

“It wasn’t a day to take risks,” Froome’s former teammate said. ” … I was petrified, to be honest. It was such a slippery course.”
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One of Dakar Fashion Week’s biggest events is free and high-end — a fashion show in a working class neighborhood. The event’s founder, Senegalese designer Adama Paris, says the “Street Show” is her favorite show of the week because she gets to take fashion back to the streets where it belongs.

Just across the street from where fast-moving public buses pause briefly to pick up passengers, Moussa Diouf lines up Nike, Adidas and Puma shoes on a short cement wall. The wall sits on one side of a makeshift catwalk in the Niary Tally neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal.

Across the flashy stage, Nicole Coly sells shiny fabrics by the meter in her small corner store. Lace is one of her top sellers right now, she says.

These fashion vendors flank a large catwalk set up for the 15th annual Dakar Fashion Week’s “Street Show.” In addition to their traditional fashion shows in high-class hotels, every year DFW holds a free fashion show in a working class neighborhood of Dakar.

“This show is my favorite show, because we’re bringing back fashion to the streets,” says Paris, a designer and Dakar Fashion Week founder. “For the years coming, I want this show to become more popular because it’s important to inspire the young people and come to this street with high fashion. Fashion is from the streets, so basically what we’re doing is taking back fashion where it belongs.”

Locals inspired

This fashion week show is open to the public, and 11 of the more than 30 designers from nine countries are participating to show off their new lines. A few meters away from the models rehearsing before the show, local tailor Al Hassane Diallo says he is looking forward to seeing new designs.

“I am very inspired because I see what is new. I see something that I didn’t know about before,” Diallo says.

The 25-year-old tailor is just wrapping up one of his busiest seasons of the year, a few days after the end-of-Ramadan parties have quieted down.

Down the street from the tailor shop, Ramatoulaye, a 21-year-old communications student sits next to her grandmother while sporting stylish sunglasses. 

“I adore what Adama Paris does,” she says of the Dakar Fashion Week founder and Senegalese designer. “She’s a star.”

Ramatoulaye’s friend, Marie Beye, chimes in: “She could have chosen a nice hotel (for this fashion show), but she loves her country.”

No cheap or little show

As the music starts, children line up in the front row and clap loudly for the different sartorial creations. The crowd dances along as golden-clad models sway down the runway in Paris’ golden, shiny dresses to the French rapper Maitre Gims’ song, Sapeur Comme Jamais (Dressed Like Never Before). 

“I don’t want to do, just do a cheap or little show,” Paris said of the Niary Tally fashion event. “I just want to do just actually what were doing in fancy places.”

Another designer comes out with funky dresses that highlight the colorful wax fabric so popular in West African streets, as models march down the runway, knees high, to the 1950s American song, Lollipop. This year there are 100 models walking in the street parade — more than any other year.

In it’s 15th year, DFW has grown from six designers its first year, to 36 this year from nine countries.

After this night’s street parade, the catwalks of Dakar will move to an upper-crust hotel, but for this night, it’s Niary Tally’s moment in the spotlight.
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One of the themes of this year’s Smithsonian Folk Life Festival is immigration. As part of the festival events, a group of 25 children were sworn in as U.S. Citizens, just ahead of America’s Independence Day holiday. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff reports.
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Hollywood great Olivia de Havilland has launched her own sequel to the TV series Feud — a lawsuit.

The double Oscar-winning actress filed suit Friday against FX Networks and producer Ryan Murphy’s company, alleging the drama inaccurately depicts her as a gossipmonger and is an invasion of privacy.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles Friday, one day before de Havilland turns 101. The actress, whose credits include the role of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, lives in Paris.

The lawsuit

De Havilland’s suit alleges that Feud: Bette and Joan, about the testy relationship of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, used her name and identity without permission or compensation.

FX Networks declined comment Friday. Representatives for Murphy, who co-created the hit series American Horror Story and Glee, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Catherine Zeta-Jones played de Havilland in the series, which aired earlier this year. The anthology series’ next announced chapter is about the ill-fated marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

While De Havilland is “beloved and respected by her peers” and has a reputation for integrity and honesty, the series depicts her as “a hypocrite, selling gossip in order to promote herself” at the Academy Awards, the suit says.

This is false, the suit against FX and Ryan Murphy Productions contends.

“She has refused to use what she knew about the private or public lives of other actors (which was a considerable amount) to promote her own press attention and celebrity status,” a valuable aspect of her character, the suit says.

It argues that putting “false statements into a living person’s mouth and damaging their reputation is not protected by the First Amendment because the work is cloaked as fiction.

No permission

Suzelle Smith, an attorney for de Havilland, said in a statement that FX was “wrong to ignore Miss de Havilland and proceed without her permission for its own profit.”

The actress believes FX’s actions raise important principles that affect other celebrities, Smith’s statement said.

The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for emotional distress, damage to her reputation and past and future economic losses, as well as an injunction barring the defendants from using her name or image in the series or otherwise.

De Havilland won Oscars for 1946’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress, and was nominated for three other films, including Gone with the Wind. Her later projects included TV’s Roots: The Next Generations and North and South, Book II.

The statement from her lawyers, Smith and Don Howarth, said de Havilland is “no stranger to controversy with the powerful Hollywood production industry.”

In 1943, she sued Warner Bros. over her contract.

The “landmark decision” in her legal victory set the outside limit of a studio-player contract at seven years, including suspensions, according to Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia.
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Lionel Messi and his childhood sweetheart married Friday night at a ceremony in his Argentine hometown attended by some of the biggest names in soccer.

About 250 guests attended the marriage of Messi and Antonella Roccuzzo at a luxury hotel. They included Messi’s Barcelona teammates Neymar, Luis Suarez and Gerard Pique, who was joined by his wife, Colombian pop star Shakira.

Hometown wedding

Argentines were abuzz over the wedding in Rosario, an agricultural hub and the country’s third-largest city about 300 kilometers (186 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires.

About 150 journalists were allowed to cover the event but had no direct access to the ceremony or the party afterward.

Curious onlookers gathered before the wedding near the heavily guarded site hoping to snap photos of the soccer stars.

“We think it’s great that Messi has come to Rosario to get married,” said Julio Sosa, who cleans windows for a living.

Childhood friends

Messi, 30, grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Rosario along with two brothers and a sister. His bride, 29, is the cousin of a close Messi friend and the new couple has been close friends since meeting at a young age.

Messi and Roccuzzo stayed in touch after he left to play soccer in Spain at age 13 and they eventually started a romantic relationship in the late 2000s.

Roccuzzo moved to Barcelona, where they live with their two sons: 4-year-old Thiago and 1-year-old Mateo. But they often return to their native Rosario.

“Messi could have had this wedding wherever he liked — Dubai, the moon. He can pay any plane ticket to anyone, but he chose the city that’s in his heart,” said Leandro Macaya.

Messi, a five-time FIFA world player of the year, has faced criticism in Argentina because he has never brought the country a major title, in contrast to his repeated successes playing for Barcelona. But he is praised at home and abroad for keeping his common touch.

“He was always the same and he never changed,” said Diego Vallejos, a childhood friend who was invited to the wedding.

“Despite everything that he’s accomplished in life, he’s still the same simple kid, the skinny dude that I grew up with. It’s hard to explain the feeling — I’m both a friend and a fan.”
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Pop music icon Beyonce is throwing her superstar power behind a new effort to bring safe, clean water to children in Burundi in a partnership with UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency said Friday.

Plans call for the project, BEYGOOD4BURUNDI, to help build wells and improve hygiene education and water and sanitation facilities in schools, UNICEF and the U.S. star said in online statements.

Two in five people in Burundi in East Africa have no access to clean water, and water- and sanitation-related diseases are among the leading causes of death among children in the nation of 12 million people, they said.

One in 12 children in Burundi dies before age 5, according to UNICEF.

“Access to water is a fundamental right. When you give children clean and safe water, you don’t just give them life, you give them health, an education and a brighter future,” Beyonce, 35, said in the statement.

Beyonce said more than 2 million people in Burundi spend more than 30 minutes a day collecting water, forcing children to miss school and putting girls in particular danger as they walk miles in search of wells.

One of the most popular singers in the world, Beyonce has sold more than 100 million records as a solo artist. She has three children, including twins born earlier this month, with her husband, rap star and entrepreneur Jay Z.

Expertise plus influence

“This unique partnership combines UNICEF’s decades of expertise in providing clean water to children in Burundi and around the world with the power and influence of the entertainment world to bring about social change,” said Caryl Stern, chief executive of UNICEF USA, in a statement.

Asked how much money the entertainer and UNICEF were putting toward the water project, neither the agency nor a representative for Beyonce responded immediately to requests for information.

The first phase of BEYGOOD4BURUNDI focuses on four rural regions of the landlocked East African nation, which has been racked by civil unrest and violence as well as drought and malnutrition.

It was plunged into crisis in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he planned to run for a third term, which the opposition said was unconstitutional and violated a peace deal that had ended the country’s civil war 10 years earlier.

Nkurunziza was re-elected, but some opponents took up arms. At least 700 people have been killed, and rights groups estimate more than 400,000 people have been forced from their homes.
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A prospect with a 94 mph fastball gets a lot of attention, no matter where he is pitching — even when that prospect is a diminutive 16-year-old from a country with little baseball tradition.

Eric Pardinho’s blazing fastball has brought scouts to this city 50 miles west of Sao Paulo in soccer mad Brazil. The 5-foot, 8-inch tall right-hander could get a lot more attention July 2, when Major League Baseball teams can begin signing international players. Pardinho is No. 5 on MLB.com’s list of 30 world prospects to watch.  

Pretty impressive for a kid who was introduced to baseball almost by accident.

“I am only here because at 6 years of age I was playing paddleball on the beach and my uncle thought my control could be good for baseball back in Bastos,” he said.

Also throws change, slider

Bastos is a small town outside of Sao Paulo with a sizeable Japanese population. The Japanese began bringing their love of baseball and sushi to Brazil in the early 1900s.

Pardinho, whose mother’s parents are Japanese, started gaining attention last year when he struck out 12 in a win over the powerhouse Dominican Republic at the under-16 Pan Am Games. In September he got two outs against Pakistan — both strikeouts — in a qualifier for the World Baseball Classic, a 10-0 win played in New York City.

The young Brazilian’s changeup and slider have also earned praise from local coaches, who already see at him as a potential national star for baseball’s return to the Olympics in 2020 at Tokyo. At the moment Brazil has only one player in MLB, the Cleveland Indians catcher Yan Gomes.

Since January, more and more visitors have come to watch Pardinho workout at a new MLB-sponsored training center in Ibiuna, another city influenced by baseball-loving Japanese immigrants.

Eager to sign

Pardinho is eager to sign with a team and move to the United States.

“There is a lot that I will only learn when I go,” said Pardinho.

The pitcher said his height should not be an issue, though his family members still hope that he will grow more in the next year.

“Some time ago there was an issue with shorter players, but now there are teams that don’t care. It matters more that I have a safe fastball and two more good options, including a curveball that I control well,” he said.

‘He destroys them all’

Other MLB hopefuls agree: facing Pardinho is a huge challenge.

“Pardinho’s curveball is amazing, he is more than fast. His height doesn’t matter because his arm can do wonders,” said third baseman Victor Coutinho, also 16.  

Also a pitcher, Heitor Tokar practices with Pardinho every day and believes in his friend’s future in the sport.

“Pardinho doesn’t feel any difference when he throws against players taller than him, he destroys them all,” Tokar said.

Even Pardinho’s coach, Mitsuyoshi Sato, knows the teen is headed for bigger challenges, and protects his arm. Sato pitches the soon-to-be pro no more than two innings at weekend tournaments.  

Room for improvement

Pardinho’s father Evandro makes the hour-plus drive from Bastos to check on his son, and Sato makes sure Pardinho is a priority for Yakult training center medics. Pardinho has the support of an orthopedist, a physiotherapist and a fitness trainer. He also has a technical trainer.

“He still has to improve physically and mentally. I don’t want him to do too many fastballs now because I worry about a possible injury,” said Sato. “No arm is prepared to pitch that fast, much less the arm of a kid.”  

Sato believes Pardinho has room for improvement in the control of his changeup so he can spare his arm and shoulder.

Pardinho thinks if he has success, he could change baseball in Brazil.

“If I do well, maybe more and more Brazilians, not only those of Japanese heritage, will think of playing on a diamond, too.”

 
…

Tennis star Venus Williams is being sued by the family of a man who died in a car crash in which she was involved.

Court officials in Palm Beach County, Florida, confirmed that the family of Jerome Barson, 78, filed the lawsuit against Williams on Friday.

A police report released Thursday described Williams as being “at fault” in the incident, which took place this month. Police have not charged Williams with an offense.

An attorney for Barson’s wife, Linda, who was driving at the time of the crash, accuses Williams of running a red light as well as inattentive and negligent driving.

The attorney, Michael Steinger, said he thought there might be video of the crash that was captured by surveillance cameras at the guard houses protecting Williams’ neighborhood.

An attorney for Williams, Malcolm Cunningham, said she entered a six-lane intersection on a green light but got stuck in traffic while trying to turn. The light then turned red while Williams was still making her turn, he said.

Williams said she didn’t see the Barsons’ car before she crossed into their lane. Jerome Barson spent two weeks in a hospital with a fractured spine and internal injuries before he died.

Williams is in England preparing to play in the Wimbledon championships, where she has won the women’s singles title five times. Her younger sister, Serena Williams, the world’s fourth-ranked women’s tennis player, is not playing in the tournament because she is pregnant.
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Paul McCartney has reached a confidential settlement of his lawsuit against Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC in which he sought to reclaim copyrights to songs by the Beatles.

The accord disclosed Thursday in filings with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ends McCartney’s pre-emptive effort to ensure that the copyrights, once owned by Michael Jackson, would go to him starting in October 2018.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos signed an order dismissing the case, but agreed to revisit it if a dispute arose.

The dismissal request had been made by Michael Jacobs, a lawyer for McCartney, on behalf of the singer and Sony/ATV.

It was unclear how the accord affects McCartney’s copyright claims. The singer’s representatives could not immediately be reached Friday for comment.

McCartney, 75, had sued on January 18 for a declaration that he could reclaim more than 260 copyrights, including for songs credited to him and John Lennon such as I Want to Hold Your Hand, Yesterday and Hey Jude.

The registrations at issue also covered Maybe I’m Amazed and several other songs McCartney recorded as a solo artist. They even covered such titles as Scrambled Egg, which is close to the working lyric Scrambled Eggs that McCartney once used for the song that became Yesterday.

McCartney had been outbid by Jackson in 1985 for the Beatles’ song rights, which were later rolled into Sony/ATV, a joint venture with Sony Corp. The pop star’s estate sold its stake in that venture to Sony for $750 million last year.

McCartney sued a month and a half after a British court said the pop group Duran Duran could not reclaim rights to its songs, in its case against Sony/ATV’s Gloucester Place Music unit.

Changes made in 1976 to U.S. copyright law let authors like McCartney reclaim song rights after periods of time elapsed.

In his lawsuit, McCartney said he could begin exercising his rights on Beatles songs, starting with Love Me Do, on October 5, 2018.
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Prumsodun Ok, a Cambodian-American born to refugee parents, knew he wanted to be an “apsara” dancer from the age of 4, when he was entranced by a performance captured on one of his family’s home movies.

No matter that the dance dated back to the seventh century, or that traditionally apsaras were beautiful, heaven-born females, destined to entertain gods and kings at the Angkor temples in the ancient Khmer Empire, modern-day Cambodia. Ok focused on the stylized grace of the dancing and thought little about the fact that the dancers were women, because he was a kid and he had a dream.

But he put that on hold for 12 years. 

Growing up in Long Beach, California, home to 20,000 Khmer immigrants, Ok was bullied because he was “different.” He recalls being branded as gay and “kteu” — Thai or Cambodian slang for someone who is born male but acts or looks female — when he was 5. That name calling led him to self-identify as gay in his teens.

“I don’t know when I knew,” Ok said about realizing that he was gay, “but I can say that I only became comfortable in my latter years of high school. This is me, this is who I am, and no one can change that or take that away from me.”

That was about the time when, after years of watching his younger sister practice traditional Khmer dances, that he found the courage to approach her dance master.

A rising star among dance students

“I really love dance. Can you please teach me?” Ok pleaded, and Sophiline Cheam Shapiro agreed. Teenager Ok quickly became a rising star at her Khmer Arts Academy in Long Beach, which is affiliated with an arts ensemble in Cambodia.

The school, founded by Shapiro, teaches traditional arts to Cambodian-Americans. Shapiro was one of the first graduates from Phnom Penh’s School of Fine Arts after the fall of the Pol Pot regime and is revered as one of Cambodia’s leading contemporary dance choreographers.

In 2015, Ok, now 30, moved to Cambodia and established Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA, the country’s first gay dance company. Male dancers ages 18 to 24 fill roles traditionally performed by women. The troupe stages Khmer classical dances as well as new works that Ok creates.

“What I’m doing is drawing from our traditions and using these traditions in ways that people could never imagine to create a more inclusive and compassionate and just Cambodia,” he said.

Coming from “a long tradition of people who are in the service of society … of humanity,” Ok said he has learned “that service is not just about being comfortable: those who are comfortable are not always necessarily right.”

Cambodian society’s tolerance

Srun Srorn, 36, the founder of CamASEAN and a human rights activist, told VOA Khmer that while the majority of LGBTQ Cambodians are marginalized and discriminated against, society is more tolerant of their role in the arts.

Ok’s group “is more professional, so I think it will bring the positive [response] from the community,” Srorn said. “So far, this part of the art — performing — is not getting any negative reaction from the public.

Ok says his role as a teacher of dance goes beyond the classroom.

“Getting them to learn how to see, getting them to have the courage to ask questions, getting them to have the bravery to explore things on their own,” he said. “Those are the most essential things that a teacher of any art form, or discipline or medium, needs to inspire in their students.”

Choung Veasna, 19, of Phnom Penh, says Ok gave him confidence: “I’ve learned from my teacher that no matter what people say about you, it doesn’t matter.”

Tes Sokhon, 24, from Pailin province, the oldest dancer in the group, says his teacher is inspiring. 

“He’s more than my idol,” Sokhon said. “He’s the first teacher to train me in classical dance. He provides us with income and makes our lives better.”

​‘Combination of beauty and tradition’

The troupe’s passion for classical Khmer dance has not gone unnoticed.

Craig Dodge, director of sales and marketing at Phare, the Cambodian Circus performance troupe in Siem Reap, said: “When I watched the video on their homepage and heard the young men talk about what performing has meant to them, their identity and their self-esteem, it made me cry.”

Courtesy Prumsodun Ok and NATYARSA 

Dodge worked with Ok to make the troupe’s Siem Reap debut in Cambodia’s artistic center a reality, by tapping into the city’s strong sense of community, which he describes as “the perfect place for nurturing and presenting traditional and new Cambodian creative expression.”

Resident Darryl Collins, an art historian, is providing the venue without charge because “the combination of beautiful and traditional 100-year-old Khmer houses with an elegant contemporary form of classical dance seemed an exciting collaboration.”

Other Siem Reap businesses are pitching in with free accommodations, transportation, security and are helping stage the performances July 14 and 15.

Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA is scheduled to perform three dances: PRUM x POP, ranging from Khmer classical dance to pop music; Beloved, which explores a 13th century Khmer king’s love for his land; and Robam Santhyea Vehea, a tale of love and marriage of two men.

Ok hopes an open-minded audience will see the performance as a measure of how LGBTQ people can create art in their communities.

“I want the company to be a model for compassion, for bravery, for beauty,” he said.
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