16 chord zither concert.

Nhan Dan/VNA- The Hue Festival closed last night at Ngo Mon (Noon Gate) Square after nine days of various traditional festivities.

The closing ceremony began with a show of 46 women modeling Vietnam ’s traditional ao dai dress who paraded alongside visions of Hue imperial palaces, natural scenes and the beauty of Hue people projected on a large screen.

Hue and the Huong River were brightly adorned with hundreds of lanterns of different sizes.

Also during the closing ceremony, the Hue Festival organising board and the Vietnam Guinness Books Centre, Vietkings, announced new records imbued with Hue cultural characteristics.

The records include four works made for the Hue Festival 2008, including “the Legend of the Huong River” programme which took place along the Huong river from Minh Mang wharf to Nghinh Luong Dinh yard on June 5-7. It was the largest river staged artistic programme in Vietnam.

The programme also saw the performance of the largest imperial boat, which is 27m in length, 4.5 m in width, and a load of 300 tonnes and is able to carry 100 people.

Another record was all 3,254 verses from the famous “Kieu’s Story” carved on 1,627 white cobblestones by a student from the Hue Arts University .

The Khanh Ha private company contributed a record, a 15m-long and 1.45m-wide picture made from cajeput bark and butterfly wings, depicting famous landscapes and relics in Vietnam’s northern, central and southern regions.

The largest ever stage built up on a 600sq.m acreage to outline a Vietnamese village panorama was also recognised.

The remaining records include a set of nine bronze urns cast in the 1835-1837 period with the biggest weighing 2,603.6kg and the lightest, 1,935kg; and nine largest bronze cannons made in the Gia Long Dynasty (1802-1820) with weights of between 11,122.8kg and 10,336.9kg.

The last record was a stone stele in King Tu Duc’s Tomb, which is 407cm high, 259cm wide, and weighs 22 tonnes.

One day before the closing ceremony, Xa Tac Worship Ritual, one of the main events of the Hue Festival was for the first time restaged in Hue Festival. This is one of the great royal ceremonies under the Nguyen Dynasty which prayed for peace and a bumper harvest.

The Hue Festival took place from June 3-11 with the participation of 62 art troupes from 22 countries under the theme “Cultural Heritage with Integration and Development.”

The festival featured special art performances and traditional rituals, and attracted more than 2 million visitors, including 30,000 foreigners.

Hereunder are some pictures of the closing ceremony:

Artistic drum performance

Dragon and Phoenix performance 

Folk music

Traditional music

A performance recalls a rural market day