There is no other word than inspirational to introduce today's guest: Prumsodun Ok (he/him), an artist, dancer, writer and founder of Cambodia's first gay dance company "Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA". In the studio, he teaches classical Khmer dance and focuses on re-telling ancient Cambodian tales with a contemporary spirit incorporating queer expression.

In our conversation, Prum talks about his identity as growing up gay and Asian-American in the USA and then migrating to Cambodia to build a new life through dancing and rediscovering his ancestrial roots. Prum goes in detail into the description of a few Cambodian tales and how they can be reinterpretated via the lens of queerness while still remaining a part of Cambodian culture and heritage.

This is the very last episode of this Season 4: (South) East Asia Edition. We hope you enjoyed this season and all the background information on the countries we visited and people/communities we met along the way. It certainly has been a journey and we feel so grateful and fortunate to have had the opportunity of learning from our guests and sharing their voices with the wider podcast community.

If you want to learn more about the Classical Khmer Dance and how Prum is "queering" this art form, check this blogpost on our website

This podcast is partially funded by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Phnom Penh, Cambodia & Heinrich Böll Stiftung New Delhi, India in collaboration with SafeSpaceBTB

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feel free to reach out if you have any feedback, questions, suggestions for future topics/guests via Instagram or e-mail: belissima@riseup.net

I am your host Béla Belissima, non-binary soul from Berlin on the journey to dismantle our cis-heteronormative world and look beyond all binaries. Re-writing our narratives and telling our own stories. Thanks for being here