Poster image for DIGGING TO CAMBODIASari­ta So revis­its her Toi Whakaari solo show, turn­ing it onto a longer explo­ration of mak­ing mem­o­ry and his­to­ry telling. “Through words, move­ment and songs from Cam­bo­di­a’s 1960’s rock era — Dig­ging to Cam­bo­dia is a let­ter to her past, present and future self, it asks us all “What is worth remem­ber­ing?””

So wears a long red dress with embroi­dery across the bodice. She tells us about Cam­bo­di­an singers in the ear­ly 1970s who were com­bin­ing West­ern Rock with their own musi­cal tra­di­tions. Two pro­ject­ed back­up dancers join her as she sings one of these songs. She tells us of her dream to be an apsara dancer when she was younger while demon­strat­ing the del­i­cate hand posi­tions and float­ing move­ment of the form. She digs into the air while telling us that jour­nal­ists, activists and artists were among the mil­lions killed dur­ing the Khmer Rouge regime. So is an engag­ing per­former who keeps our atten­tion as she darts around the stage.

The show is struc­tured in lay­ers with rep­e­ti­tion of action. Each lay­er takes us deep­er into her inves­ti­ga­tion and clos­er to the heart of the sto­ry — her fam­i­ly. I like the way the 12 years between the first ver­sion and this ver­sion are acknowl­edged. She has had anoth­er 12 years to con­sid­er how her fam­i­ly has coped with death and rebirth and her think­ing has evolved in those years. 

At one point she says some­thing like ‘I’m always dig­ging — dig­ging for trea­sures, dig­ging for knowl­edge, dig­ging for truth — because I’m curi­ous.’ I’m glad she has shared her curios­i­ty with us. Won­der­ful.