VietNamNet Bridge – The Viet Nam Circus Federation (VCF) will stage the programme Lang Toi (My Village) in France and other European locations next year thanks to an invitation from France.

Bamboo pole trick: A scene from the Vietnamese circus show Lang Toi (My Village).

The project was proposed by Jean-Luc Larguier, the French president of the Scene de La Terre Association, who has a special interest in Vietnamese culture.

Vietnamese artists will have a chance to stage 11 performances at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. A famous museum, the Quai Branly was founded by former French President Jacques Chirac, and features programmes focused on indigenous art, cultures and civilisations from around the world. Preparation for the programme should be completed by April 2009.

Performances in France and Morocco will take place during the fine European summer months, with a special return visit to France for the Christmas season. In 2010-11 performances will be held in all of France’s national theatres and will expand to other regions in Europe.

Lang Toi

was first performed in 2005 during the first-ever Viet Nam Circus Week in Ha Noi. The combination of dance and installation art earned the spectacle heaps of applause for its high artistic value.

A new circus

The programme was developed in co-operation with France’s Art Ensemble in the hopes of promoting Vietnamese circus abroad. The creators aimed to maintain national identity, working to develop a spectacle known as a “new circus,” where a story or scenario is linked throughout the different acts.

The original spectacle was just that - spectacular; “unfortunately with 80 actors and 20 logisticians it is impossible for us to make a tour abroad with the existing programme,” said eminent artist Vu Ngoan Hop, director of VCF.

The new programme will include the participation of 14 actors, four musicians and two technicians. An investment contract was signed between the two organisations that will result in creation of the final artistic performance and all props.

The San Khau Viet Association will help the VCF choose actors, create costumes, design the set and choose music.

Lang Toi

was created by taking motifs from traditional Vietnamese culture and using depiction’s from daily life in northern villages to tell its story.

Based on the original, the new programme will use bamboo as a constant throughout. All props will be made of bamboo and scenes are set to include the wood as a centrepiece. In the story, the groom greets his bride in the shade of bamboo trees and the pole-vault is made of bamboo instead of wire. Even the jugglers show their stuff with bamboo baskets.

Audiences can expect to see traditional folk games such as stilt-walking, on bamboo sticks of course, and games of hackey-sack. No opportunity for using all set elements in the story-telling will be lost, as demonstrated by a farmer’s pipe which becomes a toy for jugglers and acrobats.

Circus and farming

Show creators aim to highlight the varying creative talents from each of the performers. The result will be a harmonious programme combining the rhythmic movements of circus, dance, traditional games and farming activities. The result will be a seamless melding of music created from ancient folk instruments in tunes arranged for a solid circus performance. The stage, props and costumes are inspired by the cultural history of many tribes and regions in Viet Nam. The modern sound stage will again help to bring the soul of these traditional festivities to life.

“Over the last four years, the number of the federation’s small groups granted the opportunity to perform abroad has doubled or tripled. Our country has been ranked highly in its ability to maintain its unique cultural identity when compared to other world circus,” says Hop.

The hope is that these combined experiences will move the Vietnamese circus forward on the world stage; that a transformation will be made allowing performers to earn their place abroad and “strengthen the existence of the circus in the Vietnamese cultural experience.”

“For a long time, circus has been known solely as entertainment for children. With this programme, we also want to attract adults. This spectacle will broaden the type of audience we can expect in the future,” says Hop.

(Source: Viet Nam News)