The road back to performance: Promise and precarity of tourism development for the lives of Siem Reap dancers

Abstract

Visitors at an evening event in Cambodia’s Angkor National Park gasp as red light reveals dancers framed by the windows of an ancient temple. Apsaras come to life, hyperextended fingers moving through a sequence of offering. While they embody celestial beings of the past for cultural tourism productions, these Siem Reap performers are in a position of precarity in Cambodia where tourism development plans simultaneously create performance opportunities and relocate the homes of artists living in the Angkor Protected Zones. The COVID pandemic left the province economically adrift. To bring hope back, massive development projects were completed that project to serve up to 18 million visitors (up from 6 million pre-Pandemic). These are just the beginnings of the Siem Reap Tourism Development Master Plan 2021–2035 which aims to increase the quality of tourism through a stronger infrastructure, new tourism products including performance activities, and a focus on sustainability. While the return of tourism and the re-emergence of touristic performance productions is a sign of hope for Siem Reap’s dancers, the focus of sustainability has been a source of precarity, particularly for those living in the Angkor National Park area where thousands of residents have been “voluntarily relocated.” This article uses poetry and prose to examine the relationships that tourism performers have with the land and with development in Siem Reap amidst the glimmers of tourism resurgence post-pandemic bringing attention to the tensions between a global interest in sustainability and the impacts of tourism development policies on locals.