Twenty years after he emerged from forced labour as an anonymous slave of the paddy fields, he once again teaches traditional `Apsara' dance as the doyen of Cambodia's University of Fine Arts.

``When the Khmer Rouge came on April 17, 1975, we were all evacuated from Phnom Penh just like everybody else,'' recounts Chhieng, who was 25 at the time and a royal palace dancer from the age of eight.

``But the villagers told us not to reveal our profession -- otherwise we would have been killed. Just like the artists and intellectuals, we were considered part of the oppressive feudal class.''

Eight out of ten dancers perished in Pol Pot's killing fields, betrayed by elegant posture or manicured hands, or their backs broken by the forced labour. Most of the manuscripts detailing the art of Khmer dance were also destroyed.

In 1979, together with ahandful of survivors, orphans and just memories, Chhieng started from scratch to reconstruct dance from the ashes of a devastated country.

The rebirth of dance also took place in the hundreds of refugee camps that sprang up along the Thai-Cambodian border, and in the diaspora of exiles in the United States and France.

``In each camp, the children had dance teachers,'' explains Princess Norodom Bophadevi, a daughter of King Norodom Sihanouk active in bringing dance back to the refugees.

``The Cambodians have been born with culture, and we understand its importance despite our poverty. We can be destitute, displaced far from our country, but our children still learn dance and music.''

``In China, in Vietnam, in Laos, the culture was not lost, but in Cambodia we survived a madness above what anyone could believe possible.''

Dancers are considered the messengers of the gods. Inspired by Hindu culture, the intricate Khmer dance has played a central role in the royal court since the Angkor `god-kings'from the 9th to 14th centuries.

Deposed by invaders in 1432, the last Angkorian king took with him a dance troupe and resolved never to leave the grounds of the royal palace. In 1965 King Sihanouk founded the University of Fine Arts, which secured the tradition for the next 10 years before the Khmer Rouge arrived.

With his daughter Princess Bophadevi as minister of culture, the tradition is once again in safe hands. Every morning she closely supervises the royal ballet classes and the `Pin Peat' traditional Khmer musicians.

The ballet troupe has grown to 300 students and some 50 teachers, dedicated to putting aspiring dancers through 12 years of study. Public performances are rare and means limited: a professional dancer earns just 20 dollars per month.

``The dancers and musicians work with nothing and demand nothing, yet give their time, courage and a thirst to learn,'' asserts Princess Bophadevi.

According to Proeung Chhieng, the threat to Cambodia's most precious heritage is not a lack ofresources but now cultural globalisation and commercial temptations.

``It is not a question of a narrow nationalism, but to know who we are and where we are going.''