Nam Giao Offering Ritual will re-enacted in Festival Hue 2008

Nhan Dan Online- Hue Festival 2008 will be held from June 3 to 11, highlighting  cultural heritage with integration and development.

The deputy director of the festival’s organising committee said at a press conference held today that the Hue Festival 2008 will an international cultural and tourist festival, and will act as a typical forum for art exchanges imbued with Vietnamese and Hue cultural identity, in association with the encouragement of international exchanges, socio-economic development and the promotion of Vietnamese tourism.

This year also sees the celebration of the 15th anniversary of Hue’s complex of monuments being listed as a World Cultural Heritage site (December 11, 1993) and the fifth anniversary of Hue royal court music (nha nhac) being recognised as a masterpiece of intangible heritage of humanity (November 7, 2003). 

Hue Festival 2008’s organising committee announced the events at press conference in Hanoi this afternoon.

For the first time, the Hue Festival will attract a recorded number of traditional and contemporary art troupes and sculptors from 27 nations. Of which, performing art troupes will come from 20 countries, including 11 countries from Europe, six from Asia, two from North America, and one from Oceania. Sculptors will come from 18 countries with nine from Europe, five from Asia, two from America and one from Australia.

Apart from art performances to be held at night inside the Citadel, An Dinh Palace and squares, various colouful festivities will be organised. Royal festivities to be re-enacted include the ceremony in honour of the sky and the earth or called Nam Giao Offering Ritual which presents the grandiosity of a grand royal rite at Hue ancient capital; the Imperial Nights programme that spotlights the glistering beauty of the Citadel at night time; and the Royal Doctorate Examination which honours talented people in martial arts.

Other attractive programmes will also be organised such as the programme of ‘Discovery of the Perfume River’s Legend’ which depicts the beauty as well as the legends of a well-known river and the grand fashion show of ao dai (ladies’ long traditional dress) revealing the further allure of Vietnamese ao dai.

Hue Festival 2008 will also see a wide range of community activities like sampan racing, kite flying, children painting, art exhibitions and seminars.

Prior to the Hue Festival, a variety of traditional and folkloric festivities, starting from the lunar New Year festival, will warm up the great official event. The fifth International Sculpture Symposium will be launched on May 3, 2008 at the Abalone Resort and will last in one month as a traditional prelude to Hue Festival.

Around 300,000 tourists are expected to join Hue Festival 2008. In 2006, Hue received around 150.000 visitors, including 20.000 international guests.

By Dieu Thuy