LUANG PRABANG - Villa Maly has launched Nava Mekong, a dinner cruise along the river in Luang Prabong..
The cruise embarks daily at 5:30 pm, motors downstream to moor near a traditional village for dinner and music, and returns at 9 pm.
The traditional Lao river boat also embarks at 10:30 am for a four-hour lunch cruise that takes in the Pak Ou Caves.
During the afternoon cruise, the Nava stops at the Pak Ou Caves where 5,000 sacred Buddhist statues and images are scattered among two limestone grottoes.
On the evening cruise, traditional Lao dancers from nearby villages perform age-old sets.
Through April, the Nava charges US$30 for dinner and $35 for lunch.
Stay two nights at the Villa Maly and the cruise is complimentary.
Villa Maly, the former residence of a Lao prince and princess, opened in October with 28 superior rooms and five deluxe rooms.
Showing posts with label Dancers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dancers. Show all posts
Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
Hanoi women get a wiggle on with belly-dancing craze
A BELLY-DANCE craze is sweeping the capital of communist Vietnam, causing jaws to drop, lifting spirits and -- the dancers say -- empowering women through a new mode of self-expression.
Since the sensual mid-East dance arrived in Hanoi two years ago, six dance groups have popped up and more than 1000 women have joined, among them students, businesswomen, journalists and a police officer.
"I've lived in many places in Asia -- Hong Kong, Shanghai, The Philippines, India -- but in Vietnam belly dancing took off faster than anywhere else," said Ara Hwang, the South Korean choreographer who brought the dance to Hanoi. "I came here from Shanghai to teach salsa and I saw that Vietnamese women are attractive and have lots of passion, so I thought: why not belly dancing?"
Hwang was surprised to see how the dance form, born centuries ago in the harems of the Middle East, took off in urban Vietnam.
"In Vietnamese culture, traditionally, you are not supposed to show your feelings," she said. "But I know Vietnamese women have a very, very strong character, and this has given them a way to express themselves."
Huong Giang, a journalist who got hooked after taking a belly dance course to write a story, said: "It's boosted my confidence. It's kind of erotic and exciting, and it's separate from your normal life."
Not everyone here initially shared the enthusiasm.
"At first my boyfriend didn't want me to perform," said marketing student Nguyen Kieu Trinh. "But he saw how I felt the change in my body and in my mind, and that I feel happier, and now he really supports the belly dancing."
Apsara runs a dance troupe for women aged mostly in their 40s, named Hoa Sen (Lotus).
"In the beginning, people often think this is something you see in a disco or in a bar, but we don't care," Hwang said. "We educate them with our attitude, and people are starting to change and understand."
More than 500 people showed up this month for the Second Belly Dance Festival in Hanoi.
The audience watched performers through clouds of shisha pipe tobacco smoke, in a room laid out with Oriental carpets.
AFP/
Frank Zeller, Hanoi December 23, 2008
Since the sensual mid-East dance arrived in Hanoi two years ago, six dance groups have popped up and more than 1000 women have joined, among them students, businesswomen, journalists and a police officer.
"I've lived in many places in Asia -- Hong Kong, Shanghai, The Philippines, India -- but in Vietnam belly dancing took off faster than anywhere else," said Ara Hwang, the South Korean choreographer who brought the dance to Hanoi. "I came here from Shanghai to teach salsa and I saw that Vietnamese women are attractive and have lots of passion, so I thought: why not belly dancing?"
Hwang was surprised to see how the dance form, born centuries ago in the harems of the Middle East, took off in urban Vietnam.
"In Vietnamese culture, traditionally, you are not supposed to show your feelings," she said. "But I know Vietnamese women have a very, very strong character, and this has given them a way to express themselves."
Huong Giang, a journalist who got hooked after taking a belly dance course to write a story, said: "It's boosted my confidence. It's kind of erotic and exciting, and it's separate from your normal life."
Not everyone here initially shared the enthusiasm.
"At first my boyfriend didn't want me to perform," said marketing student Nguyen Kieu Trinh. "But he saw how I felt the change in my body and in my mind, and that I feel happier, and now he really supports the belly dancing."
Apsara runs a dance troupe for women aged mostly in their 40s, named Hoa Sen (Lotus).
"In the beginning, people often think this is something you see in a disco or in a bar, but we don't care," Hwang said. "We educate them with our attitude, and people are starting to change and understand."
More than 500 people showed up this month for the Second Belly Dance Festival in Hanoi.
The audience watched performers through clouds of shisha pipe tobacco smoke, in a room laid out with Oriental carpets.
AFP/
Frank Zeller, Hanoi December 23, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Dispatches from China: Dancers teach lessons to Chinese about cowboys, Indians and Montana
Dispatches from China: Dancers teach lessons to Chinese about cowboys, Indians and MontanaBy Joe Nickell of the Missoulian
Trick-roping cowboy Wade Black gazes through a notch in the Great Wall of China. Photo by JOE NICKELL/Missoulian
Missoulian Entertainer Editor Joe Nickell is accompanying the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre on its tour of China.BEIJING - Around 3 p.m. on Saturday, two plush chartered buses pulled to a stop in a wide spot on a busy road in Beijing. Out of the buses tumbled our group of 42 dancers, instructors, and assorted supporters from the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre. We stood in the wide spot of the street for awhile, snapping photos of the opulent new Olympic aquatics facility and the imposing Digital Center that loomed across the road from us.A group of Chinese travelers dressed in matching T-shirts printed with the Olympic logo and the words “Shangxi Modal” stood nearby, smiling and waving Chinese flags. Someone from our group snapped a photo of them.
Soon, several of the American visitors were standing in a row, laughing and shooting photos of the Chinese tourists as they snapped photos of us.This was the closest that the RMBT delegation will get to the Olympics during this two-week visit. The Olympics don't begin for another three months; and despite our escort dispatch of three government handlers, there was no tour of the facilities for us. Just a short stop on the side of a road - a stop that turned into an impromptu cultural encounter in which few words were exchanged, yet permanence was sealed with a hundred digital camera flashes.As we reboarded the buses, a young boy sitting on a pile of construction material nearby lifted both hands to his face as if holding a camera, and shouted, “click-click-click,” until we were gone.It's been surreal like that ever since we landed in Beijing, this smoggy, bustling world where new high-rise towers loom over streets still dominated by rickety old bicycles.At lunch on Saturday - a lunch that featured such culinary curiosities as duck feet and “fungus of the sea” - I asked Native American fancy-dancer Louie Plant of Arlee to tell me about the moment when he first got the sense that he's not in Montana anymore.“You mean besides the 11-hour bus ride, the 11-hour plane ride, the smog, and all the people here?” he replied, laughing. “Well, besides all that, I'd say it's the vendors at the Great Wall (where we visited early Saturday). They're not like at powwows, they're all really aggressive. At powwows, nobody really pushes you to buy things you don't want.”Moments later, Plant experienced yet another moment of cultural surprise, when he learned that Chinese people typically don't finish eating all the food on their plates, out of fear of giving the unintended message that hosts haven't prepared enough food.“Hmm,” he said, staring at his plate for a long moment. “I wonder if I follow my culture's tradition, or theirs?” He eventually ate all of his food.Such cross-cultural quandaries are both unexpected and intentional; indeed, they're at the root of what this trip is about. Though ostensibly organized as a performance tour in semi-conjunction with the Olympics, the RMBT trip to China is more about showing young dancers from Montana what Chinese culture is really about - and showing the Chinese what Montana is really about.As they chat amongst themselves, the dancers seem to get it, at least on a philosophical level, from their own experiences of prejudice.“Wherever I go, people see a cowboy and so they figure there's got to be an Indian around somewhere,” said Wade Black, a trick-roping cowboy brought along on the trip to perform with the RMBT dancers.“Yeah, it's like, ‘Dude, are they gonna fight? They gonna pull out bows and arrows? Cool!' ” joked Shonto Pete, a Native American traditional dancer who lives in Spokane.Still, recognizing those predilections doesn't make the duck feet go down any easier.“I think it'd probably be a little different for somebody from a big city in the United States to come here,” said Black. “Me, I'm from out West. I'm not used to being around this many people. It's definitely a different thing for me.”
Trick-roping cowboy Wade Black gazes through a notch in the Great Wall of China. Photo by JOE NICKELL/Missoulian
Missoulian Entertainer Editor Joe Nickell is accompanying the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre on its tour of China.BEIJING - Around 3 p.m. on Saturday, two plush chartered buses pulled to a stop in a wide spot on a busy road in Beijing. Out of the buses tumbled our group of 42 dancers, instructors, and assorted supporters from the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre. We stood in the wide spot of the street for awhile, snapping photos of the opulent new Olympic aquatics facility and the imposing Digital Center that loomed across the road from us.A group of Chinese travelers dressed in matching T-shirts printed with the Olympic logo and the words “Shangxi Modal” stood nearby, smiling and waving Chinese flags. Someone from our group snapped a photo of them.
Soon, several of the American visitors were standing in a row, laughing and shooting photos of the Chinese tourists as they snapped photos of us.This was the closest that the RMBT delegation will get to the Olympics during this two-week visit. The Olympics don't begin for another three months; and despite our escort dispatch of three government handlers, there was no tour of the facilities for us. Just a short stop on the side of a road - a stop that turned into an impromptu cultural encounter in which few words were exchanged, yet permanence was sealed with a hundred digital camera flashes.As we reboarded the buses, a young boy sitting on a pile of construction material nearby lifted both hands to his face as if holding a camera, and shouted, “click-click-click,” until we were gone.It's been surreal like that ever since we landed in Beijing, this smoggy, bustling world where new high-rise towers loom over streets still dominated by rickety old bicycles.At lunch on Saturday - a lunch that featured such culinary curiosities as duck feet and “fungus of the sea” - I asked Native American fancy-dancer Louie Plant of Arlee to tell me about the moment when he first got the sense that he's not in Montana anymore.“You mean besides the 11-hour bus ride, the 11-hour plane ride, the smog, and all the people here?” he replied, laughing. “Well, besides all that, I'd say it's the vendors at the Great Wall (where we visited early Saturday). They're not like at powwows, they're all really aggressive. At powwows, nobody really pushes you to buy things you don't want.”Moments later, Plant experienced yet another moment of cultural surprise, when he learned that Chinese people typically don't finish eating all the food on their plates, out of fear of giving the unintended message that hosts haven't prepared enough food.“Hmm,” he said, staring at his plate for a long moment. “I wonder if I follow my culture's tradition, or theirs?” He eventually ate all of his food.Such cross-cultural quandaries are both unexpected and intentional; indeed, they're at the root of what this trip is about. Though ostensibly organized as a performance tour in semi-conjunction with the Olympics, the RMBT trip to China is more about showing young dancers from Montana what Chinese culture is really about - and showing the Chinese what Montana is really about.As they chat amongst themselves, the dancers seem to get it, at least on a philosophical level, from their own experiences of prejudice.“Wherever I go, people see a cowboy and so they figure there's got to be an Indian around somewhere,” said Wade Black, a trick-roping cowboy brought along on the trip to perform with the RMBT dancers.“Yeah, it's like, ‘Dude, are they gonna fight? They gonna pull out bows and arrows? Cool!' ” joked Shonto Pete, a Native American traditional dancer who lives in Spokane.Still, recognizing those predilections doesn't make the duck feet go down any easier.“I think it'd probably be a little different for somebody from a big city in the United States to come here,” said Black. “Me, I'm from out West. I'm not used to being around this many people. It's definitely a different thing for me.”
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