Explore Vietnam Traditional Performing Art, Stage Presence
Dinh Thi Hoa is eager to get the Vietnam National Tuong Theatre’s on time. She is the middle of preparing for her debut performance. Ever since she graduated from university she has been waiting for this moment and she is determined to give it her all.
“Rehearsals have been going for months but I am not even sure how long the play will run for,” says Hoa.
Another performer Nguyen Hoai Anh is also working hard. She gets. up early every morning and comes to the theatre to practice her singing and dancing.
“I don’t have a part in the upcoming play,” says the 21year old. “I am part of another troupe and we’re not actually practicing for a play right now.”
Yet she comes here and trains for 10 hours a day — as if opening night was a couple of days away.
The dedication is admirable, considering that other forms of entertainment offer far greater riches in the modern era.
Tuong is considered to be one of Vietnam’s great traditional performing arts, along with cheo and water puppetry. According to historians it already existed in an “embryonic form” in 1285 when Ly Nguyen Cat, a Chinese opera singer, was captured and brought to the Dai Viet court at Thang Long, now Hanoi.
While Ly Nguyen Cat applied some of the Chinese techniques and musical style to the stage performances at the Dai Viet court, there were also musical influences from the Hindu kingdom of Champa incorporated into the early tuong repertoire later in the 14th century. Like so much of Vietnamese culture, tuong is a combination of the indigenous blending with foreign influences.
Ever since, there have been highs and lows, ebbs and flows.






