There are twelve kids onstage, three quartets, most of them in middle school or high school. Each quartet consists of two dancers and two percussionists who are on their knees, rhythmically banging lengths of bamboo together. The dancers jump between the bamboo sticks, then out before their ankles get smacked. "These kids are amazing. And this dance is great," smiles director Todd Jefferson Moore. "This is the foot amputation dance."
The play is Angkor/America, a piece of "documentary theater" Moore wrote about Cambodian immigrants in Seattle. The kids are from the Rainier Valley Youth Theater. Some are Cambodian, some are Latino, some are black, some are white. A few are trained classical Cambodian dancers, young girls who have studied with a local woman who was one of Prince Sihanouk's royal court dancers. "There are so many stories, just in Seattle," Moore says. "Cambodian, Laotian—some of these guys' parents fought for the CIA and they love this country, but they also ask: 'I'm working three jobs, hardly have any money, hardly have time to breathe—is this really freedom?'"
Nearby, a girl is tattling to one of the assistant directors that a boy (Miles) called her a ho. "It's in my lines. I was just saying them and she was there," he protests. "He said 'ho'!" she insists. The assistant director nods indulgently. A little boy, missing his two front teeth, rolls his eyes playfully. The tattler turns to discussing martial arts. "I'm one stripe away from being a black belt." Miles mutters retributively: "Yeah, well, I got a black belt. See? My belt is black..."
Minutes later, Miles is a Khmer revolutionary, declaiming to his fellow villagers: "This is Year Zero in Cambodia, with rifles in one hand and hoes in the other!" He giggles. So does the almost black belt. "Start again," the assistant director says. "Say it like you really believe it." Miles substitutes volume for conviction: "This! Is Year! Zero! In Cambodia! With rifles! In one hand! And hoes"—he almost cracks, but doesn't—"in the other! Long live democratic Kampuchea! Long live the Khmer Rouge!"
"Good," the director says as Miles takes out his Afro pick. "Why is this Year Zero? Why are you so excited about that?"
"'Cause I'm gonna kill everyone. And take away all the art."
"But you didn't start out to kill people. That's what the tragedy was. They wanted to go back to a more innocent time..." The assistant director continues for several minutes, with an overview of the Khmer Rouge, the dangers of ideology, the Vietnam War, corruption, human nature, power. "... and as the people walked down the highway, they wouldn't even let them off the road, like it says in your speech," she gestures to one of the girls, "to defecate. Isn't that gross? Wouldn't even let them off the road to defecate."
"Why do we have to use that word?" Miles asks. "Def-, def-"
"Defecate."
"Yeah. Will people even know what that means?"
"Yeah. I think so."
