Background

Concerns

Where have Vietnamese arts organizations gone? With the economic climate feeling stagnant, funding for the arts are drying up. The number of art events will continue to decline until the economy picks up again. In the meantime, figuring out cost-saving techniques will be important, and a focus on fewer, higher-quality productions will be more important as we prioritize our resources. But, we still want to foster and maintain the talent in our region. While we are riding out the downturn, maintaining that network will be important to revive creative growth.

The preservation of the vibrancy of Tết (and Tết Trung Thu) will be priority for us in the years to come. One youth member relates her concerns, "The [Tet Festival] I volunteered for was so depressing. There was no food, people had booths to try to get people to buy things, and it did not have that New Year/festive/cheerful vibe I was hoping for."

Suggested Strategies

We, as members of UVSA, should:

• Pool resources and cut down on waste and inefficiency: reuse, reduce, recycle. We can identify and partner up with costume and prop rental companies to warehouse Vietnamese props/costumes.
  
• Network with creative talent agencies and Vietnamese arts organizations to manage talented Vietnamese and have access to non-Vietnamese talent. We should have VSAs start thinking about utilizing these agencies/organizations for their work. We can also work with Vietnamese culture experts in the region to teach interesting tidbits of Vietnamese culture to our youths. These talents and experts can be invited to help spice up general meetings. A webmaster's network to share technical expertise would also be useful.
  
• Encourage Vietnamese writers to submit work into an anthology. The culture show directors of succeeding years can draw upon the works from this anthology to inspire their playwright. We can consider themes of "Facing Adversity", especially considering tough economic times, people need a story they can relate to and help them overcome these difficult times. We can do this by working with historians/publications officers of each VSA.
  
• Re-establish relationship with sponsors and help them see that they are investing their donations into creative, innovative work that has staying value (e.g. even 400 years later, people are still doing Shakespeare plays).
  
• Have monthly meetups to meet fellow creatives. We can start off with First Fridays in San Jose where admission to museums are free. We should use the Summit as a space for reflecting how our year as an Arts Commission went and how we can improve for the upcoming year.
  
• Help VSAs maintain their resources for their organizations and culture show by encouraging the use of the binder to organize their knowledge.
  
• Hold our next Arts Forum at the UVSA Summit to assess our progress, make changes as needed, and update the next iteration of the Roadmap.