“Vietnamese Soul in the Ao Dai” - borrowing a musical about traditional national costumes

With the desire to "Bring Vietnamese costumes closer to the hearts of young people", the musical program combined with fashion elements " Ancient colors - Vietnamese soul in the shirt flap" led young audiences to the stories and meanings of each Vietnamese costume.

The Four Spirits' Ao Dai and the Nhat Binh Royal Lady's Ao Dai in the performance

Ancient colors - Vietnamese soul in the shirt flap organized by a group of 60 students from the Faculty of Public Relations - Communication, Van Lang University.

Instead of using the usual storytelling format, the group of students created a musical.

That is the story of a young designer named Minh Hien and his journey to find inspiration to renew Vietnamese costumes. The young designer has a big concern about how to preserve the ancient features of Vietnamese costumes while still absorbing new features of modern fashion.

A scene from the musical performed by student actors.

In this journey, the audience follows Minh Hien back to his hometown - where his grandfathers and grandmothers have many memories associated with traditional costumes. It was his grandfather's collection of Vietnamese costumes and the love for Vietnamese costumes of the elders in the village that helped Minh Hien find inspiration and complete the collection.

Within the framework of the play, the students also came up with ideas to bring Vietnamese costumes closer to young people such as: organizing performances, actively promoting on social networks or creating Vietnamese costumes designs combined with bachelor gowns as a trend among young people recently...

In particular, knowledge about Vietnamese costumes was cleverly integrated by the students into the details and dialogue of the characters. The final part of the musical was a performance of 8 Vietnamese costumes from the three regions of the Nguyen Dynasty. The costumes appeared one after another such as the five-panel shirt, the four-panel shirt, the Nhat Binh shirt... with detailed information about the design, the class that used it, the accompanying jewelry... to provide information to the audience.

Performance of Vietnamese costumes from three regions of the Nguyen Dynasty

Vuong Minh Thu, head of the organizing committee, shared: “During the idea generation process, the organizing committee realized that a part of today’s youth cannot really distinguish between Vietnamese costumes and foreign costumes. In addition, Vietnamese costumes have changed too much, no longer retaining their original nature. The creation of Sac Co Vien Xua aims to open up opportunities for students to cultivate, learn and feel more deeply the beauty of Vietnamese costumes, at the same time, broadening the perspective on national history and the journey of creating cultural features in ancient Vietnamese costumes.”

DO HOAI THUONG

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/hon-viet-trong-vat-ao-muon-nhac-kich-noi-ve-trang-phuc-truyen-thong-dan-toc-post753868.html