Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT)

April 18, 2024

7:00 - 8:00 pm | Laurie Theater in Spingold Theater Building

Prumsodun Ok, Khmer classical dance choreographer, dancer, educator and scholar and LGBTQ+ rights activist and founder and artistic director of Cambodia’s first and only all-male gay classical dance company, performed his most recent work, A Deepest Blue, accompanied by four musicians from Japan. A Deepest Blue explores humanity's multifaceted relationship with water, focusing on origin stories from both Cambodia and Japan.

April 2, 2024

7:00 pm | Senior Studios, Epstein Building

Anida Yoeu Ali, multi-disciplinary artist and immigration rights activist performed Palimpsest for Generation 1.5, in which her body is transformed into a palimpsest where histories are inscribed, layering one moment over another. Text pulled from her family’s memories and histories related to Cambodia are inscribed in ink onto her back. As a result of the act, ink and water drip onto her back and stain the dress. When the gestures end and the body leaves the installation, detached roots, a disembodied dress, and faint traces of a performed history remain. The work examines the cultural and emotional resonance of place and memory in relationship to personal histories of violence.

March 20, 2024

2:30 - 3:50 pm | Zinner Forum, the Heller School

Dr. Alexander Hinton, Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University shared insights from decades of research about the Cambodian and other genocides. He will situate his talk in relationship to both his current research on far-right extremism as discussed in his book It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide (NYC 2021), and issues in perpetrator research – including writing about perpetrators and the impact of confronting inhumanities on the researcher – that he discussed in his co-authored book (with Tony Robben), Perpetrators: Examining Humanity’s Dark Side (Stanford 2023).

October 29, 2023

The event offered a unique look at one of the most consequential human rights violations in history.  A special combination of an academic perspective and journalistic storytelling, this event explored the history of and ongoing debates about the Armenian genocide of 1915.

October 1, 2023

On Sunday, Oct. 1, "The Clear Blue Skies," a play based on messages sent by Ukrainian youth to their acting teacher in the days and weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, told the story of how these young people experienced the chaos and catastrophe of those early days of the war.