Teacher to yourself

June 2019 was one of my most sad months, all three of my main teachers have had to leave Cambodia to visit family and friends in the UK and USA. After getting used to to dance nearly everyday with teachers in the studio and coming together to pray and fast, suddenly I was by myself. It was really hard.

In the first week, I didn't go to the ballet school at all. For me, the word " dance class" means a teacher teaches and corrects students and waiting for the teacher to tell me what to do. When I stepped into the studio after a week after they left, I felt scared, it was so strange being left behind. But now I realize that this is part of God's plan to let me trust him and see how he works.

You are the one who has to go forward. Someday you'll have to take an action.

It was hard for me at first because I didn't understand why it had to be this way.

When I look at this picture of a dog who had to guide himself, I felt more relieved. If a dog can do it then why can't I do it? Especially I don't have to walk trough it alone. There are always people around me and God, who never leaves me.

Lewis Grant Project

In 2018, I did a special project with my Cambodian friends from English Ballet Theatre Cambodia. Later my sister joined up to be the guitar player because we sang a song about walking in the light.

This project was funded by the Lewis Grant. We did this project with Melissa. Below she has helped me explain what the project was about.

The aim of the project was to utilize oral methods of transmission to share the gospel. Working in partnership with SIL and the One Story Project, the dancers learned the storying model and then participated in a bible storying group. After this they chose a subset of stories and then choreographed the stories that they then shared with children in the province. The choreography was such that there were elements that the children could learn so that they were not just observers but participants as well.

We learned that there are many way to share a story using props, words, songs, movements and sounds. One lady came and taught us about stories from the bible and how to share them with others. We took turns telling stories, it was really fun. We all chose our favourite stories and then picked one to work on together. We chose the birth of Jesus.

To finish the project we had to take this story, decide how to tell it to other people and go to Kampong Cham and tell it to 2 groups of Cambodian children. We decided to dance the story because we thought the children would like to see dance. The amazing part was, Christmas was coming, it was a perfect time to share the good news of salvation.

This is a short section of the story. I am dancing Mary my friend Neang is telling the story...

We worked by ourselves to choreograph the story. This was the first time for us to do something like this without our teachers. It was hard to find the movements for them to understand and we had to be creative in order to achieve it. There were lots of times we felt discouraged and wanted to give up, thinking that it would never happen. We prayed to God for wisdom, courage and strength.

God answered our prayer, the children enjoyed it. After we shared the story, we asked if they would like to learn some movements from the dance. We didn’t think they would enjoy it because they had never seen this kind of dance before. But they were happy and curious, they wanted to do more. This made us feel so glad and we felt God’s presence. The children were so sweet and fun to teach. They were trying to dance like us even though it was their first time. Because of their heart and passion for dance, it touched our hearts and made us feel that this was God’s plan. I was so happy to know that I can be a tool to bring people back to God, especially children.

Applying to Rambert and getting offered a place

After I quit high school, I have been in the dance studio nearly everyday, either training or assisting. Early this year, I began working on an audition video to apply to dance schools abroad. However, as the video came together and while my teachers and I were covering this process in prayer, we felt the Holly Spirit leading us to send my audition video to only one school, Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London.

Uploading and submitting my audition video and application.

The week before sending my application to Rambert was very hard for me. I had negative thoughts about myself.

"You are hopeless, you are nothing special, you are Cambodian so no one will notice you. None of your family, relatives and country give value to dance or give you any encouragement. Just stay where you are, don’t cross the border. No one in Cambodia has taken that path."

But even when I had those feelings about myself, whenever I went to ballet school to dance, I had to switch them off and pretend to be a happy beautiful dancer. I had a responsibility to be a model and show an example to the younger ones. But all of these worries and negative thoughts ran away the night I received an email from the school I applied to. This is what the email said:

Foundation Degree Ballet and Contemporary Dance (validated by University of Kent) Two year full-time course.

Thank you for submitting your digital audition for the above course at Rambert School, I am delighted to be able to formally offer you a place on the above course starting in September 2019.

It must have been a miracle. I don't usually check email at night but this time I felt like something was telling me to go to check it.

Since then I have started to look at dance in a different way. When I dance I have joy, peace and a feeling I never had before I received this email. It's not like I just now found joy or peace in dance - it's just that this time I feel more confident of where I’m going and what I’m doing.