Vietnamese novel hits Thai bookshelves

An ASEAN Literature Award novel the “Cho toi xin mot ve di tuoi tho” (Give me a ticket back to childhood) by Vietnamese writer Nguyen Nhat Anh will be published in Thailand.

With the Thai version translated by the Nanmeebooks Publishing House, the book will be introduced to Thai readers at a ceremony at Chulalongkorn University on August 24 in the presence of the writer.

Having won the Vietnamese Writers’ Association Award in 2009 and the ASEAN Literature Award in 2010, the book will also be published in the US and the Republic of Korea.

“Cho toi xin mot ve di tuoi tho” tells a story of an innocent childhood but full of mischief of four kids.

3-millennium-old site discovered in Hanoi

Archeologists have found a number of tombs and artifacts from two different cultures dating back to possibly 1500 BCE in Hanoi’s Hoai Duc District.

A team of experts from the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Hanoi Museum have been excavating in a 300-square- meter area at the Vuon Chuoi archeological site for over two months.

They found the remains of a habitation belonging to the Dong Dau Culture which lasted from 1500 to 1000 BCE.

They include jewelry, tools, weapons made of bronze, stone, and pottery.

Lam Thi My Dung, one of the archeologists, said the site also contains ancient tombs and artifacts that show it was a burial site of the Dong Son Culture which existed from 700 BCE to 100 CE.

Nine tombs have been excavated, including one which contains interred remains believed to be that of a young person of high social status since weapons and artifacts were also found buried.

Nguyen Kim Thuy, a paleoanthropologist and member of the team, said the human remains would help reveal many secrets of ancient Vietnamese people like biological characteristics, genes, food, health conditions, and social status.

Vuon Chuoi houses many prehistoric remains but it is soon to be flattened to build a new urban neighborhood.

Dung said the team has to wrap up its work quickly to let the construction begin.

Vietnamese artist receives Dutch award

Le Quang Dinh, an American artist of Vietnamese origin, has received an award from the Prince Claus Fund for his contributions to contemporary arts.

The Dutch Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City presented the award to the artist at a ceremony held in the city on August 8.

Born in 1968, Dinh has pursued contemporary arts since he was young and won fame for his combination of modern graphics and traditional Vietnamese techniques. Many of his works were showcased at famous museums around the world.

Speaking at the ceremony, Dinh said he hoped that this award would contribute to promoting cultural and art exchanges between Vietnam and the world and that international friends, especially the Dutch people, would gain a deeper insight into Vietnam’s contemporary arts.

The Prince Claus Fund, launched in 1997 and based in Amsterdam, aims to expand insights into cultures to promote interaction between culture and development.

The fund has so far presented more than 150 awards, each worth 25,000 EUR, to artists worldwide.

Vietnam-Japan cultural exchange in Hoi An

The ninth Vietnam-Japan cultural exchange event in Hoi An will be held on August 20-21.

The event is co-organized by the People’s Committee of Hoi An City, the Japanese Embassy and the Japan Foundation for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam.

The opening program will be held at 7 p.m. on August 20 in An Hoi Statue Garden with Japanese and Vietnamese singing, dancing, classical opera and lively scenes performed by artists from Vietnam and Japan.

During the two-day event, there are many folk games and sporting activities such as stick pushing competition, sack races, bowls, amateur boat race, rope jumping, as well as a display of artistic pictures, Origami paper wrapping, Kimono and Yukata costume performances, Vietnamese ao dai show; selection of Miss Kimono and a charitable music show for tsunami and earthquake victims in Japan.

The event will be attended by skillful artisans from traditional craft villages of pottery making, mattress weaving, Kim Bong carpentry and lanterns. Japanese artists will make traditional cakes, compose Haiku poems and wrap Furoshiki fabric.  

Japanese Haiku style of poetry, the shortest style of 17 syllables, will be introduced in Hoi An for the first time through the Haiku poem composing festival and there is also a Vietnamese calligraphy performance.

The closing ceremony and gala dinner this year will be a cozy, camp-fire night featuring traditional games, community dancing and lanterns.

Moon Garden dance show comes to Hanoi

Moon Garden, directed and choreographed by Quach Phuong Hoang, will take place at the French Cultural Center L’Espace in Hanoi at 8 p.m. on September 8.

Hoang, together with LDG group and Modern Lime dance group, will bring a new approach to contemporary dance.

When night falls, the sculptures from fairytales dance under the moonlight. They share their happiness and love, loneliness and sorrow. Under the moonlight, their bodies entangle and dissolve into the starry night just as the stars appear and disappear under the clouds in the whisper of the wind. The show presents many aspects of life.

Tickets are available at L’Espace, 24 Trang Tien Street in Hanoi and priced from VND50,000.

German consulate to give wall to graffiti

The German consulate in Ho Chi Minh City will give one of its walls to the students of HCMC University of Fine Arts to draw graffiti on this Wednesday.

Sponsored by the consulate’s cultural fund, the project is aimed to give local students a chance to express themselves with the theme “Germany meets Vietnam.”

Another goal is to show graffiti is a true form of art, not an act of defacement and vandalism as widely believed, a spokesperson said.

15 students from the university will make up two teams and perform two best pieces selected from many drafts sent to the consulate.

The event will start at 8-11am Wednesday at the German General Consulate, 126 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, District 3, HCMC.

In’t art network launches studio in Vietnam

Room 13, an UK-based independent art studio network for young people that spans over 13 countries has opened its first studio in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Vietnamese studio, sponsored by creative art group TBWA, will offer free art classes for children aged 8-12 with activities that encourage creativeness and independent thinking.

Vo Binh, a painter and volunteer of the project said children would be taught basic painting skills and given a topic in each class meeting to discuss and present their ideas.

Akiko Yabuki, a Japanese volunteer said Room 13 wanted to give Vietnamese youths a space where they can be themselves and create what they want without having to follow any model set by parents or teachers.

Originally set up at Caol Primary School in Fort William, the UK in 1994 by a group of students who wanted their own creative space with more art lessons and activities than offered by traditional curricular, Room 13 later spread throughout the UK and to other countries, connecting art studios run by young artists.

In Vietnam, the project plans to hold exhibitions to display children’s artworks to raise funds for its operation.

Starving the hands that feeds the soul

The sheer number of contemporary art projects in Vietnam in recent years has given many Vietnamese art lovers a false sense of optimism for the country’s thriving art market.

The buoyant sentiment seems to grow even stronger as alternative spaces, mostly run by artists trying to bring modern artwork to the public attention, have begun to flourish in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh in recent years.

Met with a chilly reception at first, they are now accepted as a new way to bring modern art closer to the public in a languid art scene where traditional exhibition spaces like museums or galleries no longer attract much attention of anyone other than those in the artistic community.

Ho Chi Minh is home to a number of such places, known for their openness and interactivity like San Art, Himiko Visual Café, Khoan Cat Be Tong, Dia or Cot Dien, mostly self-financed by a group of artists or, for the more fortunate ones, partly sponsored by a foreign art fund or grant.

To all outward appearances, the picture seems rosy enough, but to many artists practicing the art, financial constraint is a pressing problem preventing them from producing more artworks, putting them on display or even sustaining their exhibition places.

Nhu Huy, an artist and owner of Ga O art space in Ho Chi Minh said contemporary art in other countries enjoys the generous support of both governmental and private sources through grants, awards and prizes while in Vietnam it seems to be treated like an ‘abandoned child.’

In Vietnam, although state grants and subsidies are distributed annually to many art associations, they are, most of the times, awarded to traditional arts projects while contemporary ones hardly gets any or only receives a next-to-nothing amount, Huy said.

For years now, Vietnam’s contemporary artists have turned to foreign cultural funds or international non-governmental organizations for support to sustain their projects even though this turns out to be not an effective long-term solution.

Pham Van Truong, a young painter and performance artist who has reaped many domestic awards for his works said application for grants from these organizations was truly a hard nut for him.

“Completing a set of application forms in English is challenging enough for me, let alone trying to persuade an art committee of 8 to 9 members to give me the money.”

"However, the money you finally receive is usually modest and not enough to pay for all the cost of your exhibition or art project,” he said.

Ngo Luc, a well-known performance artist with many large projects such as “Vao cho” (Into the market) or “Ra duong” (Out on streest) said complicated application procedures and long processing time can be very discouraging.

“Sometimes I have to wait for months until I get the final answer of whether I can have a grant for a project. By the time the answer arrives, any the inspiration you may have to begin with will have disappeared into the ether.”

However, not all projects can secure a financial award to bring their art to the public, as was the case with last year’s Tam ta (Pouring) exhibition which included selected works of new artists put together by the famed curator Tran Luong.

A respected figure in the art world of Vietnam and a member on several cultural funds’ art committees himself, Luong could not bring his exhibit outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh to other provinces, as his grant application was rejected by several agencies.

Ignored by state-run organizations while given modest support, if any, from private and foreign funds, these contemporary artists have come up with a few novel ways to help themselves.

Himiko visual café or Cot dien, also a café, earns substantial profit from their business operations, which they use to sustain their main activities as an art space.

Khoan Cat Be Tong, another alternative space, has recently faced a hard time as Luc and other artists, its owners, struggle to find money to keep it afloat.

Luckily, the place was saved after Luc posted a message on an art website, calling for support from individual sponsors, art lovers and his artist friends. The message read: “Helping your friend is helping yourself.”

Thai journalist club launches photo contest

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand in collaboration with Asia's leading photo agency OnAsia is now launching its fifth photo contest worldwide.

This year’s contest is calling for photos about the Asia-Pacific region in four categories: Spot News, Feature Photography, Photo Essay, and Environmental Issues.

Winners can receive up to US$3,000 and winning photos will be displayed at a 2-month exhibition in Bangkok.

Entries will be received until December 23.

The award ceremony will be held at the end of this year.

More information can be found at www.fccthai.com.

Two model contests kicked off

Two model contests, Vietnam Supermodel 2011, and Vietnam’s Next Top Model, are now receiving applications.

 Vietnam Supermodel 2011, an annual contest organized by Ho Chi Minh City Television, Thoi Trang Tre Magazine and Cat Tien Sa Advertising Investment Co., Ltd., is seeking both male and female candidates from 18 to 25 years of age who are single, have no children and haven’t gone through any sex change surgery.

Candidates in HCMC can send their by August 30 to Cat Tien Sa Company at 5B Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in District 1 and Thoi Trang Tre Magazine at 8 Hoang Van Thu Street in Phu Nhuan District.

In Hanoi, entries will be received at Thoi Trang Tre’s office at 12 Ho Xuan Huong Street and the Vietnam Television at 43 Nguyen Chi Thanh Street.

The other contest, the Vietnamese version of America’s Next Top Model, Vietnam’s Next Top Model, is now open to all Vietnamese girls aged 18 to 25 with a minimum height of 1.68m. The qualification rounds are scheduled to take place in HCMC on August 16 and in Hanoi on August 23.

More details about this contest can be found at http://vietnamnexttopmodel.com

City hosts Vietnamese, Korean concert  

A concert featuring Vietnamese and Korean soloists will take place at the Ho Chi Minh City Opera House on August 9.

Vietnamese artists include cellist Nguyen Tan Anh, violinists Tang Thanh Nam, Nguyen Truc Thuyen, pianists Ly Giai Hoa, Pham Dieu Thao and viola player Bui Anh Son of Ho Chi Minh City Ballet Symphony Orchestra.

Korean pianist Joo Eun Young, soprano Cho Hae Ryong and her husband, Vietnamese clarinetist Dao Nhat Quang will also join the event.

Tickets are available at Ho Chi Minh City Opera House.

Pianist Bich Tra cast her spell in HCMC  

Young people feel no constrains and adopt classical music naturally, spoke pianist Bich Tra during a talk on “Classical music and young people” at the Saturday Café in Ho Chi Minh City on July 31.  

The pianist said that children in foreign countries are introduced to classical music quite early in life, while Vietnamese people give no importance to it.

Being able to enjoy classical music depends on an individual's taste and state of mind, she added.

Tra practices regularly and daily. She often spends more than 16 hours practicing. She reads on the lives, careers and times of composers to go deeper into the knowledge of music.

Classical music has helped the pianist to display her talent, having achieved recognition by way of both local and international music awards. She believes that music opens new horizons for people.

The talk was attended by musicians Duong Thu, Duy Linh, singer Hai Dang and actress Ha Giang.

On August 5, at the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music, Tra  performed a concert titled “Piano & voice” accompanied by tenor Nguyen Hai Dang.

The two artists presented to music lovers masterpieces from famous composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Joachim Raff, Frederic Chopin and Mozart.

Pianist Bich Tra is the daughter of movie star Tra Giang and Professor Bich Ngoc. After leaving the Russian Tchaikovsky Institute of Music with a master’s degree, she continued her studies at the British Royal Music Academy. She graduated with the highest marks, earning the Walter MacFarren Award for best student. In 2000, Bich Tra won first prize at an international piano contest, ’Brant in UK’.

She has performed in many countries like Russia, Poland, Germany, Norway, Spain, Italy, UK and the USA.

She was chosen as the "Ten most influential Youth of Vietnam" in 2002. Tra is currently living and working in London.

Her recent orchestra recording debut of romantic Swiss-German composer Joachim Raff's Suite has been well received with superlative reviews and was chosen as Album of the Week by The Independent in March 2010.

In 2011, Tra will be recording three CDs of Joachim Raff's piano music with Naxos.

PV