Singapore art show in HCMC seeks college applicants

The LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore will hold an arts exhibition and open day at the HCMC University of Fine Arts gallery, 5 Phan Dang Luu Street in HCMC’s Binh Thanh District.

The exhibition will feature works by 17 Vietnamese and Singaporean students studying in the college. Works include five graphic designs, two interior designs, nine paintings, six fashion works, three animations and four short films. There will be information about the college and Vietnamese interested in studying there can enroll at the exhibition.

The college has a growing number of Vietnamese students enrolling in design and film courses. Two film study graduates, Boo Junfeng and Jennie Nguyen Vo Ngoc Diem, will be there to talk about their experience at Lasalle. Boo Junfeng directed a film called Sandcastle which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and has been selected to compete at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in Hanoi from October 17-21. Jennie Nguyen Vo Ngoc Diem, a lecturer at HCMC University of Theater and Cinema, directed one of the short films to be screened at the exhibition. “…We want more Vietnamese students to go abroad to add their vision to international arts education,” said Kim Dy-Liacco, director of marketing at the Lasalle.

Visitors can design a poster for one of the short films being screened at the exhibition, to be in the running for a prize trip to the LASALLE campus in Singapore, including return flights, food and accommodation for four nights, plus VND4 million spending money. All the entries will be uploaded on Facebook, with winners to be decided November 7.

LASALLE offers a comprehensive range of 26 diploma and degree awards in design, fine arts, film, media arts, fashion, dance, music, theatre, art history, art therapy and arts management in the region. As an accredited institution of The Open University, the United Kingdom’s largest university, the undergraduate and postgraduate programs offered by LASALLE are benchmarked against the best universities in the UK, making them internationally recognized.

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Toyota Classics brings Florentine orchestra to Hanoi

Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) on Tuesday announced the lineup for this year’s Toyota Classics concert at Hanoi Opera House.

This year, Toyota presents the Città di Firenze  orchestra from Florence (Italy) conducted by Lorenzo Castriota Skanderbeg. The orchestra featuring tenor, Leonardo Melani, and young pianist, Luu Hong Quang, will play music by Verdi, Puccini and Rossini.

Quang has won several awards “The Piano Recital Award” in 2008 and first prize at “Chopin Piano Competition” in Australia in 2009.

It will be the 13th Toyota Classics in Vietnam supported by  the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

“We granted total ticket proceeds of the 12 previous Toyota Classics concerts to support cultural activities and charity in Vietnam. This year TMV will continue what it started last year by using all ticket proceeds for the Toyota Scholarships for Vietnamese Young Music Talents,” said Akito Tachibana, President of TMV.

Since 1990, the humanitarian Toyota Classics has been held annually bringing classical music to the country and enhancing cultural exchange.

So far, the Toyota Classics has attracted audiences of more than 200,000 to154 concerts in the Asia-Pacific. In its 21st year, the event will be held from Oct. 23 to Nov. 12 in Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei), Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei (Taiwan), Manila and Bombay. 

Tickets cost VND300,000, VND600,000 and VND800,000 and are available at  the Hanoi Opera House, 1 Trang Tien Street., Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, or at TMV’s Hanoi branch, eighth floor, Viglacera building, No,1 Thang Long Avenue, Me Tri, Tu Liem, Hanoi.

HSBC grants millennium wish to 100 first-graders

HSBC Vietnam presented VND500 million to Tuoi Tre newspaper’s Study Promotion Society to provide scholarships to100 poor first-graders in Hanoi as part of the bank’s “1,000 wishes for Hanoi” campaign.

During September, the campaign called for Vietnamese people around the country to share their future wishes for the capital to mark the 1000-year anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi Capital.

At the ceremony on Wednesday the bank announced the 1000 winners of the campaign and granted the 10 best entries with a Sony DSC HX1 Cyber-shot digital camera each, valued at VND10 million, together with a specially commissioned Thang Long cup.

To be eligible the wishes meet three criteria: they had to be meaningful, feasible and reveal a way to unlock Hanoi’s potential.  Over four weeks, thousands of wishes were sent in from everywhere in Vietnam, expressing the desires and dreams of Vietnamese people for a rich, prosperous and developed capital that continued to build on the country’s existing strengths and history. The top 1,000 wishes have been posted on www.ngandieuuoc.com.

Each wish of the thousand selected, represented a HSBC donation of VND500,000 to help poor kids start their education.

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Hanoi to host first Vietnam International Film Festival

Anna Mouglalis – who plays Fashion Queen Coco Chanel – will present at VNIFF

Photo: Mongrel Media

68 films from 23 countries will be featured at the first-ever Vietnam International Film Festival (VNIFF) which will be held at Megastar Cinemas, the National Screening Center and the BHD (Vietnam Media Corp.) Cinema Complex in Hanoi October 17-21.

As a country in focus, France’s cinema will be represented by a selection of award-winning features including Pascal Chaumeil’s “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” and documentary films “Babies” by Thomas Balmès and “Oceans” by Jacques Cluzaud.

Honored guests Thomas Balmès, Jacques Cluzaud, Pascal Chaumeil and Anna Mouglalis – leading female character of “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” will present at the event.

“Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” tells about the rumored affair between Fashion Queen Coco Chanel and Russian composer and pianist Igor Stravinsky around the time legendary Chanel No. 5 perfume was created. This film was chosen as the closing film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

Central to the film is the song “The Rite of Spring” symbolizing both Stravinsky’s revolutionary musical ambitions and Chanel’s revolutionary fashion exploits.

Chanel, mesmerized by the musician’s scandalous premiere in 1913, invited him to stay in her Garches villa seven years later when as a penniless émigré (refugee) he retouched “The Rite of Spring” for a Paris revival.

Chinese film also carved itself a nice niche as French director Fabrien Gaillarg’s Chinese film “Lao Wai” will compete in the Best Film category while Chinese female director Hu Mei will introduce the 2010 biographical movie “Confucius” which stirred controversy in China.

Two famous Chinese actors Ngo Ngan To and Truong Gia Huy will also attend this year’s festival on October 19. To co-stars in the action film “Triple Tap”, with Hong Kong actor Co Thien Lac.

Ten feature films from eight countries in the East Asia and Southeast Asia will compete in the In Competition category.

VNIFF chairman Lai Van Sinh, said: “Vietnam is hosting the International Film Festival for the first time, so it will focus on East Asia and Southeast Asia as world cinema’s new potential areas of interest.”

Many films competing in the Feature Film category will be screened in the region, or even the world, for the first time. They include “Sandcastle” by Singaporean Boo Junfeng, “Lao Wai” by French Fabien Gaollard, “Red Shoes” by Philippine Raul Jorolan, “The Dreamer” by Indonesian Riri Riza, “Ice Kaeang Puppy Love” by Japanese Nobuhiro Doi, “Big Boy” by Thailand Monthon Arayangkoon, “Breaking Up Club” by Hong Kong Barbara Wong, and “Long Thanh Cam Gia ca” by Vietnamese Dao Ba Son and “Lieutenant” by Vietnamese Ha Son.

“We want to start out small but steady to make sure to do things at the right pace,” said Ngo Thi Bich Hanh, vice president of sales & acquisitions at Vietnam Media.

The festival – co-organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Vietnam Cinema Department and Vietnam Media Corporation – will showcase films in seven categories: Competition, Shorts and Documentaries, World Cinema Today, Vietnamese Cinema Today, Country in Focus, Surprising, and Tributes.

Eight prizes will be awarded in the following categories: Best Film, Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, the Netpac Prize, and the Media Award and Best Short Film.

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Nation bags Asian hip-hop competition

Hipsters: Members of the Big Toe hip-hop crew pose after winning Southeast Asia's Battle of the Year contest in Singapore. — File Photo

HA NOI — A Vietnamese hip-hop dance crew bagged the first prize at Southeast Asia's Battle of the Year (BOTY) contest in Singapore on Sunday.

The 11-member crew, which belong to the top hip-hop dance group in Viet Nam, Big Toe, vied with five other hip-hop crews from Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, and Indonesia for the prize.

The crew will now have the chance to compete at the World BOTY, which will take place in Montpellier, France, next month.

"Although we have sent our members to compete at BOTY every year since 2005, this is the first time a Big Toe crew has won the contest," said Big Toe's leader, Nguyen Viet Thanh.

The nine-day contest in France will draw 19 crews from five continents, including representatives from South Korea, France, Brazil, and Taiwan, who are considered to be Big Toe's closest competitors.

Founded in 1992 with seven original members, Big Toe currently has 60 members, divided into four dance groups. They are widely recognised as Viet Nam's first hip hop dance troupe.

With a number of top prizes won at a variety of international competitions, Big Toe were awarded the Certificate of Merit on Tuesday by the Viet Nam Electronic Sport and Recreational Sport Association under the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism.

Big Toe are planning to tour around France and Germany next year to present their hip-hop theatre production, Cam Xuc Thay Doi (Change of Emotion). — VNS

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‘Visual diary' salutes Ha Noi

Musings: Nguyen Cam's painting Temple of Literature is one of 40 works on display at the exhibition.

HA NOI — As Ha Noi approached its 1,000th anniversary, painter Nguyen Cam travelled from Paris to celebrate this momentous historic celebration of passing time with an exhibition at Art Viet Nam Gallery.

All of the pieces Cam has included in the Traces of Memory exhibition are mixed media on canvas created using dark colours.

Calligraphic musings and bits of jute, votive papers, ginkgo leaves, tea bags, and other distinctly Vietnamese elements are scattered over fractured landscapes to give the impression of a visual diary.

All of the materials he used to create his paintings are symbolic, he says. Ginkgo was the first tree to grow in Hiroshima after the bomb. The plant inspires Cam as a symbol of power, vitality and eternity, while tea bags express the changes of time.

"Everyday I drink tea, in a silent and thoughtful space. I realised that the colours and textures of the tea are never the same. I see it as similar to our daily lives: each day is different," he says.

The artist left the country for France when he was very young and he returns with the solemn, wizened perspective of a man whose life has been pushed and pulled, torn and mended.

"As Cam approaches the autumn of his life, having escaped a near brush with death, a heightened intensity and awareness of the preciousness of each and every moment is ever present," says Suzanne Lecht, director of Art Viet Nam Gallery, the painter's close friend.

Ever mindful of the beauty of movement, the artist methodically pursues his future, honours his past, reveres the present, and exposes injuries accumulated along the way, she says.

"I feel an intensified freedom when I return to Viet Nam, the country of my childhood and birth," Cam says. "Certainly returning home, that physical place which creates the landscape and language of our spiritual home, is life giving. It inspires me to delve into the deep recesses of the mind and heart where a solace that helps to face life's vagaries might be found."

The exhibition will run until November 5 at Art Viet Nam Galley, 7 Nguyen Khac Nhu Street, Ha Noi. — VNS

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Culture Vulture

Prof Vu Khieu is the author of many works on the capital, such as Bach Khoa Thu Ha Noi (Ha Noi Encyclopaedia) and Tong Tap Nghin Nam Van Hien Thang Long (One Thousand Years of Civilisation in Thang Long), which took him decades to complete. At the age of 95, he is still writing. He talks with Culture Vulture.

Would you say something about your research on Ha Noi?

In the last 10 years, I focused on researching the old capital. I was co-author of the four-volume Tong Tap Nghin Nam Van Hien Thang Long, Lich su Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi Va Nhan Van (History and Social Science and Humanities), in 18 volumes and I wrote many funeral orations, epitaphs and parallel sentences in tens of temples worshipping martyrs throughout the country.

Among them, Tong Tap Nghin Nam Van Hien Thang Long, a collection of writings by 1,200 authors and collaborators compiled with assistance of Prof Vu Tuyen Hoang, won a special content prize at Viet Nam Book Awards 2009 announced by the Viet Nam Publishing Association.

That's the way I pay tribute to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the country.

You are still researching and writing. How can you keep going?

When I was 80, my health was getting bad. I spent about eight hours a day studying Confucianism, the ideas of Confucius and Mencius.

Ten years ago, when I was 85, I decided to have a rest. I thought I would write poetry, play chess and have fun with my friends. Then the Party and the State conferred on me the title of Hero of Labour of the doi moi (renewal) period.

I wondered then how can a hero have a rest? So I determined to come back to work and promised myself that from then until the last breathe, I would not waste a day.

Last month, I celebrated my 95th birthday. If I can live till 100, as I would like, I will have another five years to work.

Nowadays, when I can't sleep I often read Buddhist scriptures to understand more about Mahayana Buddhism. Compassionate thought of Buddhism is a humane philosophy. I learn much from it.

What do you intend to do in the future?

I have been writing notes about Ha Noi for as long as I can remember. Now I am putting them into a book of 2,400 pages for the capital's anniversary, to be released when I am satisfied with the quality and when my heart orders. — VNS

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