The British Council in Vietnam is pleased to announce Heritage of Future Past - a Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth project. This project marks the 25th anniversary of the British Council’s work promoting closer cultural relations between the United Kingdom and Vietnam.
Heritage of Future Past, or Di Sản Kết Nối in Vietnamese, is a project delivered through the British Council’s Culture and Development initiative, with activities spanning two years. The project will engage with the music and film heritage of Vietnam, with particular focus on aspects that are under threat, disappearing, or under-represented. We will use innovative approaches in working with music and film heritage to create inclusive and sustainable growth in the heritage sector.
We will work with a wide range of communities across Vietnam to create new opportunities for them to contribute to, and benefit from, the protection, promotion, reinvigoration, and wider knowledge and appreciation of their heritage. Ultimately, the project will promote a more dynamic understanding and enjoyment, as well as use of, heritage assets in everyday life in the communities and in artistic, curatorial, and educational practices. The project will engage with a wide range of partners, including cultural heritage agencies, institutions of the central and local government, arts and cultural organisations, and the private sector. Project activities will focus on research, documentation, conservation, training and capacity building (including oral teaching techniques), experimentation and innovation, advocacy and education (including policy and community dialogues), and the re-imagination and revitalisation of cultural heritage assets in contemporary practices.
Heritage of Future Past is a major part of the British Council’s cultural relations mission in Vietnam as the principle cultural and educational organisation of the United Kingdom. The project is also part of a series of programmes and activities that the British Council will deliver in 2018, celebrating the 25th anniversary of its operations in Vietnam.
The British Council is proud that it has made an effective contribution to the development of cultural and educational understanding between Vietnam and the United Kingdom, which has strengthened the strategic relationship between the two countries. We promote the exchange and sharing of friendly knowledge and understanding in a wide range of areas including the arts, creative economy, English language training, education, social enterprise and innovation, and testing and accreditation.
We are committed to deepening and strengthening our work in Vietnam to create more opportunities for collaboration and cooperation, and deliver more mutual benefit. We are delighted to launch this important new initiative: the Heritage of Future Past. This GBP £500,000 project will run from 2018 to 2020.
The Heritage of Future Past Launch Event featuring two performances that capture a remarkable essence of the music heritage of Vietnam took place on 1 April 2018 at Hanoi Opera House. The event will also be organised at Soul Academy, 214 Pasteur, D3, HCMC at 18.30– 21.00 on 6 April 2018. Please read more information on the two performances below:
Hồ Nguyệt Cô Hóa Cáo
A contemporary music, opera and video performance based on an ancient Tuồng tale
Concept, script, music and director: Kim Ngọc
Video: Nguyễn Trinh Thi
Shooting: Jamie Maxton Graham
Tuồng actresses: Mẫn Thị Thu and Nguyễn Thị Lộc Huyền
Performance: Linh Lang Ensemble
“I have a nagging concern with concepts of femininity.
Hồ Nguyệt Cô Hoá Cáo is an ancient tale of Tuồng, a Vietnamese opera, and is the story, again, of a woman: Hồ Nguyệt Cô. In the tale, a female fox obtained, after thousands of years of cultivation, a magical “human” gem, and was able to become human, a woman. Then, being infatuated with human love, she was tricked into losing the gem and was transformed back into a fox and ultimately killed.
I would like to retell the story in correlation with different layers of time and languages of art; between the tones of the ancient Tuồng and the nature of western classical instruments, between film and music, between live performance and recorded performance, between the ancient legend and the fates of people in the present time.”
“A waste of thousands of years of cultivation,
A misstep breaking all the lives…”
Kim Ngoc, May 2017
April Music Concert
A Concert by Lune Production
Chém Gió does not merely extract local ethnic melody to force fit into Western compositions, nor does it impose Western sounds onto indigenous structures. The duo of Vietnamese flute and saxophone by Quyền Thiện Đắc and Nguyễn Đức Minh is a marriage between jazz’s breaths and the subconscious sounds of the Northwest.
Đàn Đó is a journey to find the soul of bamboo in the Tây Nguyênese ‘đàn goong’. Artists Đinh Anh Tuấn, Nguyễn Đức Minh, Nguyễn Quang Sự and Trần Kim Ngọc have created the new ‘đàn goong’ instruments from pure bamboo trunks, with 1 to 5 wires that exude a thick and clear sound, with volume louder than the original ‘goong’ or other instruments of the same family in other Southeast Asian ethnic groups. And they have named it “đàn đó”.
Seaphony is a Vietnamese ethnic music orchestra, formed through the project S.E.A Sound in 2017 with their first concert on 12 March 2017 at the Hanoi Opera House. The group of artists, Nguyễn Văn Quý, Quyền Thiện Đắc, Nguyễn Đức Minh, Đinh Anh Tuấn, Trần Kim Ngọc, Nguyễn Quang Sự, Đỗ Nguyễn Mai Khôi assemble into a ‘mini Seaphony Orchestra’ to perform with ethnic instruments.
Programme
Think (Quartet trống lợn and mõ) by Đàn Đó
Bamboo’s voice (Quartet đàn đó) by Đàn Đó
April’s fool (Duet sáo kèn and drum) by Chém Gió
Metamorphosis (Duet sáo kèn and chum) by Chém Gió
Spring (Orchestra Phù Sa Lab) by mini Seaphony
Artists
Nguyễn Văn Quý
Quyền Thiện Đắc
Nguyễn Đức Minh
Đinh Anh Tuấn
Trần Kim Ngọc
Nguyễn Quang Sự
Đỗ Nguyễn Mai Khôi
Stage designer: Nguyễn Đức Phương
Light: Nguyễn Duy Chân
Sound: Vũ Trọng Long
Music director: Nguyễn Nhất Lý