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The whispers spread around the hall nervously predicting the winner of the competition. Who would it be? Would the classic designs of Hieu Anh win over Long’s innovative sleeveless dresses or would the wild frontier outfits from Dong Nai’s Huu Loi triumph? -the audience was restless but the judges wouldn’t be rushed. Such was the electric atmosphere at the UK/Vietnam fashion 2002 show and ‘24/7’ competition in the spring of 2002.
As everyone knows, fashion is a passion for many Vietnamese and fans came out in their hundreds in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to see the latest Graduate Fashion Week collection from the UK and the collections from young Vietnamese designers who entered the ‘24/7’ competition. With a panel of celebrity judges pondering the outcome the task was difficult as so many of the clothes were innovative and high quality. In the end though the decision was unanimous and young designer Nguyen Hoang Long won with his collection Spirit of the Soul. The pize was to visit the London Fashion Week which gave him further inspiration to fuel and nurture his rich talent.
With the recent box office success of Gai Nhay the Vietnamese film industry is enjoying a boom time and some would say the same is true for the British film industry with films like Bend it like Beckham and Billy Elliott. To celebrate both the industries we screened a unique retrospective film series, Five Decades of British and Vietnamese film with a film from each of our countries for each decade since 1950. With favourites like The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and Chi Tu Hau (1962) film enthusiasts were able to compare and contrast styles while cinema goers got a unique taste of some celluloid classics. Bringing us up to date, the screening of Iris was well received as was Dang Nhat Minh’s Mua Oi (Guava Season).
When she received a call from us telling her that she had attained the highest ever IELTS English test mark - 8 - in Vietnam, Dung could not believe it. Her screams of excitement got the attention of her colleagues who soon joined the celebrations when they discovered her fantastic achievement. Dung hopes to get a scholarship to study in the UK in the future within 2 years - the amount of time an IELTS score remains valid. Dung is modest about her achievement - she hoped to get a score of 5.5 or a 6 but an 8 - the highest IELTS score possible - was beyond her wildest dreams.
What do you get when you put Britain’s best jazz singer together with one of Vietnam’s most innovative pop singers? The audiences at our concerts at the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Opera Houses would probably say ‘pure chemistry’ such was the rapport the two singers had together. Playing to visitors of the 2002 Education UK exhibition in the Autumn, the singers’ obvious enjoyment and varied programme made for great entertainment with just Ian’s piano for accompaniment.
When we supported choreographer Le Vu Long to visit a showcase of British contemporary dance as part of our new dance project we expected him to return to Vietnam with some new inspiration and ideas but we never thought that within months of returning he’d create a new contemporary dance troupe of people with severe hearing impairments and put on a show at the Opera House with them. But this is exactly what he did and Vietnam’s first contemporary dance troupe, TogetherHigher, was born. Much like the British contemporary dance company Candoco, Long is interested in dancing with people with disabilities not because he feels sorry for them but because he passionately believes they have the right to use art as a form of self expression as any other person. By so doing the dancers challenge audiences to rethink their perceptions of what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ for people in society. Their first piece, Noi Den explored the silence of deafness and the physicality of sign language and was deemed a critical success by dance fans and critics alike.
Popular conversation group with visiting guests, ‘In-conversation’ launched in our information centres
ELT guru and specialist, Mario Rinvolucri gets VTTN members on their feet for learning games and role play at annual national VTTN conference
Final concert in the five year orchestra improvement project under the baton of Colin Metters
Sight impaired students from Nguyen Dinh Chieu school teach our Information centre members how to write Braille on World Book Day 2002
We sponsored TogetherHigher’s second piece of work, Eye of the Storm, in 2003 which like their debut piece Noi Den received great reviews and media coverage.
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