Preserving intangible heritage must limit the situation of theatricalization.

Many people mistakenly think that if a heritage is honored, it must be widely publicized so that many people know about it.

Heritage must be preserved in the community that created it. That is the principle. However, with the development of life, many heritage values ​​are supplemented, updated, and sometimes adapted based on available materials. The preservation of intangible heritage values ​​requires limiting adaptation, especially avoiding dramatization, to bring heritage closer to the public and serve community life.

Not listed as heritages in need of urgent protection like Ca Tru, Xoan singing, but Vi, Giam, Don ca tai tu or Quan ho folk songs - are intangible heritages that are popular in the community and are considered to be at risk of being "theatricalized". Because many people believe that now, the real performance space of these folk art forms has changed. The fabric and conical hat guilds no longer exist, the banyan tree-lined water wharfs have also disappeared; there are no longer rice pounding sessions, fishing nets where young men and women have the opportunity to respond to each other with love songs, instead, the colorful lights of the stage, modern sound equipment, easily bring the vọng cổ verses, Quan họ melodies, Vi and Giam verses to the public faster.

Festivals are also a way to preserve intangible heritage. However, we need to avoid overuse that leads to the theatricalization of heritage.

In that context, cultural workers have cleverly brought these heritages to the community by changing the performance space and adapting the content to suit the new life. Vi, Giam Nghe Tinh, Quan Ho or Don ca tai tu have been brought to the theater, performed on stage or in clubs, on radio and television.

Mr. Pham Tien Dung - Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Nghe An province said: "It is not like in the past, singing in the fields, singing on the river. But those performance forms are also clearly shown through the activities of the performance club. Whether the theatricalization affects the heritage or not, the form of the club is a preparation step, ensuring sustainability to protect the heritage".

Many people mistakenly believe that if a heritage is honored, it must be widely disseminated so that many people know about it. However, cultural preservationists believe that no matter how popular it is, it must still ensure the principle of what it has been transmitted and inherited. Folk songs can become derivative values ​​in the works of contemporary musicians. However, if not careful, sometimes it leads to confusion, heritage is renewed and becomes other values. As Professor Nguyen Van Huy - Member of the National Heritage Council said, it is necessary to clearly distinguish which heritage is created by the community, passed down for generations and which is an adapted element.

“When presenting folk art on stage, we must make it very clear to the audience, listeners that these are things that have been adapted, taken from the material of Don Ca Tai Tu, Vi Giam, Quan Ho… and brought to the stage, so that people can see that the old way of singing is like this, the modern way of singing is like this. As for which value the audience likes, that depends on the listener’s psychology. But to say it again, the work of preservation is still to preserve the ancient songs, ancient melodies, and ancient dances, which are the foundation for nurturing that heritage when it enters modern society,” emphasized Professor Nguyen Van Huy.

People learn to sing folk songs - a way to keep heritage alive in the community

As the performance space of many intangible heritages changes, the heritages will have to change their functions accordingly. That is inevitable when bringing heritages to clubs, theaters or building them into tourism products, so that the heritages are closer to the public. However, according to Dr. Le Thi Minh Ly - Director of the Center for Research and Promotion of Cultural Heritage Values: when bringing heritages to the stage or on television, it is necessary to clearly distinguish the forms of performance and the heritages must be introduced by the public.

“It would be great if there were festivals where we give the community the opportunity to introduce their heritage and they participate and present their heritage. But if the festival is just a professional festival, it belongs to a different field. It is not in the field of heritage protection but in the field of professional performing arts. The problem is that the organizers and community supporters must pay attention to that,” said Ms. Ly.

Music researcher Dang Hoanh Loan also believes that although we must change the performance method to suit different performance spaces, we must still avoid theatricalization by preserving the music, melodies, methods, and ways of singing that are inherent to it.

“A very important thing is to keep it intact, to keep the exact melody of the song. Just like when we watch a festival, the artists go on stage and sing the exact song, that’s enough. And that’s preservation. Nowadays, people often turn it into clubs. And once it turns into clubs, there are immediately performers and listeners, but in the past, there wasn’t. We have to endure the pressure of history, and now how can we keep the melody and language so that we can incorporate it into other forms of modern life,” researcher Dang Hoanh Loan shared.

If Quan Ho is sung collectively to set records, Xoan singing is cheoized, the Giong Festival is restored to its most dramatic and sacred parts and performed many times, or the ancient melodies of the Central Highlands gongs are mixed with modern instruments such as organs, guitars and electronic sound systems, and many people dance to them for fun... then these are warnings about the risk of staged heritage, a manifestation of the situation where heritage is alien to the creator, and people no longer see the heritage as their own. Therefore, to preserve cultural heritage in the most sustainable way, the best way is to limit stagedness, so that heritage can live in community life.

According to VOV.VN