The long history of court dance in Cambodia can be traced back to before the establishment of Angkor Wat. In the 9th ~/Kloc-0th/4th century, during the Angkor Dynasty, Khmer culture reached its peak, and a large number of dancers and musicians were imprisoned in palaces and temples. Music and dance are important parts of religious ceremonies held in royal temples and temples in various counties. Dancers are regarded as goddesses on the earth and enjoy a prominent position. At that time, the prosperity of dance art was not only recorded in ancient books such as stone tablets, but also in the world-famous Angkor Wat in the Palace, and there were more than 1700 relief statues of the beautiful dance goddess Apsara. Although Apsara originated from Indian mythology, Apsara's figure, dancing, appearance and costume in the cave are different from the image of the Indian goddess, which has distinct Khmer national characteristics, providing sufficient basis and rich imagination for the creation of Cambodian classical court dances in later generations. The famous classical dance "Fairy in a Hundred Flowers Garden" shows the scene of Apsara taking fairies to pick flowers in the garden with its vivid and beautiful dance and gorgeous decoration. In addition, there are 760-meter-long large-scale reliefs, showing the Ramayana and Mahabharata of Angkor Wat, as well as the dance shapes of many other figures and anthropomorphic monkeys. After the fall of Angkor, Cambodia once surrendered to Siam. During this period, due to the decline of the court, on the one hand, court dance spread to the people, and in the process of combining with folk art, it added the breath of life and lively artistic conception. On the other hand, it was preserved by the Siamese court. /kloc-In the middle of the 9th century, King Anton of Cambodia revived the endangered court dance and reformed it. In the original sacred and dignified style, the rigid scroll was eliminated, highlighting the flexible and delicate characteristics, which made Cambodia's classical court dance develop again.
The accompaniment instruments of Cambodia's classical court dance are mainly bronze gongs, xylophones and silver bells, supplemented by strings and five-tone reeds. The main repertoire of Gongting Dance comes from the story of Indian epic Ramayana and the legend of Buddha Sakyamuni's early life. There are also ancient myths and legends and religious ceremonies. For example, when the forest in the stadium, the devil's palace, the legends of Fisshalan, ingrid and Bora Thornton, the battle between black and white monkeys, etc.
The court dance in Cambodia has the skills of king, prince, princess, fairy, devil and monkey, and uses a set of sign language to express different meanings such as crying, laughing, love, bowing down, fighting and seduction. After long-term standardized training, actors are required to be flexible and flexible in arms and fingers, exquisite and rich in body movements, rigorous in dance procedures, strong in sculpture, dignified in expression, elegant in dance, quiet in movement, endless in manners, and show the implicit beauty of the East.