Close to 700 artists from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were brought together at the Road No 9 Singing Festival which closed in the central province of Quang Tri on July 25. At the awarding ceremony, Vietnam National Opera and Ballet (VNOB) reached 11 difirent medals and prizes.
The performances featured the themes of revolutionary struggles and cause of national construction and defence as well as praised the patriotism and beauty of Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodian culture, land and people.
Nguyen Quang Vinh, acting Director of the Department of Performing Art under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said more than 100 musical performances were staged during the six-day event.
The festival created a professional creative art environment for artists nationwide to continue performing new songs about the aforesaid themes, he added.
The event was co-organised by the Department of Performing Art, Vietnam Musicians’ Association, Vietnam Dance Association, and Quang Tri provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
At the closing ceremony, the organising board presented gold medals to an art troupe from the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, the Vietnam Military Music, Song and Dance Theatre, and Vietnam National Music, Song and Dance Theatre.
The best opera award was presented to the Vietnam National Opera & Ballet while the silver medals went to art troupes from the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum and the host Quang Tri.
The most outstanding performances staged at the event were honoured with 15 gold and 19 silver medals.
The organising board also presented campaign medals to Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian art troupes.
National Road No 9 is a symbol of friendship between the three countries. Stretching along the Truong Son Mountain Range and the Ho Chi Minh trail, it was an important route for moving supplies, equipment and troops from the north to the south of Vietnam during the resistance war against the US.
Many battles took place in the area as the US wanted to destroy the road. The victory of the Road No 9 campaign significantly contributed to the southern liberation and unification of Vietnam.
Every three years, the Department of Performing Arts holds the festival to strengthen solidarity between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and pay tribute to fallen soldiers of the three countries.
Choreographer Vũ Ngọc Khải will present a new show entitled Đáy Giếng (Into The Well) on June 28 in Hà Nội. Khải currently works at the Konzert Theatre Bern, Switzerland. He graduated from the Việt Nam Dance Academy and attended a one-year course at the Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands. He is the art director and co-founder of the 1648km Art Performance & Community Organisation. Lê Hoa talks to Khải about his new show and career.
Can you tell us about your new work?
I choreographed Into The Well for the Hanoi Dance Fest 2019. The work is a journey of Vietnamese looking for their identity. In Vietnamese culture, the bamboo oars, communal house yards, water wells and mats are both propulsive forces and resistance for the individual human being. Striking through cultural challenges I wanted to reflect myself in correlation with nature. The journey is illustrated by the language of contemporary dance and traditional live music. I researched traditional festivals such as buffalo fighting and the Tây Sơn battle drum to incorporate into the dance. I was introduced to artists who I invited to join my project later. Traditional musicians Nguyễn Thành Nam and meritorious artist Nguyễn Ngọc Khánh will be playing for me. They were born into traditional music families.
How did you become a dancer?
I started dancing because my father made me to. At that time I was very active and like many other children I liked sports a lot. Honestly, when my father submitted the application for my entrance exam to dance school, I didn’t like it at all. But now I have to thank him because I’ve become a professional dancer and I love to dance.
Did you face many difficulties at the beginning?
I had a lot of injuries. When I was a child I often twisted my ankles. When I started learning ballet my legs were quite weak, so injuries were common if I fell in training. I’ve suffered the consequences of those injuries such as arthritis. The worst injury I’ve had was a herniated disc. I had to take a year off because of that.
You’ve had the chance to perform with foreign artists on international stages. What have been your most memorable experiences?
Foreign dancers have amazing creativities, and I’m happy to be involved in that environment. School dancers have the right to zone in to their own creativity. Good or bad is not important and no one has the right to judge. This is the key for creativity. The contemporary dance language is very wide and almost without limits. In school they learn many different techniques such as ballet, Cunningham, Limon, Flying Flow, Floorwork, Counter Technique and Release Technique. These techniques are all choreographed by teachers. Creative thinking helps to acquire these techniques. In contemporary dance ideas relate much to life, especially in the way you think about people. Modern life brings people to more complex thoughts and young people in particular want to express their emotions.
There are more young artists involved in contemporary dance. What do you want to say to them?
Actually, it is difficult to enjoy a dance performance. I think young dancers should set their goals from the beginning. They should know if they want to be ballet dancers, contemporary dancers or both because dance always takes time to practice. Depending on the form of dance they choose, their bodies will grow around them. A dancer has quite short time to perform so if they have a clear plan from the beginning they will get the results they desire. In addition, when they are dancers, they should learn the methods of teaching, choreography and staging. It will be good preparation for them when they can no longer dance. But the most important thing is they should try their best to dance while they can. The door will open more for them later.
Le Hoa (Vietnamnews)
Khai Ngoc Vu is currently a dancer/choreographer at Konzert Theatre Bern, Switzerland. He had the opportunity to both study and work in Vietnam and Europe. Before being a professional, he graduated from the Vietnam National Dance College in 2004 after 7 years of study. In 2006, he received a full scholarship for the Codarts/Rotterdam Dance Academy – Netherlands from the Consulate of Netherlands in Vietnam. Ever since, he has worked for a number of dance companies and theaters in Vietnam, Holland, Italia, Germany and Switzerland.
He started choreographing in 2009. Since 2018, he is the Artistic Director, co-founder 1648kilomet (Performing Arts and Community Activity Organization). He first started as a ballet dancer, then gradually changed to neo-classical dance, and now he has finally found himself embracing contemporary dance. He would love to share his experience to audience by teaching and choreographing. He wishes his work could touch the people in modern life.
In march 2018, one of his works ‘’Mushrooms Zone’’ won 1st prize International Ayang Young Choreographer Competition – South Korea.
“Around the world” is new season Concert belonging to the chain to celebrate 60 years’ foundation of Vietnam National Opera and Ballet – VNOB. It is spiritual present of traveling in the spring under the leader of Emeritus Artist Tran Ly Ly – Director of Vietnam Opera and Ballet Theater – VNOB and all artists to audiences in general and Hanoians in particular. After accepting to conduct the concert, Mr. Martín García León agreed to make an interview:
Why did you accept the invitation to conduct Around the World?
I accepted this wonderful offer for Around the Worldbecause I think the performance will show people in Hà Nội how the music can be so wonderful, so emotive, energetic and enjoyable no matter what part of the world one is in. We can show a little bit of very different cultures and I think that is magical. That’s why the project come to my attention. I always wanted to conduct on the Asian continent to learn more about your culture, to try to learn about your language and to communicate with each other through the music. I think the way to make music more exciting in Vietnam and in Argentina is very different. We both can learn from each other new ways to make this special art.
Have you ever attended any programme like this in Vietnam?
No, I have not had the pleasure before, but I cannot express my happiness at being in Vietnam for the first time and having the honour to conduct VNOB at the Hanoi Opera House.
What do you think of the show you will perform with VNOB?
I think Around the Worldis an excellent idea for opening the season of a theatre. We can show a mix of different pieces of different cultures and all have a great time – the audience of Hanoi, the VNOB musicians and me. It’s going to be a beautiful night full of happiness and fireworks. I like the programme very much.
Which part of Around the Worldis most impressive?
I think the most impressive piece in Around the Worldis the overture of Ruslan and Ludmilaof Glinka. It has so much energy that it made me jump on the podium as much as Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No 8. They have so much energy that it is impossible to me not is moved by these works.
As young conductor, what do you think about the symphonic music scene? Are there any obstacles to its development and what are the solutions?
As far as my country and all of Latin America are concerned, there is an economic crisis. Symphonic orchestra now is facing many obstacles. The most of the orchestras depend on the state or a ministry of culture. The number of artists making a living from the orchestras is shrinking because of the unstable policies of the states. A solution that I can propose is to find private investors who want orchestras in Argentina or Latin America not to depend too much on the state in this time of crisis. I do hope orchestras can find an international investor.
What will you say about the show to audiences?
Don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy this amazing concert. You will laugh, cry and be touched in different ways by the music and so much more. We are going to have the ballet and choir of VNOB as well as the singers.
We have it all in just one concert. It is full of good energy and happiness, and all this is for the audience of Việt Nam. You would honour VNOB and me with your friendly presence.
Thank you and wish you and VNOB a great successful “Around the world”
Tuyet Hoa
Martín García León was born in 1990 in General Roca city, a small city located at the North of Patagonia Argentina.He started his interest on music from a very early age and begins his formal studying on piano at the age of 14 years old at I.U.P.A. (Institutouniversitariopatagónico de lasartes). And got a Bachelor degree in OrchestralConducting.During five years in Buenos Aires Martín García León was assistant conductor at Camerata Santa Cecilia, conducts on several occasions the “Carlos Bertazza” symphony orchestra, and participates on several concerts along his country. In 2018, he was conducting the Saint Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and at the festival of contemporary music Disat Terra music festival organized by the Fundación Antiqua Nova in Choele Choel (Argentinian Patagonia) making the world premiere of several works of Mariano Etkin, Cecilia Villanueva, and Jose Sciarrino between others And he has recently back to Argentina from Cusco Peru where he gives a Materclass about Orchestral conducting been an honorific invited by the Universidad Nacional Diego QuispeTIto, and arranged a concert with the Symphonic orchestra of cusco for 2020 season.
The story“In a Persian Market” is a piece of light classical music for orchestra with optional chorus by the English composer, conductor and pianist Albert Ketèbey who composed it in 1920. Subtitled Intermezzo Scene, it was published in 1921.Originally, it evoked exotic images of camel-drivers, jugglers, and snake-charmers. When it was first published in a version for piano, it was advertised as an “educational novelty.”
A synopsis of scenes by the composer mentions a caravan arriving, beggars, a princess carried by servants, jugglers, snake-charmers, and a caliph. After the princess and the caliph have left, a muezzin calls to prayer from a minaret. The caravan continues its journey, and the market becomes silent. The duration is around six minutes.
An opening march shares “exotic” intervals, A – B – flat – E, with the composer’s orientalintermezzo Wonga, used for the play Ye Gods in 1916. A chorus of beggars sings: ” Baksheesh, baksheesh Allah”; passers-by sing “Empshi” (“get away”). A romantic theme portrays the princess, similar to Stravinsky’s Firebird. Trumpets announce the caliph. The concluding section “Call to prayer” of 22 measures was added later.
The music was first announced in Musical Opinion in January 1921 as a piano piece, in a section “Educational novelties”. Half a year later, Bosworth printed the orchestral version.
In a Persian Market has been regarded as a work of orchestral impressionsm. The work has been used as theatre music for comic oriental scenes, used in sketches by Morecambe and Wise, and by The Two Ronnies, and also in schools as theatrical repertory.
The music:Arranger, sometime trumpeter and trombonist, and the leader of a band during the swing era, Larry Clinton recalled “In a Persian Market” from his childhood. But when he pondered how to approach this tune in the late 1930s, he had been immersed in the music of the swing era for several years. First, he wrote arrangements for the very successful Casa Loma band, then for Tommy Dorsey’s band, which in the late 1930s was a quite capable swing unit that played a wide variety of music. Clinton scored a number of hits for TD, including “The Dipsy Doodle,” and “Satan Takes a Holiday.” Bunny Berigan made a memorable recording of Clinton’s “A Study in Brown” in 1937. In late 1937, Clinton began leading his own band.
We all know and we all love the story of the Nutcracker and Young Clara adventures into her wonderland. But, have you ever considered that, a modern remake with diverse casting, with traditional dance around the world, a combination of classic ballet and Vietnamese traditional dance, could it be better?
Old tale, modern vibrant remake, but not just any modern remake. We make the stories ourselves. Our girl is called Quỳnh Lan, and through her kaleidoscope of Vietnamese culture and dance, she will take you to a land where a border doesn’t exist. We tell our story with a single wish of becoming one, going through dream lands and dream together, with nothing stopping us down. Nothing exists beside pure beauty and connection. We hope this remake helps the divided world right now, to remind us once more that we are all the same, we dream of nothing but love and joy.
Is Clara the name of the main female character in the Nutcracker ballet? In some references, the young heroine is referred to as “Marie” or “Masha.” Is her name really Clara, Marie or Masha?
What is interesting is the answer varies with who you ask, and who is developing the production. The answer can vary widely, although, most agree “Clara,” is the popular answer.
The Main Female Character of The Nutcracker
Thu Huệ is one of the solist in Nut Cracker – A wonder land version 2018 by VNOB
In most versions of the popular holiday ballet The Nutcracker, the young girl who falls asleep and dreams about a prince is named Clara. As the curtain opens, the wealthy Staulbahm family, including young children Clara and Fritz, is busily preparing for their annual Christmas Eve party. Clara and Fritz are anxiously awaiting the arrival of several invited guests.
Portraying the role of Clara in the Nutcracker is an aspiration of many young ballerinas. Most ballet companies choose the role of Clara and other main characters during auditions several weeks before the performance.
The Original Nutcracker
The original tale of The Nutcracker is based on a libretto by E.T.A. Hoffman titled “Der Nussnacker und der Mausekonig,” or “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” The score was written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. It premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892, to extremely mixed reviews and criticism.
In the original story, Clara is not the Stahlbaum’s cherished daughter but an unloved and neglected orphan. Somewhat like Cinderella, Clara is required to do chores in the household that usually go unappreciated.
The 1847 Version of The Nutcracker
In 1847, famous French author Alexandre Dumas rewrote Hoffman’s story, removing some of its darker elements and changing the name of Clara. He chose to refer to Clara as “Marie.” Because The Nutcracker ballet developed from two versions of a single book, the lead role of the story is sometimes named “Clara” and sometimes “Marie.” However, in most ballet versions of the story, the little girl who dreams of a living nutcracker is referred to as “Clara.”
Later Popular Versions of The Nutcracker
The main female character is called “Marie” in choreographer George Balanchine’s 1954 production of the ballet, “Maria” in the Bolshoi Ballet version and “Masha” in other Russian productions of it.
In some productions (including the famous Balanchine version staged by the New York City Ballet), she is a little girl about ten years old, and in other productions, such as the Baryshnikov one for the American Ballet Theater, she is a girl in her middle to late teens.
In the 1968 Covent Garden production starring Rudolf Nureyev for the Royal Ballet, the main character was named “Clara.”
In the 1986 film, the “Nutcracker: The Motion Picture,” the entire story of the ballet is seen through the eyes of an aged Clara, who is the offscreen narrator throughout the movie.
The Nutcracker is the cheesiest ballet of all time.
That may enrage some readers for whom attending The Nutcracker is a beloved Christmastime tradition. But as a former dancer who has performed or watched some version of the production for 18 years now, I can state it with certainty: The Nutcracker is the cheesiest ballet of all time.
Just try to recite the plot with a straight face: A young girl’s most cherished Christmas present, a nutcracker, comes alive, saves her by defeating an army of mice and their king, and then the pair travel together to a magical kingdom of sweets. Ballet really doesn’t get more gauche than that.
So why is it so popular in America? To answer that, we’ll have to go back in history a bit.
Thu Huệ is one of the solist in Nut Cracker – A wonder land version 2018 by VNOB
In 1844, French writer Alexandre Dumas adapted an earlier, darker version of The Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffman that had been intended strictly for adults, making it “happier and more appropriate for children.” The master of the Russian Imperial Ballet liked Dumas’ new, lighter version of the story and decided to transform it into a ballet, commissioning Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky to compose the score, now some of the most recognizable pieces of music in the world.
Many years later, in 1933, Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine was invited to the United States by a young arts patron who shared Balanchine’s conviction that high quality dance training was severely lacking in this country. They co-founded a ballet school, and in 1948, the now world famous New York City Ballet.
As a young dancer in Russia, Balanchine had performed several different roles in The Nutcracker — a mouse, the Nutcracker/Little Prince, and the Mouse King. When he was older, he danced the part of the jester, which involves gracefully wielding and jumping through a large hoop.
A scence in Nut Cracker – A wonder land version 2018 of VNOB
In 1954, Balanchine, who today is revered as the “Father of American Ballet,” decided to choreograph his own version of The Nutcracker. While a smart business decision, it was also a deeply emotional one. As Vanity Fairreports:
He was not just reaching back to the Mariinsky Nutcracker — which in Russia is performed throughout the year — but calling up the Christmases of his childhood, the sense of warmth and plenty that was embodied in a tree brimming with fruits and chocolates, glittering with tinsel and paper angels. “For me Christmas was something extraordinary,” Balanchine told the writer Solomon Volkov. “On Christmas night we had only the family at home: mother, auntie, and the children. And, of course, the Christmas tree. [Vanity Fair]
When asked by a donor years before if he would be interested in doing a popular abridgement of The Nutcracker, Balanchine answered, “If I do anything, it will be full-length and expensive.” That donor ultimately gave him $40,000 — $25,000 of which he spent on the giant tree that trademarks the New York City Ballet’s adaptation to this day. When he received pushback on the astronomical expense of the Christmas foliage, he simply responded, “The Nutcracker is the tree.”
Balanchine was right. The magic of The Nutcracker isn’t in the brilliance of the music or the excellence of the dancing. It’s the tree. It’s the juvenile warmth of the excited children in the party scene. It’s the familiarity of the whole production, even if you’re just seeing it for the first time. It’s the ballet’s ability to reach out and touch a part of you that triggers a warm holiday memory — that’s The Nutcracker.
Before The Nutcracker, the future of the New York City Ballet was still uncertain — and while many people were excited about the kind of “deeply poetic, uniquely plotless, modestly decorated ballets” Balanchine was known for making, the company did not possess the kind of “mainstream” following needed to consistently fill the house. The Nutcracker changed that.
Kids were another secret weapon.
There are a slew of parts for young dancers in The Nutcracker, and in many of Balanchine’s big productions. He believed it was important to have kids on stage for a few reasons. First, it helps children in the audience connect with the ballet. Second, very astutely, Balanchine reportedly surmised that “each child brings four people: mom, dad, sister, and aunt. Multiply this by all the children in the ballet and you have an audience.”
The first production, giant tree and all, ended up costing $80,000, but it was a blockbuster hit within the year. Since then, the ballet has been filmed and broadcast hundreds of times to people all over the world.
The NYCB performs The Nutcracker 47 times each season, but countless professional, amateur, and juvenile companies all over the country perform some version of the holiday special. The hundreds of adaptations have also given rise to new, even cheesier characters — like butchers, dancing pigs, and shepherdesses complete with lambs in the particular version I grew up with.
In many ways, The Nutcracker rallies against what a ballet is supposed to be — graceful and high-brow — (and truly there is nothing elegant about a sprightly young woman in pointe shoes wildly waving a fake plastic sword while dressed in a pear-shaped mouse costume) but that’s exactly the spirit from which The Nutcracker draws its enchantment.
There was no piano in Astor Piazzolla’s vacation home in Parque del Plata, Uruguay, where he spent the summer of 1968 working with the poet Horacio Ferrer on an operita, a “little opera,” so he composed on the bandoneón. The resulting work, “María de Buenos Aires,” is an intense cocktail of poetry, tango music and dance that is performed by a folk contralto, an operatic baritone and one male actor. But it’s the fourth voice — the bandoneón, the soulful South American accordion — that calls the shots and, to borrow Ferrer’s words, “burns in the back of your throat.”
It was appropriate, then — and a sign of the substantial Argentine contingent among the capacity audience in Le Poisson Rouge on Friday evening — that the applause at the end of Opera Hispánica’s production of “María” was loudest for the bandoneónist J P Jofre, who took his bow last. The production, directed by Beth Greenberg, was billed as the first fully staged one to be presented by Opera Hispánica, which is now in its third season. Most of the nightclub’s narrow stage, however, was taken up by the excellent nine-member band, conducted by Jorge Parodi, leaving the singers and dancers to stalk one another on just a few claustrophobic square feet of space.
But then, it’s in the nature of tango to express oversize passions with a rigorous economy of gesture. And despite its limitations, Opera Hispánica’s production was an elegant tribute to Piazzolla’s and Ferrer’s ability to combine music, movement and words of hallucinatory power in a concentrated format that is as pungent and stimulating as a cup of espresso.
The work is more of an oratorio than an opera. Written in the key of “Ay! minor” (Ferrer’s libretto is laced with musical puns), it’s a Passion play in which the central character, María, represents both Jesus and the Virgin. She sleepwalks through scenes of sexual violence, her burial and dreamlike confessions to a chorus of psychoanalysts until, resurrected, she gives birth to a new version of herself.
