The hardship of 'keeping the fire' of traditional art stage

Actors are getting olderchemical

Nghe An Traditional Arts Center was established under Decision No. 2909/QD-UBND dated August 27, 2020 of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee on the basis of mergerCenter for Preservation and Promotion of Nghe An Folk Heritagewith the Traditional Art Troupe. This is a public service unit with revenue under the direct management of the Department of Culture and Sports, with the function of performing arts; researching, collecting, preserving, promoting the value of Nghe Tinh Vi and Giam folk songs and folk songs, folk music, folk dances of Nghe An ethnic minorities and performing a number of tasks and powers as assigned or authorized by the Director of the Department of Culture and Sports.

Implementing Resolution No. 19-NQ/TW dated October 25, 2017 of the 12th Central Executive Committee on "Continuing to innovate the organization and management system, improving the quality and efficiency of public service units", after the decision to establish, the number of functional departments and staff of the center has decreased from 110 people in 2018 to 94 people in 2023.

Mr. Tran Quoc Chung - Deputy Director of Nghe An Traditional Arts Center said: By reducing 1 functional department, 1 professional department and 1 performance troupe, the management apparatus of the unit has been shortened, making it more convenient to operate professional support between the 2 art forms.

However, according to Mr. Chung, with a profession that is specific in terms of talent, short career years, long training time, and high costs, there is currently no specific mechanism for training, recruitment, and retirement age, leading to inadequacies in attracting and training to improve the quality of human resources. In early 2023, while the unit was lacking in operational staff and had 5 vacant positions according to the quota, it was still not recruited.

Explaining the difficulties in recruitment, Mr. Chung said that the Traditional Arts Center is a unit that operates in a specific profession related to talent, but up to now there have been no specific mechanisms or policies on human resources for the arts sector, leading to shortcomings. It is easy to see that many actors are past the age of working but not yet at retirement age. Many young people have the ability and passion to work, but their qualifications are not guaranteed (only intermediate level or vocational training). If the labor contract does professional work, it is against the regulations. Therefore, in terms of quotas, the unit still has enough people, but in reality, there is an alarming shortage of healthy human resources. “After the merger, some departments are redundant, some departments are lacking. We cannot send drummers to dance and dancers to sing. Not to mention that actors are getting older, we cannot keep older dancers on stage forever. Who will watch such performances?”, Mr. Chung said.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Quyet - Head of General Administration Department, Nghe An Traditional Arts Center emphasized: Having many older actors makes it difficult to meet the increasingly high demand for some professional stage performance positions. Even at the Vi and Giam Folk Song Troupe, the youngest actor is 37 years old. Meanwhile, since 2015, many singers and actors have been trained at Nghe An College of Culture and Arts, but no one has returned to work at the center.

Need for special mechanism

As a specialized industry operating in culture and arts, especially contributing to the preservation and promotion of Nghe Tinh Vi and Giam folk songs heritage. In particular, since 2012, when Nghe Tinh Vi and Giam folk songs were included in the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and recognized by UNESCO as a Representative Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in November 2014. However, since then, there has not been a mechanism to train and recruit a successor team to serve the work of preserving and promoting this art form.

Currently, at the Traditional Arts Center, the Vi Giam Folk Song Troupe has 34 actors (including theater actors and music actors), of which only 7 are 3rd class actors, the rest are 4th class actors, including many Meritorious Artists who have not been able to change their civil servant rank because they do not have a university degree in their major. Especially the Nghe Tinh Folk Song Drama Actors major, because up to now, there has not been any training facility in the whole country that organizes training for Nghe Tinh folk song actors from college level or higher. This makes many people worry that if there are no changes in the recruitment mechanism, in just about 5 years the Vi Giam Folk Song Troupe will be at risk of "fading away".

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Quyet added: Everyone knows that Vi and Giam are two folk singing styles without accompaniment created by the Nghe Tinh community hundreds of years ago. Vi and Giam are practiced in work and daily life: when lulling children to sleep, when farming, rowing boats, weaving, milling rice...; it is not an academic art form that can be widely taught in educational and training institutions on the arts, but sometimes it is just to pass on and teach traditions.

Not to mention, if you are trained properly in an art school, the university training time for the Performing Arts major is also long and expensive. To get the shortest university degree, it takes from 5 to 6 years, some majors require 11 years of study. If there are no specific policies in recruitment, many young singers with qualities, good singing, even well-trained singers will not return.

Recently, at the working session with the Supervisory Delegation of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province, Ms. Tran Thi My Hanh - Director of the Department of Culture and Sports also proposed to the Supervisory Delegation, to report and make recommendations to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to consider adjusting some regulations in recruiting and attracting officials and civil servants to work at special units such as the Nghe An Provincial Traditional Arts Center. Otherwise, it would be difficult to "keep the fire" of traditional art, let alone promote its values.

Tien Dong