First school opens course training musical performers

Lecturer Cao Thị Phương Dung at the Hà Nội Academy of Theatre and Cinema.

Musical Giấc Mơ Chí Phèo (Chí Phèo's Dream) will be performed next month in Hà Nội. The musical has been produced based on a popular piece of Vietnamese literature. Musical performing is a new way for local theatres to attract audiences, especially younger ones.

Lecturer Cao Thị Phương Dung from the Hà Nội Academy of Theatre and Cinema talks about training musical performers.

Could you tell about the basic criteria and requirements set for professional musical artists?

Musical performers are different from other theatre genres in that they must master skills of singing, dancing and acting, all at the same time. All the skills need to be trained equally because on the musical stage the performers sometimes sing, sometimes they dance, sometimes they just act and sometimes they use all three skills at the same time.

Therefore, the basic criteria for professional musical performers is to ensure that the three elements must be equally good.

Plus, English is also needed because there are not many Vietnamese musicals.

In your opinion, have musical performers in Việt Nam met the standard of musical requirement?

From the perspective of an audience watching musicals, I see an imbalance in musical performance skills. Việt Nam National Opera & Ballet and HCM Ballet and Symphony Orchestra are the leading theatres. But the artists are good at singing, not acting. Performers from others theatres including the Việt Nam Youth Theatre and IDECAF Theatre lack of singing and dancing skills.

I think that it is due to musical performance training in Việt Nam. Artistic training institutes like the Việt Nam National Academy of Music, the Việt Nam Academy of Dance and the Hà Nội Academy of Theatre and Cinema and others don't teach musical performing.

What's needed to solve the problem?

In my opinion we should have specific solutions to solve this problem. There are different ways to do. Training musical performers methodically and professionally is extremely necessary.

The musical performers should hone their skills by themselves. The theatres needs to have training course for their performers. The course could be short or long, depending on the theatres' finance.

The theatres need to cooperate with the art schools and experts including foreign experts to training the performers.

Training is essential helping the performers to improve their skills meeting the demand of audience. The trained performers will contribute to develop musical theatre in Việt Nam.

Musical 'Trại Hoa Vàng' (Yellow Flowers Camp) performed by the Việt Nam Youth Theatre. Photos thethaovanhoa.vn

The Hà Nội Accademy has held the first course training musical performers. What difficulties were there for the academy in being the first school in Việt Nam to train musical performers?

The musical genre has flourished quite a bit in recent years. Young audiences love this type of theatre and they flock to see it in large numbers.

The academy has opened a course for musical performing training. We are the first and only art school training musical performing in the country, so of course, the road ahead still has many challenges, but I believe our school will overcome them.

We recruit talented students with a team of good lecturers so hopefully we will have qualified musical performers in future. VNS