Ca tru: get-together of music and poetry
By Tuong Lan in Hanoi
The French Embassy in Vietnam will host a ca tru show entitled “Ca tru: get-together of music and poetry” by the Thai Ha ca tru troupe in Hanoi with an introduction by Nguyen Xuan Dieu at the French Cultural Center, L’Espace, 24 Trang Tien Street, Hanoi at 4 p.m. on March 10.
Ca tru, a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, is considered a highly developed art for choosy audiences but is a unique national cultural heritage. The elegance of ca tru is presented in melodies, the way of performing, musical space and time as well as its characters associated with rituals and etiquette. It is a rendezvous of music and poetry.
Ca tru, like many ancient and highly developed arts, has many forms, but the most widely known and widely performed type involves only three performers: a female vocalist, a lute player and a spectator (who also takes part in the performance).
The female singer provides the vocals while playing her phach (small wooden sticks beaten on a small bamboo platform) to serve as percussion. She is accompanied by a man who plays the dan day, a three-string lute used almost exclusively for the ca tru genre. Last is the spectator (often a scholar or connoisseur of the art) who strikes a trong chau (praise drum) in praise of the singer’s performance, usually with every passage of the song.
Thai Ha ca tru troupe is a family with seven generations preserving and performing ca tru and literature, renowned with many famous ca tru artists. Nguyen Xuan Dieu is known for his outstanding scientific study of ca tru, one of the important documents submitted to UNESCO to recognize ca tru as a world intangible heritage last year.