Endless inspiration from the homeland

The unique and meaningful art program Opening the 2024 Peace Festival at the Hien Luong - Ben Hai National Historical Site on the evening of July 6 left a deep impression on the people. Contributing significantly to the success of this program is the chief choreographer Nguyen Hai Truong - a son of Quang Tri who has been successful with many professional dance programs and works. With all his heart and endless inspiration from his homeland, he directly staged and choreographed the performances on the opening night of the 2024 Peace Festival, touching the emotions of the audience, evoking the aspirations for peace from the sacred land of Quang Tri...

An impressive performance, touching the audience's emotions at the opening night of the 2024 Peace Festival - Photo: M.Đ

Happy to return to serve the homeland

Nguyen Hai Truong (born in 1990) impresses with his personality, serious and focused working style. He is a promising young choreographer, having won many national choreography awards. “Before participating in the 2024 Festival for Peace, I participated in many festivals and major programs and was fortunate to succeed as a choreographer. Taking on the role of general choreographer for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Festival for Peace, in addition to my responsibilities as a choreographer, I also strive as a son of Quang Tri,” said Mr. Truong.

Mr. Truong was born and raised in Vinh Giang commune, Vinh Linh district. Growing up in the steel-walled countryside, which experienced fierce war years, the story of the nation's heroic struggle permeated his emotions and imagination from a young age. On the opening night of the 2024 Peace Festival, 12 elaborately choreographed and staged performances conveyed many meaningful messages about peace, winning the hearts of thousands of spectators. To achieve that, chief choreographer Nguyen Hai Truong, his colleagues and more than 1,000 actors devoted all their efforts to the program.

He said: “During the event, the weather in Quang Tri was very sunny, but because of the large amount of work, my crew and I had to practice from early morning to late at night. With a team of up to 1,000 professional and non-professional actors, directing and guiding the entire crew to work smoothly and coordinate well in each performance was quite difficult. For non-professional actors, the choreographer not only had skills and experience but also had to have good teaching and communication skills, because they did not have the ability to perform. On the other hand, to fully convey the ideas and messages of the songs in the theme, I and the cast, especially the dancers, had to work and practice very hard.”

Chief choreographer Nguyen Hai Truong (left) and his colleagues devoted all their efforts to the opening night of the 2024 Festival for Peace in Quang Tri - Photo: M.Đ

The general theme “Connecting Bridges” takes Quang Tri as the center to depict the inspiration of the strong vitality of the peace-loving Vietnamese people, who have gone through thousands of years of history of fighting to preserve independence and freedom, proudly rising up in the integration period with endogenous strength, connecting with the strength of the times and continuing the story of peace. The 12 performances in the program are the result of a series of very detailed meetings on the scenarios. From the original idea of ​​the general director, it was transformed into words on paper and then assigned to the choreographers to calculate and convey the necessary values ​​in an extremely meaningful program like the Festival for Peace in 2024.

Love for national culture

Having been involved in the dance profession for over 13 years, Nguyen Hai Truong is a name that is not unfamiliar to those who love the art of dance. Few people know that this young choreographer also experienced difficult childhood days, struggling to pursue his passion.

He said that because his family was poor, he did not have the opportunity to learn art, nor did he have enough money to study dancing and singing, even though he loved it. However, Hai Truong was nourished by traditional stories and songs filled with faith and hope from the people of his homeland of “steel fences and flower fences”. In 2008, he passed the entrance exam to the Vietnam Dance Academy and graduated as a dancer, then continued to study choreography, and graduated in 2012.

Choreographer Nguyen Hai Truong is one of the few people of the 9x generation known for many outstanding works, which are dances with themes of war, revolution, spiritual space, customs, cultural colors of regions and ethnic groups... The works he staged truly and vividly reflect the cultural space and colorful life of ethnic groups in Vietnam; artistically bringing historical and humanistic values ​​to the stage. What is more special is that, despite being a young choreographer, Mr. Truong still loves to deeply research and wants to express themes of war and revolution, recreating the arduous, sacrificial but heroic struggles of the Vietnamese army and people. He often chooses difficult topics with the desire to constantly innovate to meet the requirements of the organizing unit and the tastes of the audience.

With his efforts and passion for art, Hai Truong is now one of the most promising young choreographers in the Vietnamese dance industry. “For me, the sacrifices and losses of the fierce war years that our fathers and brothers experienced are the richest source of material to create dance works with strong Vietnamese colors, praising revolutionary heroism. In addition, I often choose to incorporate cultural features with strong folk characteristics into my dance works so that the audience, especially young people, can understand and love Vietnamese traditional customs better,” Truong shared.

During his career, Mr. Truong has had the opportunity to travel to many regions, provinces and cities across the country. On each trip, he spends time paying attention to and learning about the unique and characteristic features of the culture, customs, beliefs and daily life of the local people. There are days when he eats and stays with ethnic minorities to directly experience their living and communication spaces. Then, when he returns, the cultural identities of each region, the image of the Vietnamese people with 54 ethnic groups are artistically and reasonably created and brought to the dance stage.

“Choreography is a profession that has a lot of “space” but is very “choosy”, so it requires those who do it to be constantly creative and have their own “quality”. In the coming time, I will continue to make efforts to find inspiration, context, and materials on traditional and cultural topics of the Vietnamese people. At the same time, I will coordinate with many young people who share the same passion for the art of dance to constantly cultivate and learn to improve the quality of my works”, Mr. Truong added.

Minh Duc

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/nguon-cam-hung-bat-tan-tu-manh-dat-que-huong-187191.htm