Int’l workshop featuring Bai choi singing to be held

An international workshop featuring Vietnam’s Bai choi singing and similar arts in the world will be held in Quy Nhon city, the central province of Binh Dinh, on January 13-14.
An international workshop featuring Vietnam’s Bai choi singing andsimilar arts in the world will be held in Quy Nhon city, the centralprovince of Binh Dinh, on January 13-14.

Over 20 reports on thefolk singing and world similar arts will be presented at the event bycultural researchers from France, Germany, Sweden, the Republic ofKorea, Laos and Vietnam, Nguyen Binh Dinh, Director of the VietnamNational Academy of Music, told a press conference on the workshop inQuy Nhon on January 6.

Participants will also hear opinions fromleaders and managers of the nine central coastal provinces, namely QuangBinh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, BinhDinh, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa.

They will focus on the history andculture of the central coastal localities, the performance art andmusic, as well as measures to preserve and promote the values of the BaiChoi singing with a view to completing a dossier to seek therecognition of the folk singing as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritagein 2016.

Unique to the central coastal region, Bai choi is oftenseen at local spring festivals and resembles a game, using playingcards and village huts.

The stage for Bai choi performancesencompasses nine cottages, each containing five or six ‘players’. One ofthe cottages, the central house, contains a troupe of musicians andinstruments. A deck of playing cards is split in half, with one stackdistributed amongst the players, and the other placed in the centralhouse. The cards are stuck onto bamboo poles and erected outside thecottages.

The game singer delivers a flag to each cottage,all the while singing Bai choi, and then draws a card from the centralhouse. Whoever holds the card closest in value to the game singer’s cardwins.

The Bai choi songs are about festivals, daily life and work, and are accompanied by musical instruments.

Thegame and songs were developed by Mandarin Dao Duy Tu (1572-1634) tohelp locals protect their crops, according to Hoang Chuong, Director ofthe Centre for Preservation and Promotion of National Culture.-VNA

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