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Arts & Entertainment

While the international fever for his debut show Lang Toi (My Village) hadnt cooled down yet, last June director Tuan Le went on to introduce his second production: AO Show. Deploying the narrative capability of choreography, this time the director wants to tell the world an engrossing story about Vietnamese shermen and the metamorphosis theyve undergone. At rst, I was afraid AO Show would fall into the trap of this formula: war plus ao dai plus grazing buffalo in a paddy eld equal so-called Vietnams essence. So I dragged myself to the show only to please my fellow Couchsurfer, whose jaw would drop at the tritest dogs learning math or gibbons riding bicycle circus stunts on earth. Ironclad though my prejudices were, they all evaporated at the Saigon Opera House. Clashing with the neo-classical pillars of this majestic building, the larger-thanlife bamboo at the entrance heralds a string of juxtaposed imageries on stage. As the curtain is raised,

the sonorous ute notes cut open the motorbike horn sound, sailing me to a shing village of the Southern coast of Vietnam. There, the splendor of everyday labor sparkles with the morale of the villagers, who are celebrating yet another working day. I couldnt stop my eyeballs from rolling back and forth the highly-strung acrobatic acts, which did a great job in accentuating the artists graceful body curves. Through the prism of art, even the most ordinary shing tools can reproduce mind-blowing imageries. The rattan baskets, for example, constantly transform into the moon-led dunes, the crab carapaces, and then the cozy nests for lovebirds these enchantments injected my curiosity muscles with an overdose of imagination. And the surreal gymnastics of a boneless acrobat in the following scene simply stretched this sensation tenfold. Tuan Les Cirque du Soleil background leaves a vivid mark on the second half of the show as the shermen break away from their hometown. The street artists parkour performance to the colorful medley of dan tranh (bamboo percussion) and dan nhi (two-string guitars) made me wonder how come these versatile instruments had shrunk into oblivion. The director must have struggled to sail his boat through the waves of skeptical frowns before he blazes a trail in such cultural

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matchmaking, I guess. Bumpy bus rides, dingdong street masseurs, and bittersweet dorm stories together these slices of life craft an authentic mosaic that every Saigonese, natives and expats alike, can see themselves a very part of Throughout 60 minutes, the artists take the audience to a poetical adventure not only through time and space, but also across the whole gamut of emotions. The show would, otherwise, become a mind feast if only the narrative structure was more graspable and the artists put more effort in their facial expression. Although the pair of diamond tickets cost me an arm and a leg, what I got in return was by far worth it. What does the name AO really mean if not an exclamation of amazement? For further information, visit: bit.ly/AOShowFB bit.ly/AOShow