The Five Plays of Vien Khe Village - an ancient village in Thanh Hoa is a National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Vien Khe tro in Vien Khe ancient village, Dong Anh commune, Dong Son district (Thanh Hoa) has the characteristics of agricultural culture in the Ma River Delta with simple, authentic lyrics, created by generations of fathers and grandfathers during the production process and cherished, selected and passed down to this day.

The Vien Khe Five Tro, also known as Dong Anh folk songs and folk dances, is a system of performances accompanied by folk songs, mainly circulated in Vien Khe village, Dong Anh commune, Dong Son district, Thanh Hoa province, reflecting the daily life, thoughts and feelings of ancient farmers.

Young girls perform the Lantern Dance in Vien Khe - a famous ancient village in Dong Anh commune, Dong Son district (Thanh Hoa province).

The original Vien Khe folk dance performances had 5 plays, but later, due to cultural assimilation, Dong Anh folk song and dance performances had up to 12 plays such as: Lamp dance, Tien Cuoi (or Tien Phuong), To Vu, Trong Mo, Thiep, Van Vuong (or Hum game), Thuy (or Thuy Phuong), Leo day, Xiem Thanh (or Chiem Thanh/Sim Thanh), Ha Lan (or Hoa Lang), Tu Huan (or Luc Hon Nhung), Ngo Quoc. In addition, in Dong Anh, there were some other plays such as Dai Thanh game, Nu Quan game... Legend has it that the eldest son of Emperor (Thai Thu) Le Ngoc, named Lang Dai Vuong, was the founder of the games and performances. Legend has it that Lang Dai Vuong went to the villages and hamlets to join in the fun with the people, from which the dances were taught and popularized to everyone (from the 5th to 7th centuries). According to the elders here, the dances and songs that have been passed down to this day date back to the 11th century, during the Ly Dynasty, but have not been staged into performances, but people only sing them during hard work in the fields or on spring days when going to festivals. At the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, in Thach Khe commune, there was a man named Nguyen Mong Tuan who passed the doctoral exam at the end of the Tran Dynasty. During a visit to his hometown, he saw some very good dances and songs, so he and his fellow villagers composed 12 dances and songs.

Performing the play Tien Cuoi in the five plays of Vien Khe in the ancient village of Vien Khe, Dong Anh commune, Dong Son district (Thanh Hoa).

From then on, in the years of Rat, Horse, Cat, and Rooster in the inter-crop cycle, the villages of Tuan Hoa, Thach Khe, and Quang Chieu (now Dong Anh, Dong Thinh, and Dong Khe communes, Dong Son district, Thanh Hoa province) all organized performances and scored them to compete at the Nghe Sam festival of Vien Khe village on a very large scale, attracting a large number of people in the region to participate every three years in the years of Dragon, Dog, Ox, and Goat. The content of the performances is the lyrics accompanied by dances to form a unique and very special folk melody of the residents of the Ma River Delta. More specifically, compared to other forms of folk performance, Dong Anh folk songs and dances have scripts and stories that are quite rich in content. Among the performances, the Lamp Dance relatively fully converges the quintessence of Dong Anh folk songs and dances. Because Dong Anh is a place for wet rice cultivation, to create a comfortable spirit, enthusiasm for production and to pass on experiences, people have created songs and chants associated with each agricultural production activity, from the time of sowing rice to the harvest and then the idle time. Or the production experience of "holding a handful of chaff and throwing it out, the chaff is crushed into ashes, the meat is crushed into ham, the beans are crushed into soy sauce" and effective seasonal farming "the shadow of a rotating lamp flickers, deep fields are used to plant rice, shallow fields are used to produce colors". The lamp in the performance is an object associated with ancient agricultural residents, it is included in the dances by the people as a symbol of the change of time in the year, a symbol of light that brings fertility and growth to all things and contains the aspiration for a prosperous and happy life of people. The girls in their eighteens and twenties, unmarried, wear lamps on their heads with graceful body movements while dancing and singing, but must not let the lamp fall or fall. Therefore, the technical requirements are very difficult. Perhaps because of its beauty, simplicity and meaning, the Lantern Dance is performed a lot and has been passed down through generations.

Certificate of Vien Khe five-play performance included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage.

Not only reflecting the process and experience of agricultural production, but also the wishes and desires of the people such as praying for rain, praying for sunshine, fighting against nature, natural disasters, epidemics, wild animals to protect agricultural production and maintain the growth and development of humans and animals are also creatively expressed by the people, vividly, realistically, close to life through the plays: Van Vuong, Tro Thuy, Trong Mo, Tien Cuoi... Over time, the system of performances gradually faded away, especially from the end of the resistance war against French colonialism until before 1975, when the war was fierce, life was difficult, the people of the villages of Dong Anh commune no longer had time to organize festivals and perform folk songs and dances of their homeland. Since 1975, the country was unified, the material and spiritual life of the people gradually improved, the need for cultural and spiritual activities of the people in the villages and communes was raised. The issue of preserving and maintaining the spiritual values ​​left by our ancestors has become an important content in local economic development. By 2000, the Vietnam National Institute of Music and the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thanh Hoa province had collected, researched and restored 11 performances.

Vien Khe Lantern Dance performance at Lam Kinh historical relic site, the birthplace of the Later Le dynasty in Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province.

In 2014, Thanh Hoa province issued a Decision approving the plan to establish a scientific dossier of typical intangible cultural heritage of Thanh Hoa province, including Dong Anh folk song and dance performances, which were included in the list of National Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2017, Vien Khe five-piece performance was recognized by the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage. Source: https://danviet.vn/ngu-tro-dan-ca-dong-anh-o-thanh-hoa-la-cac-tro-gi-ma-duoc-cong-nhan-di-san-phi-vat-the-quoc-gia-20241216112206856.htm