She Got in Trouble for a Sacred Dance

March 22, 2023

Good morning. 🌸 Today, Cambodian-American choreographer and educator Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro writes about her experience of being removed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for performing a prayer to allegedly looted antiquities from her homeland. In the piece, you'll also see a video of the sacred dance, which didn't seem to bother anyone but the museum's security.

Also today, the story of the artist who makes commemorative sculptures from the ashes of loved ones, a dispute over an ancient Nepali necklace at the Art Institute of Chicago, a review of a book written by a museum guard about how art helped him cope with grief, and much more.

— Hakim Bishara, Senior Editor

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MORE ON HYPERALLERGIC

Met Museum Kicked Me Out for Praying to My Ancestral Gods

My danced prayer to looted Cambodian antiquities was too much for the New York museum. | Sophiline Cheap-Shapiro

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In All the Beauty in the World, Patrick Bringley revisits the many ways that art meets life, and life art, and how death is often the bridge between them. | Bridget Quinn

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