The dance is built from an extraordinary range of precise hand gestures, each of which has a specific meaning. A slightly bent wrist, curved fingers, a turn of the head — each position tells part of a story. Training to become a classical apsara dancer takes many years of practice, often beginning when a dancer is around seven years old.
The costume alone takes hours to prepare. The main garment is made of silk in gold, green and red. The tall crown is decorated with flowers and gold spires. Artificial golden fingertip extensions are fitted over the dancer's real nails to exaggerate the curve of the hand gestures.
UNESCO added Cambodian classical dance to its list of important intangible cultural heritage in 2008. 'Intangible' means something you cannot hold in your hands — a skill, a tradition, a performance. The dance is passed from teacher to student, generation to generation.
The apsara dancers carved in stone at Angkor Wat are shown in the same positions still used by dancers today. That continuity — the same graceful hand and the same curved finger repeated across a thousand years — is considered one of the most remarkable things about the tradition.