Biography
Phuon started dancing at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and graduated from Conservatoire National de Danse in Avignon (France) in 1985. Subsequently, she was offered a full scholarship at Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal before moving to New York in 1987 to enroll in the certificate program of the Alvin Ailey American Dance School.
Ms. Phuon has performed internationally with Elisa Monte Dance Company (1989 -1995), Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project (1995-2002), Martha Clarke (1997-1999), Joachim Schloemer (2002-2003), and Yvonne Rainer (2010 to present). During her tenure with White Oak Dance Project, she has worked with an array of choreographers including Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Deborah Hay, Mark Morris, John Jasperse, Tere O’Connor, Neil Greenberg and Meg Stuart among others.
Ms Phuon’s choreographic work has been commissioned and presented at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre, New Haven’s Festival of Arts and Ideas, Spoleto Dance Festival in Charleston, Guggenheim Works and Process, Singapore Da:ns festival, Danspace Project in New York, The Hopkins Center for the Arts, Kaatsbaan Cultural Center… Among them, Khmeropedies III / Source: Primate earned the support and endorsement of His Majesty King Sihamoni. She is the recipient of grants from Fondation de France, Un Monde par Tous, Asian Cultural Council. Awards and fellowships include a Richard Porter Leach fellowship, Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Martha Duffy Memorial Fellowship, and a 2019 Dance Research Fellowship, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. One of seven authorized transmitters of Yvonne Rainer’s work, she has taught workshops and set Rainer’s work in major exhibitions in France, Japan, China, and Sweden—most notably Yvonne Rainer’s Performative Exhibition at Shunju-za Theater (Kyoto) and Yvonne Rainer and Wen Hui: Dance Only Exists When It Is Performed at the Inside-Out Art Museum (Beijing).
Phuon has contributed a chapter, “Postmodern Dance: Laboratory of Rupture,” to Milestones in Dance in the USA (Routledge 2022) and has authored the 2022-2023 Winter issue of Dance Index. She is currently on faculty at Montclair State University and NYU Tisch Open-Arts/Collaborative Arts.