ResponsibleTourism

As a long time fan of Phare Ponleu Selpak non-profit school and their social business extension Phare Circus, please allow me to respond to PeterRS. Phare Ponleu Selpak is a local, grass-roots non-profit association founded by guys who were refugees during the Khmer Rouge. In the refugee camp, an art teacher from France used drawing as therapy. After the war, they opened the school together to use art therapy to heal the community. Art therapy is still at the core of the association, but it has grown to provide other arts related experiences, education and opportunities. The students come from unimaginably difficult social and economic backgrounds: abject poverty, subsistence farming, broken homes, etc in an impoverished country still recovering from near genocide. They discover and develop talent at the school, and some go on to careers at Phare Circus that didn't even exist in the country before. The world-class entertainment organizations you mention certainly set the global standard for circus arts, but the comparison with Phare is apples to Rolex. Chinese circuses are enormous productions with equally enormous budgets. Performers are recruited from all over the country. Cirque du Soleil is equally big-budget and recruits top circus performers from around the globe, including one from Phare who was in the production "Volta" before the pandemic closed them down. Phare performances are nothing like those you mention in terms of technical perfection and budget, but Phare performers bring something not seen anywhere else. They share their own life experiences in the performances. They create the stories themselves drawing from recent Cambodian history and modern Cambodian society. It's from their hearts because it's their life. The big top is intimate and the artists are within arms length. You make eye contact and see them sweat. They might even end up on your lap. It's an experience unlike any other. It's even more moving when you consider where they came from and what they have accomplished. Many had never left the rice field or their small village. They may have never had money to buy land or build a home. Now they shine on stage and earn a good living, literally transforming their lives. If you have 30 minutes to learn more, Al Jazeera did a documentary called "Cambodia: Circus of Hope". It's perhaps the best 30-minute sharing of the Phare story and it's impact on lives.