Huu Tran

DIRECTOR / WRITER NOTES

My purpose of making Children of the Dragon is to find out what is the appropriate community arts model to empower Vietnamese community in Australia and hoping through this production the possible answer is to be revealed.  If it can apply and work well with Vietnamese people and then the appropriate model can be used with any group of people from any cultural background.  I personally encountered with many Vietnamese artists and community members, who were involving in the community arts in the past 7 years, but I did not really have an opportunity to document their works, philosophy and experiences, however, I want Children of the Dragon can bring the true element of being Vietnamese living in Australia.  Because I have heard and seen that Vietnamese Australians were often falsely portrayed in the Australian media.  I think Vietnamese aren’t recognised as Australian yet, so this project could reflect on this issue. 

As director, I don’t just want to develop a simple theatre production based on the typical use a variety of performance model: acting, music, dance and martial arts but also focus the broaden topic of identity, culture belongs through more specific issues, such as unemployment, sexuality and depression, but also the challenge is to continually negotiate chameleon, style, the misperception, blind spots and double exposures of cross cultural exchange.  I remembered one of the community member pointed out that arts are part of everyone’s life and everyone is part of the communities.   This inspirational idea has driven me to extend my visual literacy and help me to create alternative images and styles for the community could express of their ideas and feelings freely in this production. 

I am sure it can be serve to bring people together, establish dialogues ascertain amongst Vietnamese people and inform others about the new process of pushing creative boundaries.

I am confident that Children of the Dragon will gain excellent media coverage which helped raise the awareness of artists and issues within the Vietnamese community in Australia.