I love the work that Roundangle does. Their multi-sensory adventures are challenging and fun. This one was at the Melbourne museum, and made for the under-five crowd. So i invited Isabella and Lynne to join me and we had a lovely day.

At the beginning of the show, we were invited to crawl past the cardboard city, through the plastic-filled tent into the forest of the senses. Most adults thought this was a children-only affair, but Ilan and i agreed that we were definitely going to join in this adventure.

Plus the stage manager insisted that i “Crawl Through the Tent Michael!!”

(i paid my $2 and i’m not missing a single moment!)

They taught us the Indigenous phrase for ‘welcome to country’ – WoMinJaika – and as each group called out their part of the word, we were called to our part of the journey.

A forest fairy made us all into seeds, growing us with sun and water and love, sharing the treasures of native Quandong and Lemon Myrtle. An old woman of the mountains showed us how to make soup with Mountain pepper leaves and Old Man’s Weed.

A delightful honey bee took us into the flower forest and showed us how to sprinkle our pollen on the flowers. This was really fun.. huge flowers that opened up and produced fruit as we showered our pollen.

And then the spirit of the rocks, who brought his very small puppet mate along to share wattle seeds. (Really yum seeds and great puppet work!)

Afterwards Lynne said one thing she liked was that they weren’t doing that hyper-energetic, super-lively “children’s theatre” thing, but rather playing to a crowd of all ages, and telling warm engaging stories with a sense of kindness and humour. i think by the end of it, most of the adults had learned to join in as well.

i wish it was on again soon: i’d tell you to go and see it. Especially if you can take children along with you. Great work Roundangle people!

Bunjilaka: WhatsOn Display Page.

i postponed the visit to Tuol Sleng as long as i could. Didn’t want to face reality and find out what happened. Strangely i felt conscious of the whole genocide thing as soon as we landed in Phnom Penh .. as though the soul of this country was still deeply wounded and grieving.

At the museum, i ended up stumbling on a small room, filled with dust and storage. i don’t think this room was meant to be open. There was a big box of skulls and bones, not organised for display, just sitting; this was more disturbing than viewing the skulls on proper display.

Many skulls in another room had been given proper display cabinets, with airholes so that the victim’s souls could enter and connect. This was a compromise between giving them proper burial, and allowing the world to see the evidence of what happened.

i took some photos in the not-display room, but felt like i shouldn’t .. so perhaps i won’t publish them here. i’ll put other people’s photos instead.

So the genocide researchers have found 389 burial sites .. most with 500-1500 people. There was one site with 150,000 people and the biggest site had 510,000 dead bodies. Tim and i tried to work out how big that would be.

Really Big.

At the start of the revolution, people were marched out of the cities into the country to become honourable peasants. If the inner bourgeoisie couldn’t be marched out of them, they were killed. Doctors, teachers .. anyone educated was killed.

Ironic, because Pot and some of his henchmen were teachers who’d had a very elitist education in Paris.

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These days in Cambodge, they don’t kill people so much, just sell off land to developers and march the peasants off to another part of the city, possibly with a skerrick of compensation. This article at the bbc gives detail, via Kylie in Phnom Penh.

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photo credit: blake_lennon

photo credit: tkelly7029

Plus:

• The survivor of Tuol Sleng, work of artist Vann Nath.
• Official photo collection .. many of the people who died.