“My Village” Returns Home After Many Years of Traveling the World

After receiving many successes around the world, the circus show My Village will return to Vietnam, scheduled to officially premiere in April 2013. Before that, the artists will perform a single premiere at 8:00 p.m. on August 10, at the Hanoi Opera House..

A performance by artists from "My Village" (Photo source: internet)

It can be said that "My Village" is a bright spot that is expected to stir up and refresh the domestic circus market that is becoming boring, surrounded by only juggling, acrobatics, and performing animals...

Journey home

Introduced to the audience in 2005 with the first version of up to 100 performers, by 2008, My Village was re-created with 20 people. After two domestic rehearsals, the whole crew "packed up" and went to France, England, America and many other European countries with the desire to promote the image of Vietnamese circus to international friends.

“In order for Vietnam’s traditional cultural values ​​to have a place in the hearts of the audience, we often have to take a detour, that is, go out into the world, make an impression on the outside world, and then the good news can spread about Vietnam, making the domestic audience curious and interested...,” program director and artist Nguyen Nhat Ly shared the reason why he did not perform domestically before touring abroad.

My Village belongs to the new circus genre (nouveau cirque) - a type of circus that does not use animals. In the new circus, traditional circus techniques are placed in the space of light and music to create a plot with specific characters, personalities, and stories. In the world, the new circus is considered a new direction for circus arts.

Director Le Ngoc Tuan Anh of My Village said: “The general trend of circus in the world is to no longer stage individual acts but to build programs with ideas, clear content or plays with layers and convey messages to the audience. Therefore, actors must also be ‘multi-talented’, dancing, playing music, doing circus, in addition to performing on stage, they also act as audience members, listening to music and watching other colleagues perform...”

Telling stories to the village

Most of the circus artists of My Village come from Hanoi Circus School with the desire to perform a circus show imbued with national spirit using bamboo as the main prop. “We want young people to look back to their national roots as well as bring the beauty of Vietnamese culture to many countries around the world…,” artist Le Tuan said about the program’s idea.

“The village” has 20 people, including young men and women, some middle-aged, some young shepherds. The content is not too dramatic, not too many twists, but has the beauty of a bamboo architectural work in which the artists, like builders, constantly transform and tumble to create balance and perfection for the work.

The stage of My Village is not flashy under colored lights, it is simply lit to highlight the familiar brown color of cajuput associated with Vietnamese farmers. The “static” backdrop is bamboo screens, including about ten long bamboo poles along with bamboo tubes, bamboo baskets, bamboo clappers, bamboo blinds, which are the main props for jugglers and circus performers.

The constant movement and transformation of the cast on the bamboo trunks creates a contrast between movement and stillness, but they still harmonize and enhance each other in a whole.

In that context, the sounds are exploited from familiar folk materials but are renewed with modern rhythms and melodies. From the sound of roosters crowing in the morning to the songs in the evening, from the rustling wind of bamboo groves to the chanting and clapping of monks, from the song when mothers lull their children to sleep to the random calls of young couples in the village, the soft sound of brooms sweeping the yard to the raindrops watering the fields... bring to the audience memories and emotions of a peaceful village.

From April 2013, My Village will be performed weekly and is expected to become a "specialty" of Vietnam for foreign tourists, along with water puppetry./.

According to (ttxvn)- TN