PRIDE OF MELODY SERIES

For Dream Studio, despite accompanying the project for only half of the journey, Pride of Melody was not merely a televised music program but an experiment in the ability to connect collective memory through contemporary art. Instead of approaching timeless songs as heavily illustrative performances, the production team chose to build each broadcast episode as a storytelling space depicting a slice of a decade, where music, stage, and cross-generational dialogue co-created a unified experience of an era's memory.

Localized from the Russian television format “National Property”, Pride of Melody focused on recreating musical works that have become a part of the memories of many Vietnamese generations. For Dream Studio, the greatest challenge lay not in refreshing familiar songs from a musical perspective, but in creating a theatrical language powerful enough for modern audiences to connect with historical values.

In the first five episodes, Dream Studio developed a unique signature staging system by combining multiple languages of contemporary art with the traditional stage. Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Shadow Performance, and a minimalist staging language were flexibly applied in each act, creating diverse expressive spaces that always served the content and spirit of each song. Rather than deploying technology purely as a visual element, all theatrical solutions aimed to expand emotional depth and create new layers of meaning for familiar masterpieces.

From the installation forest of wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs in “Dấu chân tròn trên cát (Round Footprints on the Sand)”, evoking the silent sacrifices of wounded soldiers and martyrs; the life-size artillery cannon appearing on stage in “Hò kéo pháo (Artillery Pulling Chant)”; to the solitary soldier's hat placed against an endlessly scrolling list of martyrs' names in “Bài ca không quên (The Unforgettable Song)”, everything was restrained yet powerful enough to create profound emotional impacts. Instead of depicting the war through tragedy or ostentation, Dream Studio chose to awaken memories through evocative symbols, allowing each spectator, especially those who lived through that era, to complete the rest of the story with their own memories.

After each performance, discussions between two commentary panels from different generations further expanded the musical story into historical memory, culture, and contemporary perspectives. This very structure created the program's distinct identity, where the stage was not just a performance space but also became a space for dialogue between the past and the present.

For Dream Studio, Pride of Melody was one of the projects specially researched and invested in with all the love for the country's history and heroic years. It harmoniously combined performance art with cultural and historical depth during the creative process. The experiments in theatrical language, storytelling mindset, and heritage approach through contemporary art in this series established the foundation for many large-scale cultural projects developed by Dream Studio later on. Furthermore, the program also brought Dream Studio and the production team the “Program Series of the Year” at the Dedication Music Award shortly after.