WHITE GOLD

About the show

AUSTRALIAN EXCLUSIVE Feed your soul and savour Cambodia’s heritage with a spectacular circus celebrating healing, joy… and rice. Be astonished by hypnotic dance, mesmerising music, live painting and circus arts (juggling, tumbling and teeterboard!) dating back 1,200 years. In the Khmer language, “nourishment” cannot be expressed without the word “rice”. Rice is eaten morning, noon and night. Rice is white gold. From Phare, Cambodia’s remarkable “circus with a purpose”, comes the story of a youngster banished from his village into a world where rice means hard labour. As values and Buddhist teaching come under threat from the desire for profit, our hero is plunged into competition, jealousy and greed. Founded by refugees and based in Battambang, Phare is a unique contemporary circus sprung from a non-profit NGO. It provides free education and training in circus arts, theatre, music, dance and design to more than 1,200 students, and in turn, infuses Phare’s work with the reality of their own life experiences.