The new cultural and arts space, known as SAH, has brought together works previously presented at international festivals and museums.

Rather than concealing the raw concrete walls, open spaces and signs of ongoing construction, the organizers have retained them as a backdrop. The choice reflects the program’s guiding idea: beauty does not have to wait until everything is complete.

At the center of the program is Becoming Alluvium by artist Phan Thao Nguyen. Running just over 16 minutes, the art film weaves live-action footage with watercolor animation to tell the story of a changing Mekong River.

The film unfolds in three chapters. It begins with the deaths of two adolescent siblings in a village downstream, moves into everyday life along the river and closes with a Khmer folktale. According to the organizers, this is the film’s first presentation to audiences in Vietnam, bringing it back to the land that inspired its story.

Kliselamef (Female Silk) was created by choreographer Nguyen Tan Loc, who founded Arabesque Vietnam in 2008 and serves as the program’s artistic director. Inspired by the Vietnamese folk verse “My body is like a length of rose-colored silk,” the work uses silk both as a costume material and as a symbol. Its softness and lightness are set against forceful movement, revealing two aspects of Vietnamese womanhood: outward gentleness and inner resilience.

Kliselamef premiered at an international contemporary dance festival in Italy in July 2023, with performances in Salerno, Perugia and Naples. Designer Kieu Viet Lien created the silk ao dai, Vietnam’s traditional long tunic, while composer Ton That An’s score combines the Vietnamese moon lute with the cello. In August that year, Arabesque Vietnam brought the work to the ChangMu International Performing Arts Festival in Seoul, South Korea.

Mélange, by South Korean choreographer Lim Sun-young, explores the interplay of sound, rhythm, breath and space, making the dancer’s body a meeting place for the senses. The work was performed at the Goyang International Dance Festival in South Korea in 2025. Arabesque Vietnam had previously taken another work choreographed by Lim, Melting, to Italy in 2023.

The musical work Phan places Vietnamese folk melodies alongside Western arias to portray women’s lives and circumstances across two different cultures. Featuring arrangements by composer Vo Thien Thanh and vocal instructor Ngoc Tuyen, with performances by young artists, it combines unaccompanied singing and opera with piano, cello and the Vietnamese moon lute. The layers of sound converse with and support one another.