Arnfield's one-woman show

As well as the troupe of dancers and musicians from Cambodian Living Arts, who will be performing at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, there is a one-woman show that focuses on the Khmer Rouge legacy of Cambodia's recent history. It's called The Gymnast and opens today, until 23 August.

The Gymnast brings Cambodian torment to life - by Chris Collett (MetroLife)

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, took control of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. During the next four years, the regime reduced the country to a slave state and was responsible for the death of an estimated 1.7million people through executions, compulsory urban evacuation and forced labour. Watching news reports about Cambodian refugee camps at that time had a lasting effect on Jane Arnfield, whose new one-woman show, The Gymnast, directed by DV8 founder member Nigel Charnock and premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, is inspired by this dark episode in the country's history. 'When the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, I was nine,' says Newcastle-based theatre artist Arnfield. 'I remember the Blue Peter Appeal for the refugees, and I remember collecting bottle tops. I was shocked by what I saw and it obviously made a deep impression.'

Though childhood memories were the spark for the show, The Gymnast is the result of extensive research. In January, Arnfield spent a month at the Documentation Center Of Cambodia, an organisation dedicated to bringing the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice. While there, she was able to work closely with its Victims Of Torture project. 'They allowed me to accompany them on field trips and offered me the opportunity to interview people,' says Arnfield. 'I interviewed a man called Bou Meng, who is one of the six survivors of S-21, which was an infamous Khmer Rouge prison.' Although Arnfield learnt much about the atrocities that took place under the Khmer Rouge from first-hand testimonies, she stresses that the show is not a verbatim catalogue of pain and suffering. 'The last thing I want to do is just take people's stories and put them onstage,' she says. 'It is about culpability, responsibility and ultimately about loss - and how we deal with loss.'

An assemblage of spoken word, physical theatre, music, recorded voice and sound, the show juxtaposes her personal experiences of growing up in the late 1970s - the title refers to the gymnastic certificates Arnfield was working towards at school at the time - with the events taking place in Cambodia. 'The starting point for me was that while the West was disco dancing, this country was almost being taken back to medieval times,' she continues. 'I find the contrast fascinating.' Described by Arnfield as a 'multilayered experience', disco songs from the period are interwoven with material such as President Nixon ordering the obliteration of Cambodia. Some of the content is self-explanatory; other aspects are less directly relevant, but everything, including Neil Murray's wardrobe set design, is there for a reason. 'I read an extract that John Pilger had written when he first landed in Phnom Penh,' Arnfield explains. 'When he was walking down the road, he saw a wardrobe, and as he looked at it a child emerged from inside and ran off down the road. He had obviously been living in there. I thought that was a really powerful image.' Committed to investigating the legacy of the Khmer Rouge and other despotic regimes, Arnfield sees The Gymnast as the beginning of a larger project. 'It is the first of many planned pieces using Cambodia as a starting point,' she says. 'Over the next ten years I want to investigate what it is like to come from a traumatic situation.'

Note: Jane Arnfield is Artist in Residence at the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and recently completed her research for this piece in a one-month trip, which provided the opportunity to work closely with Sophearith Choung and the Victims of Torture Project as well as with Youk Chhang, Director of DC-Cam, artist and one of TIME magazine’s 100 Heroes and Pioneers.