Critically evaluates assumptions of creativity by exploring the
dynamism of southern Vietnamese traditional music
For artists, creativity plays a powerful role in understanding,
confronting, and negotiating the crises of the present. Seeding the
Tradition explores conflicting creativities in traditional music in Hõ
Chí Minh City, the Mekong Delta, and the Vietnamese diaspora, and how
they influence contemporary southern Vietnamese culture. The book
centers on the ways in which musicians of đón ca tài tù, a "music for
diversion," practice creativity or sáng tạo in early 21st-century
southern Vietnam. These musicians draw from long-standing theories of
primarily Daoist creation while adopting strategically from and also
reacting to a western neo-liberal model of creativity focused
primarily--although not exclusively--on the individual genius. They play
with metaphors of growth, development, and ruin to not only maintain
their tradition but keep it vibrant in the rapidly-shifting context of
modern Vietnam. With ethnographic descriptions of zither lessons in Hõ
Chi Minh City, outdoor music cafes in Cãn Thơ, and television programs
in Đõng Tháp, Seeding the Tradition offers a rich description of
southern Vietnamese sáng tạo and suggests revised approaches to studying
creativity in contemporary ethnomusicology.