Face the Darkness: When a child of Vietnamese boat refugees meets a child of Viet Cong

– a performance battle between oppositions

More than 40 years after the Vietnam War, the ghosts of the past are still passing through the country and dragging the border between north and south. Between the South Vietnamese government with support from the US and the North with support from the Soviet Union and China. The war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon when the North Vietnamese army conquered the capital city. North Vietnam / the Viet Congs won. South Vietnam lost. After the war, the South Vietnamese fled and in the period 1975-1985 Denmark received a total of 3,700 Vietnamese boat refugees.

In 2018, the dancer Linh and the musician Minh meet randomly in Denmark. One is a child of Vietnamese boat refugees, the other of Viet Cong. Without even having been there during the war, they discover how many prejudices they face. Together, they decide to confront the prejudices and battle in an alternative way. To get it out of the body – to see and feel if they can get on the other side and reconcile the two oppositions.

Face the Darkness: When a child of Vietnamese boat refugees meets a child of Viet Cong is a performance battle between live music and dancing. The dancer Linh and the musician Minh are fighting each other through their art form and are confronted with the past and their knowledge that their families have fought each other in the Vietnam War. The question is whether they can understand each other through art or whether they will continue to fight their parents’ struggles?

The performance revolves around the collision of different backgrounds, the encounter with the other, and the complex process of dealing with past, memories, repressed anger, and grief. It can be experienced at Teaterhuset’s scene Vox from March 13th-15th 2019.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2039720659441439/

Face the Darkness: When a child of Vietnamese boat refugees meets a child of Viet Cong is supported by Snyk and Københavns Musikudvalg.

P2 Puls covered our performance: https://www.dr.dk/radio/p2/p2-puls/p2-puls-2019-03-16?fbclid=iwar1du-_jztig5cwudcwtkivqeqj7cgxaefalffwy4acdoyuctd_6fbbmljq

Photos by Ky Tran.

Further development

Face the Darkness: When a child of Vietnamese boat refugees meets a child of Viet Cong is our first performance in the series Face the Darkness. We aim to create more performance battles in which art and improvisation is the method for communicating with the other. In 2020, we will work on developing our project and show work-in-progresses in Vietnam. In 2021 – the year of 50 years anniversary for diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Denmark, we show our final performance.

Our further development of Face the Darkness is supported by Dansk Artist Forbund.