Ca Trù Performance

28 Mar, 9.30 am
Vietnamese House (outdoor area)
Museum of Ethnology

This is a one-time-only performance by the Ca Trù Club of UNESCO.

Ca trù (also known as hát ả đào or hát nói) is an ancient genre of chamber music featuring female vocalists, with origins in northern Vietnam. For much of its history, it was associated with a geisha-like form of entertainment. Ca trù is inscribed on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2009.

Source: wikipedia.org

After the Ca Trù, stay and watch the water puppet theater.

Performance by Ca Trù Club of UNESCO

Artist: Vương Tú Ngọc, Nguyễn Phương Thảo
Instrumentalist: Cảnh Tùng
Composer: Tân Dân

Ca trù, like many ancient and highly developed arts, has many forms. However, the most widely known and widely performed type of ca trù involves only three performers: the female vocalist, lute player and a spectator (who also takes part in the performance).

The female singer provides the vocals whilst playing her phách (small wooden sticks beaten on a small bamboo platform to serve as percussion). She is accompanied by a man who plays the đàn đáy, a long-necked, 3-string lute used almost exclusively for the ca trù genre. Last is the spectator (often a scholar or connoisseur of the art) who strikes a trống chầu (praise drum) in praise (or disapproval) of the singer’s performance, usually with every passage of the song. The way in which he strikes the drum shows whether he likes or dislikes the performance, but he always does it according to the beat provided by the vocalists’ phách percussion.

New observers to the art often comment on how strikingly odd the vocal technique sounds, but it is the vocals themselves that are essential in defining ca trù. – source and more information on: wikipedia.com

Ticket: 25,000 VND includes price of admission to the museum