browse tags
Authors

Lucie Labbé

Portrait of Lucie   Labbé

Lucie Labbé (b. 1986, Brittany, France) is a cultural anthropologist affiliated to the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE, a joint research center by CNRS, EHESS and INALCO) in Paris and specializing in the history and sociology of Cambodian royal (classical) dance. 

After witnessing a performance of the dance in 2000, at age 14, she developed such a strong interest in the art form that she enrolled in a local Khmer dance course and resolved to study anthropology. As she confided to interviewer Tola Say later (Khmer Times, 23 Feb. 2018), ​“I used to be really shy but my passion was so strong I went to Cambodia in 2006 — my very first travel outside Europe -, living with a host family, experiencing the Cambodian lifestyle” and starting to learn the language. At her The following visit in 2008, she met with Prince Sisowath Tesso who arranged for her to attend Prince Norodom Buppha Devi’s teaching sessions.

In 2016, Lucie Labbé obtained her PhD in ethnology and social anthropology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] with her thesis entitled Danseuses et divinités: Modalités et enjeux de l’apprentissage de la danse de cour cambodgienne [Dancers and Deities: Methods and Challenges in Cambodian Court Dance Training]. Through further publications, and a post-doctoral research program on colonial history and iconography of Royal Cambodian dancers funded by the Center of Khmer Studies (CKS) and EFEO (École Française d’Extrême-Orient), she kept exploring the technics and rituals of this time-honored art form, as well as the relations between aesthetics and authority. 

In addition to noted publications on George Groslier​’s contribution to the history of Cambodian dance and Saramani (the dancer and the eponymous 1919 novel), Lucie Labbé curated the exhibition ​“Danse royale du Cambodge” [Royal Dance of Cambodia] at Maison des cultures du monde in Vitré, France (Feb — Sept 2023). 

Works

  • [unpublished] Danseuses et divinités. Modalités et enjeux de l’apprentissage de la danse de cour cambodgienne, Thèse de doctorat en ethnologie – anthropologie sociale, Paris, EHESS, April 2016, 651 p. + 1 DVD.
  • “Apsaras de pierre, apsaras de chair. Occurrences et réappropriation du passé dans la danse classique khmère”, Péninsule 73, 2016, pp. 53 – 79.
  • [with Bertrand Porte] ​“Avec les danseuses royales du Cambodge: Photographier les postures de la danse”, Arts Asiatiques 73, 2018: 155 – 170.
  • របាំបុរាណខ្មែរ [Khmer Classical Dance], Phnom Penh, Sipar Books (“I Want to Know” series), 2019 [ENG, FR & KH versions]. 
  • “Autour de Saramani. ​‘Nouvelles données sur Roland Meyer et son oeuvre”, Péninsule 81 – 2 , 2020: 117- 48.
  • “Saramani, danseuse exotique. Note sur Suzanne Meyer (1913−1942), fille de Roland Meyer et Saramani”, Péninsule 83, 2021: 171- 88.