page_title: Norodom Buppha Devi
section_title: Life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Norodom Buppha Devi / Life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Montana Senator Mike Mansfield offers a bouquet of flowers to Princess Buppha Devi and Prince Sihamoni. The senator and his wife visited Cambodia in 1969.
context_page_description: Norodom Buppha Devi was a Cambodian princess, dancer, director of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, senator, and former Minister of Culture and Fine Arts. She was the daughter of Norodom Sihanouk and the late Neak Moneang Phat Kanhol, the elder sister of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and a half-sibling of the current King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihamoni. Her official title was Her Royal Highness Samdech Reach Botrei Preah Ream Norodom Buppha Devi.
context_section_description: Buppha Devi finished her high school education at Lycée Preah Norodom in Phnom Penh. As a young princess, her grandmother, Queen Sisowath Kossamak, chose her to become a dancer early in her life. At the age of 15, she became the premier dancer of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia. At the age of 18, she was granted the title of prima ballerina.
  She then toured the world as the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet with Queen Kossamak, performing in public. In the past the ballet had been performed only before royalty to commemorate their dynastic ancestors and to honour the gods. For her dancing ability, her father Norodom Sihanouk cast her in his first feature-length film Apsara in 1966.
  Buppha Devi served as Deputy Minister of Culture and Fine Arts from 1991–1993, she was advisor to the Royal Government in charge of Culture and Fine Arts from 1993–1998, she was Vice President of the Cambodian Red Cross from 1993–1997, she was President of the Cambodian-Chinese Association in the year 2000, and served in Prime Minister Hun Sen's cabinet as the Minister of Culture and Fine Arts from 1998–2004.
caption: Princess Buppha Devi and her half-brother Norodom Sihamoni receiving a bouquet of flowers from US Senator Mike Mansfield, 1969.
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