Culture is the foundation, soft power for the development of the country.

Culture is the foundation, soft power for the country's development - photo 1 — Dr. Hoang Duan, General Director of the program, talks with Binh Dinh opera artists before performing at the Street Festival.

Impressed with the new land

Meritorious Artist, Dr. Hoang Duan (Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Cultural and Art Management, Ho Chi Minh City University of Culture) - General Director of the program "The Quintessence of the Great Forest - The Blue Sea Convergence" 2025 shared with Van Hoa many emotions about the land and people of Gia Lai , along with the responsibility for preserving the national cultural heritage.

Meritorious Artist, Dr. Hoang Duan shared: “As the second largest province in the country, with “golden forests and silver seas” both literally and figuratively. Gia Lai today has favorable weather, favorable terrain, and harmonious people. Nature has bestowed Gia Lai with both vast forests and oceans, high mountains, vast seas, majestic waterfalls, and long, clear beaches.

Regarding Gia Lai's economy today, in the West there is high-tech agriculture, circular agriculture, wind power, coffee, pepper; in the East there is a marine economy, services, logistics with seaports, the most famous coastal tourist areas in the central region, with ocean tuna, lobster, king crab...

Culture is the foundation, soft power for the country's development - photo 2 — Gia Lai has many unique tangible and intangible cultural heritages such as: from rain praying festivals, new rice festivals to coastal fishing praying festivals. From the cultural space of Central Highlands gongs to Ho Ba Trao, Hat Boi, Bai Choi...

In terms of culture, Gia Lai has many unique tangible and intangible cultural heritages such as: From the rain-praying festival, the new rice festival to the coastal fishing festival. From the Central Highlands gong cultural space to the Ba Trao singing, Hat Boi singing, Bai Choi singing, etc. And many traditional craft villages are recognized as heritages such as wood carving, horse hat village, sedge mat village, weaving village, stone carving village...

“The people of Gia Lai today, from leaders to people, intellectuals, artists, craftsmen, students, businessmen... that I have had the opportunity to meet, I see in them a high sense of responsibility, pride in their homeland, willingness to contribute and a desire to contribute their efforts to their homeland. In the past, there was a folk song on the Con River: “Whoever returns, tell the source/Send young jackfruit down, send flying fish up”. With the spirit of the homeland of Tay Son martial arts, of the legends and heroic sons from the past to the present, all are ready for Gia Lai to set sail in the new era”, Meritorious Artist Hoang Duan felt.

Culture is the foundation, creating the driving force for development

Cultural preservation is a big issue, in which organizing cultural events and festivals like the past two years in Binh Dinh province (now Gia Lai province) is also one of the measures to introduce, promote as well as contribute to preserving culture and creating development momentum for the homeland.

After 2 times of making programs in Binh Dinh province (now Gia Lai province), according to Meritorious Artist, how can we preserve culture and create development momentum for new lands? From a personal perspective, Dr. Hoang Duan believes that in order to preserve traditional cultural values of the locality, we need to create "vitality" for that cultural heritage in the localities, right where it exists. Create space for that heritage to maintain stability and develop sustainably.

Culture is the foundation, soft power for the country's development - photo 3 — To prepare for the program, Meritorious Artist Hoang Duan and his crew went to Chu Dang Ya, Xoá village, Bien Ho commune to invite artists to Quy Nhon to perform.

Along with that, create space for artisans to live, play, and pass on their skills to younger generations. Create conditions for artisans to stabilize their economic lives and organize regular community activities. Encourage, motivate, and create conditions for young artisans to participate in learning from the experiences of previous artisans to have a successor force.

On the other hand, the government needs to coordinate with businesses to increase community tourism tours associated with developing the economic and cultural life of local people. On the one hand, promoting local tourism, on the other hand, creating more economic income for local people and artisans.

At the same time, through local performances, it will contribute to creating pride for artisans, thereby making them more dedicated to maintaining and developing the heritage left by their ancestors.

According to Dr. Hoang Duan, we should promote the unique cultural heritages of the locality in local and national events and festivals so that more people will know about them. When tourists know where the art form or heritage originated and where it currently exists, they will come to visit.

Culture is the foundation, always bringing motivation and soft power for the development of the locality and the country. If we know how to promote it, culture will not only bring pride to the people but also be an opportunity to develop tourism, develop the economy, thereby improving the lives of the people.

Meritorious Artist, Dr. Hoang Duan

However, in large events, traditional festivals brought to the stage need to ensure originality and conciseness. It is necessary to select "segments and points" of the main events in traditional festivals to bring to the big stage.

But these contents need to be carefully selected, with the right performers and original content, avoiding excessive "dramatization" to illustrate festivals, which will make viewers misunderstand the value of traditional festivals.

Culture is the foundation, soft power for the country's development - photo 4 — Artists from Pleiku Roh village perform at the Street Festival in Quy Nhon

“In the recent event, we invited artisans from Xoá village at the foot of Chu Dang Ya mountain to come down to Quy Nhon to re-perform the main ritual of the New Rice Celebration, with costumes, props, gongs, etc. that they brought down themselves,” Dr. Hoang Duan cited and said that, similarly, we invited People's Artists, Meritorious Artists, and artisans of Hat Boi, Ba Trao, and Bai Choi in Quy Nhon to perform segments related to these art forms, instead of using dancers wearing their costumes to perform.

The Ba Trao and Bai Choi verses are incorporated into newly composed modern music songs, and we also invite local artists to participate in these parts, instead of using singers from other places.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/van-hoa/van-hoa-la-nen-tang-suc-manh-mem-cho-su-phat-trien-cua-dat-nuoc-166486.html