By Josie Gibson
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Performer Soepri
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| Mr Stephen Dee |
For students of history it was a poignant moment. The beautifully restored Hanoi Opera House echoed with applause as the mainly Vietnamese audience showed its pleasure at a skilful rendition of a national favourite, ‘Duong chung huy du’ (The way we go). Popularised during the Vietnam War, the song had just been jointly performed by the New Monash Orchestra and a choir from the Hanoi Conservatory - the first time a foreign group had performed it in Vietnam.
"We had no idea what it would mean for people to hear that music," says Monash University executive director of public affairs, Mr Stephen Dee, who was in the audience. "Afterwards I spoke to a young woman barely old enough to remember the war. She had been brought up to think of Americans and Australians with suspicion. And there she was, sitting in that opera house listening to a highly patriotic Vietnamese song being played by an Australian orchestra."
It’s likely that the moment - and the Monash name - will be etched in the memories of many in the audience.
And out of the July visit could come future collaborations with other Asian educational institutions. According to Mr Dee, that’s precisely the sort of impact Monash seeks to make as it carves out a wider international reputation for its performing and visual arts sector.
"Our overriding goal is to get people in Australia and internationally to understand that among its many, many strengths, Monash has a strong, imaginative artistic program." Mr Dee says. "To build credibility, you’ve got to get out and do things, build partnerships and get to know people. We have to let them get a sense of what we’re about, personally and more importantly, professionally."
Such exercises often attract diplomatic support for the goodwill they engender. "These personal and institutional connections help us in our work of building the bilateral relationship between Australia and Vietnam," says the charge d’affairs at the Australian Embassy in Hanoi, Mr Greg Polson. "And concerts like those put on by the New Monash Orchestra serve to highlight Australian excellence in music."
Projects such as the orchestra tour symbolise a major departure from Monash’s early role mainly as a sponsor of other groups’ artists and productions. Recent efforts to reinvigorate the university’s performing and visual arts scene have begun to pay dividends, with critical acclaim for its graduates and a varied program of student musical performances, theatre productions and art exhibitions. With new state-of-the-art facilities, including an impressive gallery space, Monash’s Faculty of Art and Design is poised to make an even greater contribution to the artistic scene, encouraging visiting art researchers like Scotland’s Gordon Burnett to make Monash their base.
Monash has been an Australian leader in its commitment to internationalisation, opening its first overseas campus in Malaysia in July 1998. International engagement, however, doesn’t simply mean packing a bag and heading for the airport. One of the university’s strategic goals is to bring some of the world’s best to Australia. Star Russian pianist Yuri Rozum, for example, last year became an adjunct professor at Monash and will spend a month each year working in the Music department. And Monash has helped to bring out a number of high-profile artists for residencies and productions, including renowned Indonesian sculptor Dadang Christanto, Canadian multimedia artist Stephen Hogbin, and Indonesian dancer and choreographer Soepri.
Earlier this year, some of the international scene’s most respected theatre teachers and practitioners gathered in Melbourne for an Australian International Workshop Festival organised by Monash in conjunction with Arts Victoria, the Australia Council and the Victorian College of the Arts. The event attracted instructors the calibre of Russia-based Gennadi Bogdanov, one of the world’s most sought-after teachers of Meyerhold’s theatre mechanics, French actor/director Enrique Pardo, and Japanese choreographer and performer Yukio Waguri.
Who benefits? Short-term, the 300 or so local students, teachers and professionals afforded a rare glimpse of world's best practice at work and long-term, Australia's own theatre scene.
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From top left: Andre de Quadros conducts the New Monash Orchestra; Scottish artist Gordon Burnett; Russian pianist Yuri Rozum with music student Michelle Scott; Indonesian sculptor Dadang Christanto in Gippsland; Vietnamese performers during the orchestra's Hanoi visit; the orchestra and a Hanoi Conservatory Choir. |
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"We should be in the business of supporting artists and new creative development, of providing experiences that will enable them to do something they haven't done before, to drive the culture forward generally," says Mr Dee. "It involves doing things that are appropriate to a university - research and development, training and education."
Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of this sharper international focus are Monash staff and students themselves. Monash's status as an expanding global institute committed to an international outlook makes it a gateway to opportunities unheard of a generation or two ago.
For many members of the New Monash Orchastra, the July tour was their first exposure to Asia.
"The students have had an experience they'll never forget," Mr Dee says. "It's been very gruelling, but I can confidently say they'd all do it again. Happily."