It is a vision of astonishing beauty. Graceful women in glittering costumes form a legato flow of anatomy-defying curves and angles. Tied to royalty and central to religious rituals, Cambodia’s traditional dance has become an emblem of the country’s patrimony. It links modern Cambodians to the ancient Angkor Empire, whose sandstone temples are festooned with bas-relief dancers. 

Cambodia’s royal dance has long captured the Western imagination, but until recently there was little opportunity to research it. Before 1941, dancers were in the king’s sequestered harem. Western studies of the dance were based on very few viewings or on second-string companies that played for tourists. Paul Cravath’s 1985 doctoral dissertation, Earth in Flower—-only now belatedly published —blew the field open.