Social shifts and viable musical futures: The case of

This is an author-produced PDF of a chapter published in Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, Volume II, copyright Routledge. The citation information is: Grant, C. (2017). Social shifts and viable musical futures: The case of Cambodian smot. In Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader, Volume II (pp. 97-110). Routledge. Retrievable from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315439150/chapters/10.4324%2F978131543 9167-7

Social shifts and viable musical futures: The case of Cambodian smot 1 Catherine Grant Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University Brisbane, Australia [email protected]

The artistic, social and liturgical practice of smot has been, in shifting manifestations, an integral part of Buddhist ritual in Cambodia for centuries. Also known as ‘Cambodian Buddhist chant’ or ‘Cambodian Dharma songs’, and traditionally performed by a solo singer of either gender, smot faces new challenges in the 21st century, as its social and economic bases change as rapidly as Cambodia itself. Building on the limited existing scholarly research on smot and drawing on observations and interviews conducted over eight months’ fieldwork from 2013 to 2015, this chapter reflects on the current situation of smot and its prospects in fast-changing Cambodia. To illustrate some of the experiences, challenges and opportunities facing the next generation of smot artists, in whose hands lies the future of this tradition, the chapter includes a detailed account of the experiences and views of one young urban smot singer, SreyNy. These issues raised by her account, and the discussion of smot at large, resonate with the recent wider applied ethnomusicological concern with safeguarding and revitalizing musical heritage seen to be ‘at risk’. Keywords: Cambodia; Khmer; intangible cultural heritage; cultural revitalisation; music endangerment; music sustainability; smot

For centuries, the musical, social and liturgical practice of smot (also ‘Cambodian Buddhist chanting’ or ‘Cambodian Dharma songs’) has played an important role in Buddhist ritual in Cambodia. Traditionally performed by a solo singer of either gender, smot is sung in Khmer (the language of the majority Khmer people of Cambodia), Pali (the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism, now extinct as a mother tongue), or a combination of both. The poetic texts typically refer to the Buddha’s life and teachings, traditional Khmer stories, and religious and moral principles – especially that of gratitude to one’s parents. According to Walker, “the expressive melodies and lyrics of these Dharma songs are intended to evoke the aesthetic experiences of 1

The account in this chapter of smot singer SreyNy first appeared in condensed form in the author’s article ‘Socioeconomic Concerns of Young Musicians of Traditional Genres in Cambodia: Implications for Music Sustainability’, in the journal Ethnomusicology Forum (available at http://wwww.tandfonline.com). Reprinted here in revised and expanded form, with permission of the publisher.

stirring (Pali: saṃvega) and stilling (Pali: pasāda); that is, being stirred by the shocking frailty, misery, and futility of life and being stilled by the serene trust that practicing generosity, living ethically, and cultivating the heart will lead to liberation” (in CLA 2014a, n.p.). Historical contexts for smot include funerals, cremation and memorial ceremonies, where it comforts those who are bereaved; private healing ceremonies, where it serves to comfort the dying; and monastic contexts, such as Buddhist ceremonies, devotional rituals, and holy days. To the extent that it is practiced at all (and its vitality is a key theme of this chapter), smot continues to play an integral function in these Cambodian Buddhist end-of-life ceremonies and rituals. The educational and social utility of smot are key to understanding the genre. Smot perpetuates the teachings of the Buddha in contemporary Cambodia, teaches love and respect for one’s parents and the elderly, and brings solace, healing, and enlightenment to performers and listeners. Phoeun Srey Pov, a younger-generation smot performer, describes the functions and contexts of smot like this: Smot is to educate people! We don’t chant it only for funerals but at the occasion of many other ceremonies. We can chant either in Khmer or Pali, and using many different vocal styles and rhythms. For example, during funerals, we chant about the three characteristics of life: impermanence, suffering and unreality, and during the gratitude ceremony, we chant about our parents’ good deeds, and that one has to be grateful to them. Also, we have many Dharma songs talking about Buddha’s life, that we chant during Buddhist ceremonies in pagodas. (22 January 2014; www.cambodianlivingarts.org/news/smot-poetry-chanting/) A characteristically Khmer genre in the minds of many of its practitioners and listeners, with a history of least four centuries (Walker 2012), smot is deeply and closely associated with Cambodian identity. Smot teacher Keot Ran feels it important to keep smot strong because “this is our tradition, our culture, of being Khmer … [smot] is who we are and it is attached to what we are doing” (interview, 22 February 2013). However, in some ways the situation of smot in 21st-century Cambodia is precarious. Drawing on observations and interviews I conducted with artists and others over eight months’ fieldwork from February 2013 to December 2015 (reported on in Grant 2014a, 2015, in press), as well as the limited existing scholarly research on smot (e.g. Walker 2011, 2012, and Rolf Bader n.d.), this chapter reflects on the current situation of smot and its future prospects in a rapidly changing contemporary Cambodia. I include a relatively extended account of the experiences of one young urban smot singe), in order to illustrate some of the challenges and opportunities facing the next generation of smot artists, in whose hands and voices lies the future of this tradition. I also briefly reflect on the role of ‘outsiders’ in the revitalisation of smot, and how the efforts of scholars and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to support the genre interconnect with wider applied ethnomusicological concern to safeguard and promote music traditions ‘at risk’.

The contemporary practice of smot Compared with certain other Cambodian music traditions (most obviously, the ubiquitous pinn peat), the extent of smot practice was modest through the twentieth century, but the genocide curbed its practice even further. Few smot masters 1 survived Pol Pot’s heinous regime (1975-1979), which systematically eradicated traditional cultural practices from everyday life and saw the death of an estimated 90% of artists throughout the nation (Sam in Sam, Roongruang, and Nguyễn 1998, 209). Some famous smot practitioners who remarkably managed to survive this period – like the monk Hun Horm (later known as Hun Kang) (1924-2007) and Prom Uth (d. 2009), “locally renowned for his stunning dusk-to-dawn performances, and a rice farmer most of his life” (CLA 2014b, n.p.) – have only recently passed away. Although some middle-generation artists (prominently Keot Ran, Figure 1) are actively teaching and highly devoted to maintaining smot as a social and cultural practice in their communities and more widely, few have developed the skill and knowledge of smot texts, repertoire, theory, aesthetics, and performance practice that fully capture the depth of the tradition. Especially since documentation of smot (audio and visual recordings, photos, written notes, other resources) from the pre-Khmer Rouge era is very limited, the death of the each elderly master means the loss of a hugely valuable resource in the intergenerational transmission and perpetuation of the genre.

Figure 1. Keot Ran sings smot on temple grounds, Kampong Speu province. Photo by the author, 22 February 2013.

No systematic mapping of the practice of smot has been carried out. Bader (n.d.) reports that during fieldwork in 2010, artists (and recordings) were located in several monasteries, and that some monasteries provided training in smot. Several individual artists reside in Phnom Penh, and at least one concentrated group of smot practitioners, in Kampong Speu province, remains active. Walker (2012) refers to a ‘network’ of smot teachers and performers, both in Cambodia and (to a lesser extent) in the diaspora. During my own fieldwork in late 2015, during which I was consultant to the Intangible Cultural Heritage section of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, the Ministry was making concrete plans for a systematic inventorying of the intangible cultural heritage of Cambodia. Such an undertaking, if carried out, would likely identify further individuals and communities that practice smot. Thus, although smot may remain relatively integrated into cultural beliefs and practices in small pockets of regional Cambodia (and among a small circle of artists in the capital city of Phnom Penh), many Cambodians know very little about the tradition – particularly those of the younger generation. Despite its integral historical function in Buddhist practice, and the fact that over 95% of the population still identify as Buddhist (CIA 2015), smot lies at a crossroads. Ongoing shifts in attitudes to traditional cultural practices (both musical and religious), as well as socioeconomic and sociocultural circumstances that are vastly different in contemporary Cambodia from the pre-Khmer Rouge era, means that smot is necessarily taking on new forms and functions in order to survive. Younger artists are exploring and engaging with innovative modes of transmission and performance that better align with their needs and wishes, and that may signal a more viable alternative future for the genre. One example of a major contextual shift in the practice of smot (indeed, in the practice of all traditional Cambodian performing arts) is the pressing concern of younger artists to ensure reliable and sustainable opportunities and mechanisms for making a living from their skills (Grant 2015). Young Cambodian people are increasingly turning from rural, agrarian ways of life toward urban study and job opportunities, particularly those in the capital city Phnom Penh. Earning money remains a primary concern for many: a significant proportion of the Cambodian population encounters or experiences poverty in their daily lives (UNDP 2013). Thus, many younger people do not have the luxury of engaging in artistic pursuits for leisure or pleasure alone, but try to use their skills as a means of income-generation, whether in support of their own study or living costs or their families in the provinces. By way of illustrating some of these socioeconomic issues specifically around the contemporary practice of smot, in the next section I present the edited transcript of an interview I held with a 22-year-old smot singer whose given name is SreyNy 2 (see Figure 2). The interview took place in Phnom Penh on 30 September 2015 in the context of a research project I was then

conducting, which explored the relationship between socioeconomic circumstances of young people (under 30) and their engagement with traditional music (reported upon in Grant in press). At the time, SreyNy was involved with the programs of Cambodian Living Arts, a NGO founded in the late 1990s to support the revival and development of traditional local performing arts and culture; as host organisation for my research, CLA facilitated my meeting with SreyNy. During our interview, which lasted around two hours, I invited SreyNy to share her experiences and reflections on her learning and performing smot. She chose to speak mostly in English, though a professional interpreter was available throughout our talk. A couple of weeks later, I met with her again to review this reworked transcript, which I had shaped into a more narrative format, retaining SreyNy’s own words as far as possible. SreyNy suggested some additions and amendments, which have been incorporated in the version presented here.

Figure 2. Smot artist ‘SreyNy’. Photo: provided by the artist, used with permission, July 2016.

Profile of a young practitioner My name is SreyNy and I’m 22 years old. I’m from Kampong Speu province. There are six children in my family, three boys and three girls. I am the fourth child. My parents are rice farmers. My father is also a military physician. I think he received his education, maybe even a degree, before the Khmer Rouge. My mother was raised in the provinces, and she has had less education than my father. My father was not trained as an artist, but he knows how to sing. When I was young he taught me some popular Cambodian songs, like those of Sinn Sisamouth. I decided I wanted to be an artist when I was about 9 or 10. At that age, I knew how to sing some songs, including one I especially loved from the 1960s that I heard on the radio and TV, and the ones my father taught me. Two of my older siblings, my second brother and my third sister, loved singing too. They started learning smot together in 2004. They learnt at a class nearby where a lady, a smot singer, taught as part of the programs of an arts non-government organisation. Sometimes my brother and sister sang smot at home. At first I didn’t like it, but after a while I grew to love it. My siblings explained to me the meaning of the songs. From watching films on TV, I had thought that smot was about ghosts, and I was afraid of it. But it's not about ghosts at all; it's to educate people to be grateful to our parents who take care of us as little children, and to our ancestors who have passed away. At times when I was still young, I lost hope about being a singer. I thought, I'm poor, I’m not beautiful, I don’t have fair skin, so maybe I’m not be fit to be an artist. But when I was in secondary school, before I’d had any singing lessons, there was a performance competition at the English class I went to. I sang, and I got first place. So my hope returned. Before that event, I thought that you needed to be beautiful or rich to achieve success. But afterwards I began to believe that what a successful artist really needs is ability, and that's why I started to hope again that I could be an artist. I joined the smot class about three or four years after my siblings did. There were thirteen people in my class. When I’d been learning for three or four years, I finished Grade 12 and graduated from high school. That was in 2011. My smot teacher liked my voice and wanted me to learn more about smot, and for me to have more opportunities. I didn’t know yet whether I could study at university – I thought my parents might not have enough money. Also, at first my father didn’t want his daughters to study at a higher level, just my older brother. But my brother didn’t want to go to university, and my father was very angry. When I graduated from high school, and asked my father whether I could study at university, he said I could go if I also got a job, because he couldn’t afford to support me entirely. I heard about a scholarship program through Cambodian

Living Arts and I applied, and I was successful. Now I’m in my last year of my Bachelor of English. The scholarship pays my university fees and gives me a living stipend too. I can live off the stipend, but I also try to earn money in other ways, so I have more money to support my family. Two years ago I taught around 30 students smot, young children who couldn’t afford to go to school, at an organisation in Phnom Penh. It was called Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development, CVCD for short. I taught an hour a week, and I was paid $50 3 per month. Cambodian Living Arts and CVCD had a contract about teaching music and other arts, but after I had taught there for about two years, the contract expired. Now CVCD doesn’t teach music or any of the arts any more. I was sorry about that because by teaching smot, I could help young people learn about it. Until recently, I also sang smot and classical wedding music in a show for locals and tourists at the National Museum here in Phnom Penh. For three years, I performed twice a week, and earned $10 per performance. In some months there are five weeks, so I could get $80 or $90 per month. But now the contract has expired and the performances stopped, maybe because not enough people were coming to support them – I’m not sure why. I feel sad about that because we won’t be able to show foreigners and other people our traditional art forms any more. Also it means that we artists cannot earn as much money. I think some performers in those shows might stop being artists now, because they can’t get enough money to support themselves or their families. Artists are not rich. I have one friend who performed in those shows who has quit her degree in performing arts to open a small grocery store. So I lost these two sources of income, and that will be difficult. But I can still earn money from singing smot. At nearly every Buddhist ceremony in Cambodia we can smot 4, and there are many kinds of these ceremonies, so I can still smot about eight or ten times a month. Sometimes the monks or others at the pagoda call me up and invite me to smot at these ceremonies. I get paid for singing smot, but the amount is up to the organiser. They could give me $15, or they could give me $100 or more. Usually I would receive $20 to $30. It’s not predictable, like fees for wedding music. I also have two private smot students, but they don’t come regularly. I sing classical wedding music at wedding receptions too, as part of a group. We give the name card of our group to wedding hair, make-up, and beautification businesses so they can be in contact when they need us. Sometimes the organiser of a wedding ceremony contacts us directly. Most people get married between October and about June or July, so I earn most of my income during that period, when I might be asked to sing five or ten times per month. Occasionally, in high season, I can even sing at a wedding in the morning and in the afternoon I go and smot. But it is irregular work. I am just trying to figure out how I can use my singing ability in order to survive as an artist. I really want to be an artist, and to support myself and to be successful in my career.

That's why I have this idea to set up my own business when I finish my university studies. My dream is to open a business that relates to my smot and classical wedding music skills. It would offer customers packages, not only music but also hair and make-up and other services for weddings and other ceremonies. I’ve discussed the idea with my sister and her husband, and another friend of ours who sings smot, and they plan to invest with me. So it seems I have persuaded my sister to return to the artistic life! When she learnt smot as a child, she never wanted to be an artist for a living. She is a housewife, and her husband is a soldier, but they both have a background in smot. They met in the smot class! My sister tells me that when I go to sing in ceremonies, and sometimes even meet famous people there, she is proud of me. In our business, if we bring together other smot artists to sing with us, in that way our ceremonies will become more interesting, and the business will develop. I strongly believe that we can be successful in this business operation. I have another friend with a smot business, but mine will be different. Maybe sometimes I will ask her for ideas. I will need some skills to manage my business. I already can smot, so I am well equipped with that already. English might not be directly related to my business, because I will just operate locally. But I am studying English for tourism, English for management, and English for business, and I hope what I learn in that way could help me run the business too. I need to understand more about decoration for receptions too, but the friend of ours who might be our business partner has some experience supervising wedding receptions, so he knows something about that. Occasionally a TV channel or radio program has invited me to come and smot for them. They interviewed me too on radio, but didn't give me much time to talk about myself as an artist. If they had, it might have helped my reputation and helped me be more widely known. There’s recently been a contest on Bayon TV for people of all ages who have performance skills in the traditional art forms mahaori, smot, pleng kar boran, and yike. It’s on TV just once a week for an hour, but it runs for many months. Next year it’s the turn of mahaori and smot again, and I want to try to compete. The prize is 10 million riel 5 . The show doesn’t have the same prestige as Cambodian Idol, but for the competitors’ relatives and friends it’s exciting, and it might help me become better known as a smot singer. At first my parents didn’t want me to be an artist. They said that girls could not be artists, and that it would mean I couldn’t make a good living in future. They also said that when girls get involved with the arts, they can get themselves a bad reputation. They were thinking about young female pop singers, who sometimes give bad favours in return for receiving money and other kinds of assistance to become famous. But when the staff from Cambodian Living Arts came to visit my house in Kampong Speu, my parents understood this was not what my music interest was about. They were very relieved. Now they see my successes and they're happy about me being a singer.

So far I am the only one in my family who has gone to university. All my brothers and sisters, except the youngest one, have finished high school. They don’t want to study more, only work and earn money. They mostly still live in Kampong Speu province, though my younger sister lives in Phnom Penh with her husband and works for a motor company. My eldest and secondeldest brothers are both married and live in our village; the eldest is a farmer, the second is a factory worker. In Phnom Penh, I live with one of my relatives, a distant cousin who has a big house, so I don’t have to pay rent. There are about 10 people living in the house, mostly relatives of ours. I am happy there, but after I graduate from university or get a good job or get married, I will move away. I think it’s more difficult for traditional artists to earn a living than for contemporary artists. For smot, it is really difficult. I don't know why, but some people in the provinces really dislike smot; I think they are afraid, thinking it was only about dead people. But the Bayon TV contest I mentioned before has helped people in the provinces become a little more knowledgeable. Now that I live in Phnom Penh, I want to operate my business here, because I feel there's more opportunity than in the provinces, and I think people here like smot more. Also, I can earn much more money for a smot ceremony here, so as long as my business is successful, I will earn more in Phnom Penh. But I also have the idea of providing my services free of charge in rural areas, because I know that people there are poor, and I want them still to have smot even if they can’t afford it. In the future, I don't know what exactly will happen, but I can say I won’t have to depend on my family. I already financially support my family just a little. My father earns some money as a freelance physician – his friends and acquaintances know that he has some medical knowledge and sometimes request his advice for simple matters – but he is getting older now and is not well, so he doesn’t work much. He doesn’t have enough money to support my younger brother to study at university, so I want to do that. My youngest brother is in grade 10, and wants to be a medical doctor. I think that’s a good plan, because then he could take care of our family. He never learnt music and has no aspirations to become an artist, though he is very musical. In his free time, he uses buckets and pots as musical instruments and mucks around and makes a racket with them. We have three or four cows for our work in the rice fields, and when my brother goes to tend them, he always sings along the way. The vitality of smot In 21st-century Cambodia, socioeconomic and cultural circumstances differ vastly from the preKhmer Rouge era, and the challenges are many. Disposable income is a rarity, particularly rurally: around 20% of the population lives in poverty, with higher rural incidence and a significant percentage of people only marginally above the official poverty line (World Bank 2015). While

many young people, like SreyNy, pursue secondary or higher education or employment in bustling Phnom Penh, their families are often in no position to offer financial help, and may instead expect that their city-residing offspring support them. It is no surprise then that young performers like SreyNy hope and expect to generate income through their artistic skills – which after all, require enormous and long-term investment of time and effort to build. Yet despite the best efforts of NGOs and their various teaching and performance programs, the cultural industries in Cambodia are full of ongoing challenges. SreyNy’s difficulties in finding sustainable employment as a smot singer through NGO initiatives and in other ways are broadly indicative of the contemporary experience of traditional musicians in Cambodia (particularly in the capital city; Grant in press). Outside of Phnom Penh, the situation is not always easier. For smot as for some other genres, the not uncommon practice of replacing live performers with recordings in ceremonial village contexts – ostensibly resolving both the shortage of practitioners and the expense of hiring them – further limits non-urban performance opportunities and undermines artists’ ability to generate income from their skills, thereby fuelling the very problem it seeks to overcome (Grant 2015). The difficulties of finding sufficient sustainable employment is one of several key issues SreyNy raises relating to the vitality and viability of smot as a contemporary artistic and social practice. Another is that of learning and teaching smot. Since the destruction of traditional arts and the death of most proficient masters during the Khmer Rouge regime, regaining effective intergenerational transmission of smot has proven difficult. The traditional master-apprentice method of transmission has all but collapsed 6; and with traditional music not taught in the standard school curriculum, opportunities for young Cambodian people to learn smot are very few. The main driver of transmission-based safeguarding initiatives for traditional music is the NGO sector – most prominently Cambodian Living Arts (CLA, some of whose archiving, education, commissioning, training and performance programs were mentioned earlier). CLA’s school-based smot education program in Kampong Speu province, where SreyNy first learnt, is the biggest and arguably most successful transmission initiative for the genre. In collaboration with CLA, the school in Chrey Ho Phnoa village is leading somewhat of a smot revival within its local community. In early 2014, around 300 students attended one CLA-led smot workshop-demonstration at the primary school, and smot classes are offered several times a week as part of the high school curriculum, each class with around 40 to 60 students (see Figure 3). In August 2015, the high school implemented a new semester-long smot syllabus, complete with printed learning resources. Some learners are not only recreating traditional smot songs, but also creating new ones, like CLA scholarship student “Boramy”, whose composition to educate youth about the dangers of drug use was performed at the Chrey Ho Phnoa school workshop-

demonstration (CLA 2016). Renewal of the genre in this way signals its potential to adapt to contemporary contexts, and maintain relevance and value in an ever-changing social and cultural landscape. However, even this successful program hangs in large part off the fact that a proficient smot teacher (Keot Ran) lives in the village nearby. The vast majority of other young Cambodians are not so fortunate to have proximity to a skilled active teacher.

Figure 3. Smot teacher Keot Ran (seated, front centre) with assistant Suon Srey Oun (standing, right) teach smot to students at Chrey Ho Phnov High School, Kampong Speu province. Photo by the author, 27 June 2014.

The problems posed by employment instability and the shortage of proficient teachers and learning contexts are compounded by a disinclination of many young people (in particular) to become involved in smot. In general, the attraction of smot is negligible for youth: the genre is not easy to learn, requiring years of dedicated effort and training to master the unique, complex and challenging style; other responsibilities (like study or income-generating activities) take priority; and Western and/or popular contemporary music is more alluring than traditional performing arts, which are often seen as backward or old-fashioned (Grant 2014a). Adding to the musical challenges of smot are the texts in Pali (no longer spoken as a mother tongue anywhere in the world) and/or

Khmer; but even when in Khmer, the vocabulary and structures used can be obscure or obsolete. Thus, the sounds, words, and meaning of smot texts are unfamiliar to the average learner, who must come to grips with both the difficult pronunciation and the meaning of the texts. (This also presents a challenge for listeners and audiences, who without education may not easily understand the meaning – and therefore arguably the value – of the tradition.) In engaging with smot as a child, then, SreyNy is an exception to the norm. The involvement of her siblings in musical activities, as well as the opportunities available to her through the geographical proximity of the smot classes, provoked her initial interest in the genre. That interest was then sustained through her own commitment and perseverance, the encouragement of her teacher, and her modest successes in a competition, securing a university scholarship, and gaining some level of paid employment through her skills. SreyNy also refers to two threats to the vibrancy of smot that relate to constructs around the genre, rather than infrastructural, economic, or resource challenges. The first of these relates to gender: it is less acceptable for Cambodian girls and women to engage with the traditional music genres than their male counterparts, for reasons primarily relating not to the cultural appropriateness of female participation in specific genres, but rather the social role of girls and women in Cambodian society (an issue well beyond the scope of this chapter). The other is the propensity of smot to generate fear; it is not uncommon for Cambodians (particularly children) to be afraid of smot due to its strong cultural associations with death, dying, and end-of-life rituals. Walker observes: “Dharma songs sometimes use shock to stir the hearts of the listeners. The shock is never for its own sake but rather to connect listeners to the reality of suffering, transience, and death” (2012, 525). Phoeun Srey Pov, like SreyNy a successful young performer, echoed SreyNy’s initial fear of smot, which she overcame only through her personal involvement in learning: Before I started studying with teacher Koeut [Keot] Ran, I would [be] afraid every time I would hear Smot, especially during funerals. I thought that Smot was about death only. I understood this was wrong when I joined the class in Kampong Speu province. (22 January 2014; www.cambodianlivingarts.org/news/smot-poetry-chanting/) These sentiments of fear remain a barrier to building greater practitioner and audience bases for smot. These various socioeconomic and ideological challenges to smot may make its future seem grim, especially considered in conjunction with its contained geographical scope, scarcity of quality documentation, and limited local capacity to implement much-needed sustainable, locally-driven safeguarding activities. However, various measures are being taken to bring “new life” to “this treasure of Khmer, Buddhist, and world culture” (Walker 2011), as I describe in the closing section of this chapter.

An eye to the future In Cambodia, safeguarding measures for smot and other traditional performing arts genres have been underway since at least the late 1990s, when the serious threat to the viability of much of Cambodia’s intangible cultural heritage was recognised in earnest (see e.g. Sam, Roongruang, and Nguyễn 1998). As per SreyNy’s narrative, nowadays most learning opportunities for smot occur through NGO programs. Despite the challenges of encouraging young people to engage with the genre, school-based initiatives in particular have begun to increase awareness and understanding of smot, at least in pockets of the country. These initiatives result in greater understanding and appreciation of the genre not only directly among the young participants, but also among their peers, families, and the wider community, with whom they share what they learn. In this way too, negative constructs that pose a threat to the sustainability of the genre (like fear due to its association with death) may be broken down. Some entrepreneurial young leaners of smot are making efforts to combine their musical knowledge and skills with business acumen. Despite the serious and ritual nature of the tradition not easily lending itself to popular promotion, SreyNy’s intentions to establish a small business around her smot and other singing skills underscore not only the economic necessity but also the ideological willingness of young artists to explore new ways to practice their art. Some young practitioners have already begun to build a name via social media and local TV, like Phoeun SreyPov (Figure 4), in her 20s, who enjoys considerable TV and press coverage locally (see for example James 2014), has performed internationally, and has managed to build a successful small business that revolves around the genre (see www.sreypovsmot.com). In being entrepreneurial in their artistic activities, SreyPov and SreyNy are by no means alone; young Cambodian musicians are exploring innovative ways of generating income through their skills, not least to overcome the challenges of irregular and inadequate employment (CLA 2014c) – underscoring the need for programs that train artists in business management and related skills (a topic I explore at more length elsewhere; Grant in press).

Figure 4. Smot artist Phoeun SreyPov, who is building a business around her smot skills. Photo: provided by the artist, used with permission, July 2016.

National and international promotion through performances, festivals, and the media are another important mechanism for ensuring a strong future for smot. Smot has recently been the subject of two short documentary films (Neang 2011 and CLA 2015); it appears (albeit briefly) in one of the acclaimed ongoing “Cambodian Living Arts On Stage” shows at the National Museum of Phnom Penh; and has been profiled in the local, national and even international media. As SreyNy mentioned in her interview, one of the national TV channels (Bayon) has newly established a competition for the performing arts, where smot and other artists have an opportunity to display their skills and talent. Internationally, smot performances have been met with appreciation in Australia and the United States (see e.g. Jinja 2009), and a performance featured as part of Prim Phloeun’s TEDx Phnom Penh talk on the transformation of Cambodia through the arts (Prim 2011). Promotion and dissemination activities like these not only foster understanding in Cambodia and beyond of the nature and value of smot, but, like more explicitly educational initiatives, can also help to break down certain unfavourable constructs around the genre, including its perceived obsolescence. Despite these various successes, challenges remain in ensuring smot finds relevance and continued practice into the 21st century. Several of these have been described above, including the social shifts and processes of urbanisation and modernisation that make earning an income a

priority for city-dwelling young people. To date, governmental support has been more ideological than practical; while the government acknowledges the value of Cambodia’s traditional performing arts and the importance of revitalising them, the very minimal budget of the relevant Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts renders it unimpressive so far as solid action towards safeguarding cultural heritage. The release of the first National Cultural Policy (Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts 2014) promises to serve as a compass toward more concrete governmental action. However, some of the intentions stated therein (such as the formal incorporation of performing arts and culture into the school curriculum) are likely to require considerable time, resources, and sustained commitment to develop and implement. Meanwhile, action may be taken to support smot at the grassroots level (most likely with the support of NGOs, at least for now) – perhaps most obviously by stimulating local community-based and youth knowledge and interest in the genre. In this context, in the short to medium term, researchers and other ‘outsiders’ may have an important role to play in supporting a viable future for smot, particularly in collaboration with the continued efforts of NGOs. An illustration is the US scholar Trent Walker, at the time of writing a PhD student in Buddhist Studies at the University of California Berkeley, whose six years of research into smot as a research student and performer led to creation of his website Stirring and Stilling: A Liturgy of Cambodian Dharma Songs (2011). The website (which hosts performances of an extensive set of smot songs, texts, and English translations) is part of a suite of recent efforts to document smot and other ‘rare’ traditional Cambodian genres. Another such effort is the ‘Archiving Project’ of Cambodian Living Arts, in which Walker was also closely involved, which resulted in a set of CDs that have been made available free of charge to Cambodian artists, communities, and arts organisations (CLA 2014a, 2014b). Documentation and archiving projects like these are valuable not only in creating a repository of knowledge for smot (an urgent task, as elderly masters pass away or become unable to teach), but may also feed into other safeguarding initiatives, now or in the future: raising funds and grassroots support for educational programs, breaking down constructs that inhibit full engagement with the genre, and building local patronage and performance opportunities, for example. Although the potential for scholars to make a real contribution to safeguarding or revitalising ‘at-risk’ genres is extensively acknowledged in recent applied ethnomusicological research into music endangerment and sustainability (e.g. Grant 2014b, Schippers & Grant in press), as yet, in the Cambodian context this potential remains largely untapped. Closing words In general, many practitioners of smot are keen to ensure that the tradition remains a sustainable artistic, social, and religious practice into the 21st century. Teacher Keot Ran says: “I wish to see young generations keep learning Smot and preserve it. If nobody takes care of this endangered art

form or if no one learns to chant, one day Smot will disappear” (22 January 2014; CLA website). In many ways, the challenges facing smot, and efforts to maintain it, have parallels all over the world, as individuals and communities strive to sustain or revitalise their cultural expressions that for various reasons have come under threat, against the wills of the communities concerned (UNESCO 2003). In the case of Cambodian smot, it seems one of the biggest challenges is “not only how to make sense of the present meanings of living culture, but also how to understand the broader context of changing social, political and economic forces that affect the future viability of intangible cultural heritage at the local level” (Denes 2013, 8). As Denes observes, supporting sustainable futures for musical and other cultural traditions is not a matter of resisting or rejecting change, but rather about developing appropriate approaches and strategies that align with inevitably evershifting contemporary realities. For smot, considerable recent socioeconomic and cultural changes in Cambodia pose ongoing challenges. Yet the significant effort of young practitioners like SreyNy in exploring contemporary avenues for learning, performing, and disseminating this tradition is one factor that surely augurs well for its future. Acknowledgements My thanks to SreyNy and the other smot artists who spoke with me (and sang for me!) during my fieldwork in Cambodia; to Chap Vithur and Sopheak Sun for interpreting assistance; and to Yon Sokhorn, Frances Rudgard, and the team at Cambodian Living Arts for administrative support. This chapter is based on fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2015, financially supported by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and an Endeavour Australia Research Fellowship of the Australian Government. Endnotes 1

In Cambodia, ‘master’ is typically reserved for those artists who learnt their skills before the Khmer Rouge era. 2 All interviewees were given the option of using a pseudonym or their real name; Sreyny asked that I use her real given name. 3 All dollar figures through SreyNy’s interview are in USD, one of two currencies used in Cambodia (the other being Cambodian riel). 4 ‘Smot’ can be a verb as well as a noun. 5 Roughly USD2,500. 6 Exceptions arguably exist. One promising student under Keot Ran’s tuition is her teenaged grandson, who also learns as part of the school-based classes SreyNy mentions in her interview – though whether this constitutes a master-apprentice relationship in its time-honoured sense is moot.

References Bader, Rolf. n.d. “Buddhism, Animism, and Entertainment in Cambodian Melismatic Chanting smot: History and Tonal System.” Accessed February 18, 2016. http://systmuwi.de/muwi_research_Comparative_Musicology_Cambodia.html

CLA (Cambodian Living Arts). 2013. Website. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://www.cambodianlivingarts.org CLA. 2014a. “Moments in the Buddha’s Life: Cambodian Dharma Songs Performed by Prum Ut.” [Booklet and CD]. Phnom Penh: Cambodian Living Arts. CLA. 2014b. “Our First Teachers: Dharma Songs About Filial Debts.” [Booklet and CD]. Phnom Penh: Cambodian Living Arts. CLA. 2014c. “Training and Employment Needs Assessment on Cambodian Performing Arts Sector.” Phnom Penh: Cambodian Living Arts. CLA. 2015. “Smot: Enchanting Sound.” [Film, 23 minutes]. Accessed 22 February 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHombqHxFhc CIA. 2015. “World Factbook: Cambodia.” Accessed February 18, 2016. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cb.html Denes, Alexandra. 2013. Introduction to Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific: Proceedings from the ICH and Museums Field School Alumni Seminar 2012, edited by Alexandra Denes and Peter Davis, 7-12. Bangkok: Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. Grant, Catherine. 2014a. “Perspectives of Culture-bearers on the Vitality, Viability and Value of Traditional Khmer Music Genres in Contemporary Cambodia.” Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15(1):2646. doi: 10.1080/14442213.2013.866685. Grant, Catherine. 2014b. Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance Can Help. New York: Oxford University Press. Grant, Catherine. 2015. “Learning and Teaching Traditional Music in Cambodia: Challenges and Incentives.” International Journal of Music Education. [Online First], 1-12. doi: 10.1177/0255761415619394 Grant, Catherine. In press. “Socioeconomic Concerns of Young Musicians of Traditional Genres in Cambodia: Implications for Music Sustainability”. Ethnomusicology Forum. Accepted for publication 1 July, 2016. James, Kyle. 2014. “Keeping an Endangered Buddhist Art Form Alive.” Deutsche Welle, 4 June. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://www.dw.com/en/keeping-an-endangered-buddhist-art-form-alive/a17644920 Jinja. 2009. “Smot Music in Long Beach.” Webbed Feet, Web Log, 18 April. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://jinja.apsara.org/2009/04/im-with-the-band-smot-music-in-long-beach/ Keo Narom. 2005. Cambodian Music. Phnom Penh: Reyum. Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. 2014. “National Cultural Policy.” [English version.] Phnom Penh: Royal Government of Cambodia. Neang Kavich. 2011. Smot. [Documentary film]. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://cambodia.engad.org/?p=39 Prim Phloeun. 2011, 16 February. “Transformation of a Nation Through the Arts”. TEDxPhnomPenh. Accessed February 18, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENs_W9Pne50&feature=player_embedded Sam, Sam-Ang. 2007. “Transmission of Khmer Traditional Performing Arts: Its Genuineness, Challenge, and Impact on Society.” In Authenticity and Cultural Identity: Senri Ethnological Reports 65, edited by Y. Terada, 123-136. Sam, Sam-Ang, Panya Roongruang and Nguyễn Phong T. 1998. “The Khmer People.” In Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Vol. 4: Southeast Asia, edited by Terry Miller. Accessed February 18, 2016. Alexander Street database. Schippers, Huib and Catherine Grant. In press, 2016. Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2013. “About Cambodia.” Accessed 26 September, 2015. http://www.kh.undp.org/content/cambodia/en/home/countryinfo/

UNESCO. 2003. “Convention for the Urgent Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Accessed 23 February, 2016. http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/convention Walker, Trent. 2011. “Stirring and Stilling: A Liturgy of Cambodian Dharma Songs” [website]. Accessed February 18, 2016. http://stirringandstilling.org/about.html Walker, Trent. 2012. “How Sophea Lost her Sight”. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 23:522-529. doi: 10.1080/10402659.2011.625862 World Bank. 2015. “Cambodia.” Washington, DC: World Bank. Accessed 26 September, 2015. http://data.worldbank.org/country/cambodia