Dance as Liberating and as Limiting, as Connecting, Creating and Crossing Boundaries: Interview with Prumsodun Ok

Authors

Abstract

In an interview with Prumdsodun Ok, an artist, teacher, writer, and speaker, we discuss how dance is both a liberating and transgressive form in his own practice and life. Prum, the founder of Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA (Cambodia’s first gay dance company) shares his thoughts about his artistic practice, what it helped him to find, and how it continues to redefine his own place in the world. Together, we reflect on themes of gender, transgression, belonging, and the roles that dance and the body play in a particular context like Cambodia. This interview is co-written and co-created between the authors and the dancer.

Author Biographies

Katarzyna (Kasia) Grabska, Peace Research Institute Oslo | Norway

Katarzyna Grabska is a feminist anthropologist and a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway. Her current research focuses on artistic practice in conflict and exile settings. She has also researched on issue of gender, youth, access to rights for refugees, and social transformations in the contexts of displacement, war and forced migration. Kasia works with visual media, feminist methodologies, collaborative and transformative methodologies. In her commitment to engaged and co-creative knowledge production and sharing, she often collaborates with artists and engages with art-based research to understand issues of civic engagement, social justice, belonging, displacement, mobilities and identities. She is also a film-maker.

Roy Huijsmans, International Institute of Social Studies Erasmus University

 Roy Huijsmans is an associate professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, The Netherlands. His research focuses on young people and social change based on field research in mainland Southeast Asia and the Netherlands. Recent publications include work on young people in migration, the platform economy, mobile technologies, and aspirations. 

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Published

2022-11-07 — Updated on 2022-12-07

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2022): Special Issue: Transgressing and Reworking Social Boundaries Through Dance and Music

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2022 Katarzyna Grabska and Roy Huijsmans

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