“TROT DANCE (ROBAM TROT)”REPRESENTED IN PHNOM PENH CAPITAL CITY OF KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA 🐉🇰🇭
Trot Dance (Robam Trot) is a popular Khmer folk dance presently performed during the Khmer New Year. If the Chinese has Dragon Dance, Cambodian has Robam Trot to ward off ba luck from the previous year and celerate the coming of the New Year.
Trot Dance is a Khmer-Mon traditon practiced by the primitive Khmer such as the Samre, Suoy and Por, including the people of Cambodian origin who live in Siem Reap, Pursat, Battambang, Srisaket and Surin. During those ancient times, the dance is perfomred to protect the villagers from the bad luck that the wild animals are carrying with them when they go to the village.
The term Trot come from Sanskrit, which means "to end", as the case, ending the previous year. During the Angkor era, the people of Somrae, the descendents of the early settlers now living on the mountainous area of Kulean in Siem Reap, performs the dance for the King. It is a celebration of ending the year and bringing good luck and prosperity to the king for the new year. The dance also tell folktale of a hunter, who one day went to the forest to hunt but could not find animals in the forest.Thinking that the spirits in the forest is preventing him from hnuting the animals, he decided to do an offering. Sunddenly, a golden deer appears with golden furs and antlers made of previous stones. He shot the deer and upon retrieving, he saw how beautiful the deer was and thought of giving it to the king.The king was pleased by his guesture and he was granted a rank of head in his village. With this, the hunter created a dance as an offering to the forest spirits who brought him this fortune.
Dr. Michel Tranet's documents mentioned that the first symbol of Trot dancing is the presence of dancers holding cuvred sticks resembling a ploughshare with small bells or peacock's feathers tied at the end of the curved sticks used for the lyrics of the entire performance.The second symbol is a couple of dancers performing as wild oxen flirting with each other, wearing the horn of the wild oxen on their heads. Symbolically, both dancers represent to the oxen, chased by the hunter. The thrid one indicates the sacredness of this dancing, displaying a jungle man with a black face and the head covered by leaves and flowers, and acting as a dryad to preserve the hunters in the forest. It is a typical animistic celebration, based on the opposition between good and evil. Another sacred source is the belief in the ancestors' spirit, represented as a deer or a peacock, reflecting the religious solidarity of the Khmer people. Traditionally, the dance is performed to pray for the rain during drought. But, at present, it gives a festive mood during Khmer New Year and an offering for good luck and prosperous new year.
