Promoting Central Highlands culture and art in Hanoi capital

On the evenings of April 12 and 13, 2025, the capital's audience will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Central Highlands' cultural and artistic space right in Hanoi with the music and folk art program "The Call of the Highlands" and the opera "Dam San's Aspiration" performed by the Dak Lak Ethnic Song and Dance Troupe.

*Opera "Dam San's Desire" - Photo: Organizing Committee*

These are activities organized by the Department of Culture and Sports of Dak Lak province in coordination with the Department of Culture and Sports of Hanoi to promote Central Highlands culture and art in Hanoi.

Accordingly, the folk music and art program "Call of the Highlands" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on April 12, 2025 (Saturday night) at the Ba Kieu Temple flower garden stage, walking space in the Hoan Kiem Lake area, Hanoi .

With performances of gongs, traditional musical instruments, and songs about the Central Highlands, the program will introduce to the audience of the capital the characteristics as well as the diverse and rich traditional cultural values of the Central Highlands. The rich and unique folk songs of the Central Highlands ethnic groups blend with bamboo and rattan musical instruments and the sounds of gongs and cymbals to create the majestic sounds of the mountains and forests, sometimes as clear as the sound of a flowing stream, sometimes as loud as a waterfall... all are resounded like a choir converging the full range and colors of life from ancient times. With the unique combination of traditional musical instruments of the Central Highlands, along with the delicate and skillful performance of the artists, the works seem to recreate the vivid sounds of the great mountains and forests, the connection and harmony between humans, heaven, earth and gods. In particular, the program introduces to a wide audience in the capital, the Central Highlands Gong Culture Space, which has been recognized by UNESCO as an oral masterpiece and a representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

On Sunday evening, April 13, the musical “Aspiration of Dam San” will be performed at the Workers Theater, 42 Trang Tien, Hanoi.

The opera “Aspiration of Dam San” is based on the epic Dam San – a work collected by French ethnologist Xa-bat-chiê in Dak Lak and published in Ede-French bilingual in Paris in 1927, which has resonated in the folklore circles of Western countries. The epic Dam San is considered to be on par with famous European heroic works such as the Iliad, the Odyssey of Greece and the “Song of the Young Ro Lang” of the French. In Vietnamese literature, the epic Dam San is one of the typical works, a literary genre created from the rich, romantic, and soaring imagination of the Ede people of the Central Highlands in ancient times.
Based on the epic Dam San, screenwriter Hong Hoa wrote the script “Khat vong Dam San” with new details and a message praising the beauty of human love in harmony with nature, especially praising the aspirations and romantic but also heroic beauty of the Ede people in the Central Highlands. The opera was performed by the Dak Lak Ethnic Song and Dance Troupe to contribute to the restoration and preservation of the Ede culture through music and visual stage, and is expected to become a unique and special cultural tourism product of the Central Highlands.

Held on weekends at Hoan Kiem Lake walking street, the music and folk art program “The Call of the Highlands” and the opera “Aspiration of Dam San” will bring the audience a unique cultural space of the Central Highlands right in the capital city of Hanoi.

Source: https://sovhtt.hanoi.gov.vn/quang-ba-van-hoa-nghe-thuat-tay-nguyen-tai-thu-do-ha-noi/