Promoting socialization resources in the conservation of intangible cultural heritages

(LSO) – In recent years, the socialization in the preservation of intangible cultural heritages in the province has been concerned to be promoted by all levels of authorities and achieved encouraging results, contributing to preserving and promoting ethnic groups’ cultural identity.

Lang Son is a province with many ethnic groups living together, which has created extremely unique and diverse intangible cultural heritages such as folk songs: then, sli, lượn, lion cat dance; traditional craft villages and so on. However, in the integration and development period, intangible cultural heritages are at risk of disappearance. To preserve and promote traditional cultural values, mobilizing socialization resources is considered an important solution.

Mr. Nguyen Phuc Ha, Director of Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that in order to preserve, enrich and promote cultural heritages associated with the province’s potentials and strengths, in recent years, socialization work has been promoted by the sector. Thereby, it helps mobilize human, material and finance resources of the society. Notably, the preserving of intangible cultures at the perspective of festivals, traditional art performances is well implemented; many tunes such as sli, then, lượn, xắng cọ, ethnic martial arts, lion cat dance and so forth are restored through clubs, mass music teams at the grassroots.

Van Quan Town’s Then Singing – Tính Musical Instrument Club, Van Quan district (2019)

Following the socialization policy, in recent years, folk song clubs in Lang Son city, the districts of Cao Loc, Van Quan and Binh Gia have flourished. Notably, in 2010, the Association for the Preservation of Lang Son Ethnic Groups’ Folk Singing was established and operates in the direction of socialization. Over the past ten years of operation, from 200 members, the Association has developed over 1,000 members with nearly 60 clubs in the province, and has opened more than 100 classes and organized hundreds of folk singing exchanges from grassroots to inter-commune, inter-district and inter-provincial levels.

In addition to folk singing, lion cat dance teams in the province are now very developed with nearly 100 dance teams distributed in six districts: Cao Loc, Loc Binh, Trang Dinh, Van Lang, Van Quan and Binh Gia. The folk song clubs and the lion cat dance teams all operate independently and at their own expense. It is known that each member of the clubs contributes 100-200 thousand VND per month and maintains in the spirit of “Activity to stay healthy – Be healthy to preserve identity”.

Many folk song clubs and lion cat dance teams strongly thrive and regularly contribute to festival activities, culture, sports and tourism events in the province such as the Điếp Sli Then Club (Cao Loc), Cau Pung Club (Trang Dinh), Noc Kham Khac Club (Van Lang), Hai Yen Commune Lion Cat Dance Club (Cao Loc) and so on. In 2019, the province had more than 50 big and small art exchange programs organized with socialization sources up to over 250 million VND from traditional cultural and arts clubs.

Along with that, socialization for festivals is also implemented by districts and the city to reduce the budget and then move to no more use of the budget in organizing festivals. In addition to the 12 festivals that are alternately selected as key annual festivals of the province and districts, 90% of the festivals in the province mobilize socialization resources. On average, each festival has an organization cost of from 30 million VND to 400 million VND, especially some festivals cost up to two billion VND (Bac Le Temple Festival).

Thanks to that, from 2015 to present, Lang Son has had eight heritages included in the list of intangible cultural heritages at the national level, including five traditional festivals; Nung’s sli singing heritage; Then rituals, Tay and Nung’s lion cat dance. Lang Son is also a province with a cultural heritage “Then practices” of the Tay – Nung – Thai ethnic people recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity at the end of 2019.

Mr. Nguyen Phuc Ha, Director of Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism added that in the coming time, the sector would coordinate with all levels to continue promoting the propagation of programs, resolutions and documents on ethnic groups’ cultural heritages; continue to conduct research, collect and restore some types of intangible cultures; at the same time, strengthen socialization, mobilize the strength of the entire population in the conservation of cultural heritages.