about our project
Introduction about our projectTransposition takes as its point of departure a series of discussions at a relevant political and artistic level held in Hanoi and Hochiminh City (hereafter HCMC) in December 2005, during which a long list of issues were addressed, which have formed the basis of our work from then on. We carried out a pedagogical project in HCMC and a concert project in Hanoi in November and December 2006, which gave us invaluable information about the level at which Transposition should be established, and about how much time and resources it will require. Our subsequent contact with both cities has indicated that they are positive to a continuation and expansion of the project, a fact which makes us feel welcome, even with a more extensive project. This description is therefore based on a set of conditions that our Vietnamese collaborators themselves have pointed out as being most in need of our help.
We have attempted to give the project a three-year perspective to begin with, in order to judge its effect within a reasonable space of time.
How does one go about establishing links with music institutions in a country with which one is not familiar? Our methodological approach to earning the confidence of the Vietnamese institutions consists of creating a mutual, reciprocal dialogue. For this it is vital that Norwegian and Vietnamese are treated as equal languages in the project, with English as a common third language. A major aspect of the difficulty of understanding between Asian and European culture lies in the interpretation of non-verbal codes, those that have to do with how one understands acceptance or insecurity - in other words how trust is built in a communicative relationship.
Another problem has been the fact that the Vietnamese have experienced that a number of European institutions have shown interest in coming over to "show themselves off" without really contributing anything. In this respect it has been important to us to show that our project fulfils the promises it has made.
We have considered it important to have Vietnamese project coordinators both in Vietnam and in Norway in order to ensure that dialogue between the institutions is as unequivocal as possible.