A Vietnamese performance artist let loose in America
A Vietnamese Buddhist theme park
A shrimp recipe that will win you many points with your dinner party guests.
Welcome to Vietnam Art Gallery's May 2004 edition!
We hope this newsletter finds you in good health and with a little time to spare to share in our stories of the month and feature artists.
Don't forget to click to view a special sampling of our paintings!
=============== CONTENTS ===============
- This edition features a story about a Vietnamese performance artist let loose in America on a cultural exchange program. Go >>
- Feature artist of the month: Hoang Giap - Hoang's primary colours and simplistic structures are a perfect accompaniment to his paintings' stories. Go >>
- A story of a Vietnamese Buddhist theme park with a photo you really have to see to believe. Go >>
- A shrimp recipe that will win you many points with your dinner party guests. Go >>
=== Vietnamese Artist's New York Adventure===
It was well past midnight, and Dao Anh Khanh, still jet-lagged from the trip from Vietnam, stood bewildered at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge in New York's Chinatown.
Sean Meehan, a percussionist he had just met at an improvisation festival, felt the urge for an outdoor jam session. As his new friend coaxed textured rhythms from a snare drum, Dao shed his coat and sang, first in low, guttural moans, then howling with the wind.
"It felt dangerous at first," he recalled a few days later. "Then I listened and thought, this is beautiful. We went for an hour nonstop, drumming and singing until 2:30 in the morning, with only ourselves for an audience."
Dao, a 43-year-old painter and performance artist from Hanoi, was one of 12 Vietnamese artists who came to New York last month on a kind of fact-finding mission organized by Dance Theatre Workshop. Their goal was to gather ideas and insights that might help them advance contemporary art and performance back home, where a vibrant new wave art scene has begun to flourish.
Since the Vietnamese government began edging away from orthodox Communism in 1987 - a policy called doi moi, or renovation - the outlook for artists has improved. Private galleries and performance spaces have sprung up in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and pioneers like Dao are leading the cities to a cultural awakening through their personal and artistic expression.
Cathy Edwards, who directs Dance Theatre Workshop's international programs, said the project sought talented individuals who function as "cultural organizers"- entrepreneurs working to create a climate that benefits their fellow artists. Cathy believes in the artistic lifeforce of "working with artists and activists in the arts who are not only making good work, but also creating opportunities for their peers."
In Hanoi, people fitting that description tend to congregate at Duc's Stilt House, an art gallery and performance space, or the Contemporary Art Center, which Doc Tran founded in 2001. They also gravitate toward Dao's studio, across the Red River in Gia Lam, where a lively artist community is taking root.
In Ho Chi Minh City, where artists say state financing has always been more scarce than in the north, there is a long tradition of self-reliance. The Blue Space Contemporary Art Center and the Small Stage Theatre Company present work by local trailblazers like Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, an acclaimed actor and playwright, and Nguyen Tan Loc, a prodigious young actor, dancer and choreographer who also performs with the Ho Chi Minh City Ballet.
In New York, the Vietnamese artists met with Ellen Stewart, who founded La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and Boo Froebel, the artistic director at Galapagos Art Space. They saw dozens of performances, from dances choreographed by John Jasperse, Trisha Brown and Neil Greenberg to the New York City Ballet's staging of The Nutcracker.
The three-week residency, financed by the U.S. State Department and the Rockefeller Foundation, included trips to Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle and Portland, Oregon.
Dao says his head and heart feel nourished by all that he's experienced while in America. Dao became a full time artist in 1993, painting often surreal landscapes evoking the forces of nature. He has shown his work in Vietnam and abroad, including two group shows in SoHo. Over time he began working on installation art and performance art, staging an outdoor spectacle in 1999 that drew 700 people to his compound in Gia Lam.
Dao mounted an even larger show in November, 2000, erecting a series of bamboo structures and banners along the road to his home. A herd of 50 cows grazed nearby, their flanks painted with ornamental motifs. Nearly 1,000 people, with flowers in their hair and pendants dangling from their necks, watched Dao and 12 dancers perform a pensive piece called Universal Harmony.
"I like to make monumental shows," he said. "I want everyone who comes to be an artist, not just to watch but perform."
Dao paused and watched a skinny young girl in yellow tights execute a faltering cartwheel, her mother a few steps ahead pushing a pram loaded with high street shopping bags, her white ponytail propellering circles in the air. I couldn't read Dao's mind; but to me, it was one of those life-as-art moments quite complete.
Dao smiled and continued, "I hope to take home the experiences I've had in America and to help art in my country to grow; to foster an environment where actors and dancers and painters work together."
====== Feature artist: Hoang Giap ======
Featuring Hoang Giap. Hoang's primary colours and simplistic structures are a perfect accompaniment to his paintings' stories. The spectator is invited to share in a fantasy world of stylized imagery which is an intriguing moment of beauty in time.
Hoang Giap - Happiness 1 - $250 - more >>
Hoang Giap - New Street 2 - $250 - more >>
Also featured this month: Minh Duc. Minh Duc's self titled 8 takes us by the hand with the artist as he journeys back to his birthplace - a place of great emotional experience for many Vietnamese, the village is a symbol of the home, the mother, the family and the cycles of life.
Minh Duc - 8 - $250 - more >>
Also featured in the May edition of Vietnam Art Gallery is Minh Phuong. Minh's paintings embody the essence of Vietnamese grace. His works breathe a metaphor of sensuality with his figures emerging from the darkness almost as if the artist has just struck a match.
Minh Phuong - Country Girl 6 - $1,000 - more >>
= The next stop on our itinerary is a theme park, Vietnamese style - a Buddhist theme park! =
Suoitien Cultural Theme Park, located about 18 kms east of Ho Chi Minh City is a theme park dedicated to the Buddha and Vietnamese culture. Spread over lush countryside with a total area of about 106 hectares, this park is truly unique.
As well as its homage to the Buddha, Suoitien Cultural Theme Park honours Vietnam's four sacred animals - the dragon, unicorn, tortoise, and phoenix - and by doing so, the park creators hope to bring safety, happiness and good luck to all visitors and their families.
The Park features an underground aquarium, an animal kingdom with hundreds of forest animals, race cars, a roller coaster, skating rinks, a ferris wheel, water slides, a Boeing plane, an orchard garden, woods spacious enough for open air camping, a bat cave, and mid-air cycling over a crocodile farm with more than 1,500 crocodiles.
My favourite feature is the Buddha fountain watching over swimmers in the pool below - I'd never seen anything like this before.
==== It's time to add another tempting item to your repertoire of Vietnamese dishes! ====
Deep fried tiger prawns [shrimp] with lychee and a chilli mayonnaise sauce.
Chef Nguyen Xuan Minh, from the Hanoi Daewoo's Cafe Promenade Restaurant, takes no prisoners with this dish, which combines mayonnaise and tomato ketchup to create a rich, creamy and very naughty sauce which he then pours over deep fried tiger prawns.
When questioned over this unusual combination Minh urged people to try it, saying it would bring surprising results.
INGREDIENTS:
- 500g tiger prawn meat
- 1 egg white, whipped
- 2 tbls cornstarch
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tsp roasted sesame seeds
- 150g tinned lychee
- 200g mayonnaise
- 2 tsp chilli sauce
- 2 tsp of tomato ketchup
- Cooking oil for deep frying
PREPARATION:
* Mix the prawn meat with salt, pepper, whipped egg white and cornstarch and leave for 10 minutes.
* Heat enough oil in a pan for deep frying (about 170C) before adding the prawns and cooking until crisp. Remove and allow to dry on a paper towel.
* Mix the mayonnaise with the chilli sauce and tomato ketchup then add to a pan on very low heat. Add the lychee and prawn meat. Saute gently until the mayonnaise and chilli sauce covers the prawns.
* Remove to a serving dish and sprinkle with the roasted sesame seeds. Serve with rice or noodles, straight up.
Enjoy!
Thank you for reading! We wish you peace and good fortune for the coming month!
============== Artist Roster ==============
Our database of up-and-coming artists has doubled in the last few months and we now have over 850 original art pieces in our database -- one of the largest virtual galleries on the Internet! Here's a rundown on the artists you'll find in our pages. Think you can pick the next Bui Xuan Phai?
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