23 February 2008 The opening ceremony for the Spotlight Festival was held at the Chatamouk Theatre, Cambodia's premier venue for cultural events. Unfortunately it is quite inaccessible for people with mobility disabilities. Extra chairs were added to the auditorium to accommodate the demand and still there were people standing in the rear and sitting in the aisles. |
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Mr. Kong Nay is known as the "Ray Charles of Cambodia." With his trademark black glasses, he is well known throughout the country for chapei, a traditional form of improvised song-making that is sometimes compared to rap music. He appeared frequently throughout the evening with a broad array of songs that often had the audience chuckling. | |
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Kim Sathia was a leading dancer of her time but her career seemed to have come to an end when a car accident left her unable to walk. But after meeting Katie Mac Cabe, the local founder of Epic Arts, she re-entered the world of dance with both colleagues with disabilities and those without. | |
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Ramesh Meyyappan from Singapore studied performing arts in Liverpool and now tours internationally as a deaf mime. Here he presents a skit known as "The Postman." | |
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Aki Kawashita is a performer with a disability from Japan. Together with Nobuyuki Sasaki, he performed a style of dance interpreting "the feeling of living together in the world of today." | |
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A rousing finale of taiko drumming was provied by Koshu Roa Taiko from Japan. Eight drummers with varying degrees of hearing loss performed a sight and sound spectacle that delighted all the various groups in the audience, children and adults alike. | |
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At the end of the opening ceremony, the students from the Dong Nai School in Ho Chi Minh City gathered for a group photograph. They will be performing throughout the week with their traditional classic and modern hip-hip dances. |
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