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2016 Cambodian New Year: Traditional Dances & Costumes | Oakland

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Saturday, April 2, 2016 - 10:00 am to 5:00 pm | Cost: FREE*
*Free, but donations are accepted.

Peralta Hacienda Historical Park | 2465 34th Ave., Oakland, CA

Event Details

The Cambodian New Year festival is multicultural with Cambodian dance groups from all over Northern California performing dances from palace and court and from village in dazzlingly costumes, as well as Burmese, Thai and Nepali dancers.

Restaurants including the legendary Battambang will sell delicious Cambodian food throughout the event.

For the past five years, members of the Cambodian community have partnered with Peralta Hacienda to bring music and dance, food and festivities, celebration and fun to the local community and the wider Bay Area public.

The Cambodian community wants the public to appreciate their rich arts and culture, as well as to acknowledge the war and genocide that all but destroyed Cambodia in the 1970s.

They invite all music and food lovers to celebrate the resilience and beauty of Cambodian arts.

Background:

Festival-goers can also tour the exhibit Rhythm of the Refugee between performances. It tells stories both harrowing and heartening, and displays photographs, stories, and cultural objects from the Cambodian community.

For many Cambodians in diaspora, the trials mean facing a history almost too painful to recall. In interviews featured in Rhythm of the Refugees, Phannara Khun recalled atrocities committed against her family:

“In 1977, they killed my dad by cutting open his stomach. Two weeks later they beat my brother to death with a wooden club. In 1978, my sister and her husband were tortured until they died. Then they threw my one-year-old nephew into the air and shot him. I cried and cried and passed out. Because my mother cried, they executed her too. People in the village hid me and I survived.”

The exhibit however, is a chance not only to remember the Cambodian tragedies, but also celebrate Cambodian resilience.


Cost: FREE*
*Free, but donations are accepted.
Categories: *Top Pick*, Eating & Drinking, Fairs & Festivals, History, Live Music, Theater & Performance
Address: 2465 34th Ave., Oakland, CA