Charya Burt


Charya Cheam Burt is a Cambodia-born American dancer, choreographer, vocalist, and teacher of Khmer classical dance. She is founder of Charya Burt Cambodian Dance company based in North San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States.

Life and career

Charya Cheam Burt was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to Bee Cheam and Sameth Chheng. Following the Khmer Rouge genocide, Burt was inspired to dance by her uncle Chheng Phon, training with Cambodia's surviving dance masters including Soth Sam On and toured internationally as a member of Royal Dance Troupe of Cambodia. In 1990, she became a dance faculty member at Cambodia's Royal University of Fine Arts.
In 1993, Burt emigrated to the United States. Since then, she has been performing classical and original dances, creating and choreographing new dance works rooted in tradition, and training students throughout California, including multiple stints as artist-in-residence at Cambodian cultural centers in Stockton, San Jose, and Khmer Arts Academy in Long Beach.
An inaugural Dance/USA and 2022 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellow and Isadora Duncan Award recipient for Individual Performance, Burt has received multiple grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation, Creative Work Fund, and Alliance for California Traditional Arts including their Living Cultures Grant to create the Charya Burt Cambodian Dance Digital Library. A Hewlett 50 Commission was awarded her in 2021 to create The Rebirth of Apsara: Artistic Lineage, Cultural Resilience and the Resurrection of Cambodian Arts from the Ashes of Genocide that premiered at Sonoma State University's Green Music Center in 2024.
Burt has performed her original works throughout the United States at venues including Jacob's Pillow, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Themes of her works include preservation and renewal of the Cambodian dance art-form, elevating of community dance groups, histories of Khmer Rouge and South East Asia, and colorism across contemporary cultures.

Major choreographic works

Major awards and honors