Vietnamese circus a success overseas, flounders at home Lang Toi Circus, a highly-regarded performance troupe which has played many foreign stages, faces difficulties in attracting audiences at home.   A scene from Lang Toi Circus After four years performing abroad, in places such as France, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, Greece, Hungary, Spain and the Netherlands, the Vietnam Circus Federation’s artists who took part in the circus act are struggling to earn a living after their return to Vietnam. Their overseas tour has been over for around a year, but the troupe has yet to perform domestically due to lack of an audience, substandard stage equipment and high ticket prices. People’s Artist Vu Ngoan Hop, director of the federation said, “Our biggest obstacle to holding a domestic performance is a lack of proper stage equipment." According to Hop, they had planned to organise two shows in August in Hanoi, at the Au Co Vietnamese Cultural Centre. This may have been a good chance for the troupe to transfer some of their experience in performance and stage management to the federation. “We’re mulling over a plan to hold Lang Toi Circus performance once per week at the centre or other location but it’s really difficult to make it come true. While the circus act requires highly standard infrastructure for performances, currently no stages in Vietnam would meet all the requirements to house a performance a week,” Hop commented. In order to arrange a domestic performance for Lang Toi, the federation was compelled to cancel some traditional acts so as to encourage artists to join the programme. However, after over one year with none of these plans for a performance coming to fruition, Lang Toi is in danger of fading from public consciousness. The situation has forced some members of the troupe to go back to more traditional circus acts to earn a living. Artist Cao Xuan Hien said, “I decided to give up Lang Toi and cooperate with some old friends to resume some traditional circus acts.” Some other artists find it difficult to accept these more modest performance fees, only about one twentieth of their overseas payments. Vu Ngoan Hop said, “Lang Toi was arranged with modern equipment but is culturally Vietnamese. Its major audiences are foreign people in Vietnam instead of Vietnamese people. In order to attract more audiences we’re considering adjusting our ticket prices." Source: BaoVanhoa