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| City
of lights: Thang Long Drums performs at the Hue
Festival in 2002. — VNA/VNS Photo Duc Ha |
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HA NOI —
Organisers of the third Hue Festival are busy as bees preparing
for its opening on June 12.
The biennial
festival will feature traditional concerts, dance and theatrical
performances, art exhibitions, banquets and special tours to
nearby sites.
Organisers
want the festival to showcase Hue as a cultural centre for artists
and art enthusiasts. In 1993, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recognised the city
as a World Cultural Heritage Site.
Steve Loose,
an Australian tourist, attended the second Festival in 2002 and
said: "It was wonderful. The programme showed me the real
Hue, with performances of the royal court, its music, dancing and
folk songs."
The festival
will stage events at the Citadel in the Dai Noi (the Citadel’s
Inner City), An Dinh Palace and by Tinh Tam Lake.
Events
include: culinary events, calligraphy exhibits, ao dai
(traditional Vietnamese dress) fashion shows, painting and
handicraft exhibitions, tourism services, and nha nhac
(royal court music) concerts, an art form recognised by UNESCO as
an "intangible oral masterpiece" in early November.
Organisers
have invited artists and musicians from France, China, Russia and
Argentina to perform.
To welcome
the festival, organisers hope to host an international sculpture
camp: Hue-Viet Nam Impression. The workshop would invite artists
from remote communes in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) to live
and work by the Huong River for the month of May. Thirty artists
have already registered for the event.
Organisers
gave a sneak-peak of the festival’s closing event: a night party
teeming with flowers and coloured lanterns.
The
festival’s theme is: Culture Heritage with Integration and
Development. It will close on June 20. — VNS
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