Ca tru cultural heritage needs to be preserved

The Vietnam Musical Institute has just carried out a project to investigate ca tru cultural heritage. On this occasion, a reporter from Nhan Dan Newspaper interviewed Prof. Le Van Toan, deputy head of the Vietnam National Musical Institute, about problems relating to ca tru.
Why are we investigating ca tru at present while a scientific profile about ca tru cultural heritage was basically completed in 2005?

In fact, so far, we haven’t got any list to investigate Vietnamese musical cultural heritage from traditional to modern types. This urgent problem has real significance in the preservation and promotion of traditional cultural heritage in modern life. When we realized this, we had to do the investigation.

We have met many difficulties while building a profile of ca tru culture because there has been no statistics about it. One year ago, the institute held a national scientific seminar on all musical heritages. After that, we were open to ideas and planned to develop a formal listing of musical cultural heritage.

Recently, we know that UNESCO set forth criteria for profiles of intangible cultural heritage, in which the heritage must put into a list of heritages with the participation of the community. This requires further cooperation to supplement our previous information to complete the profile.

As far as you know, how has UNESCO changed the recognition of intangible cultural heritage?

Since 2005, UNESCO stopped the recognition of intangible and oral cultural heritage. Recently, the title system has changed into two types, including intangible cultural heritage which needs urgent protection and intangible cultural heritage which represents human beings.

In the profile of ca tru heritage, the Musical Institute proposed that ca tru be listed as an intangible cultural heritage which needs urgent protection. What are the reasons for this choice?

Ca tru has existed for hundreds of years, even thousands of years, in different performance spaces such as spiritual culture, rituals, palaces and temples.

Ca tru exists both among common people and in imperial palaces. This means that it exists from common people to high-ranking ones in social life. In the 20th century, ca tru was put on stage and sung without dance. According to a survey by the institute, ca tru was performed in 17 provinces and cities. Thua Thien-Hue was the only place where there is no artist as it had the imperial performance space.

Several artisans who witnessed and performed ancient ca tru songs at the beginning of the 20th century are still alive. However, they are too old. Some ca tru clubs were set up in localities.

Right after the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism decided to choose ca tru to build a profile to propose UNESCO’s recognition, many ca tru activities have been held. A national ca tru festival and ca tru performances were held. At the same time, some ca tru clubs were established. What is your opinion about this?

The establishment of ca tru was unprompted. It can be said that this is a good sign for ca tru’s vitality. However, these activities also have two sides. If ca tru clubs are established to serve tourism and meet the demands of tourists for enjoyment without being true to its origin, it will be dangerous.

When localities complete statistics about ca tru, build an action plan and send it to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Musical Institute will consider, adjust and select the most feasible plans to complete and submit to the ministry.

As scheduled, the profile of ca tru will be completed for submission to UNESCO by late 2008. First, we will wait the statistics to make plans to meet artisans from 70 to 95 years old and record what they remember. This must be done immediately because they are old. They are a precious asset of the nation’s cultural heritage.

(Source: CPV/ND)

Tag: Culture , Festival , Hue , Tour , Tourism , Tourist , Vietnam , Vietnamese

Ca tru cultural heritage needs to be preserved

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