Celia Wren, washingtonpost.com
Image from article, with caption: A woman plays the dan bau, a single-stringed instrument whose sound is said to reveal “the soul of the Vietnamese people.”
Extract:
Kennedy Center hosts Vietnamese performers
Last month, as Vietnam and the United States marked 20 years of normalized relations, the leader of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, made a high-profile visit to the White House. This month, Vietnamese artists are taking up the public-diplomacy baton.
From Aug. 8 to 11, the Kennedy Center is hosting “Vietnamese Cultural Days in the U.S.,” a showcase of Vietnamese art and artistry. The program was organized by Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, its U.S. embassy and mission to the United Nations, and the American Embassy in Hanoi. (There will be a related event in New York.)
The event will include an opening celebration, music and dance, and a fashion show with the work of Asian designers such as Minh Hanh, a winner of Asia’s Fukuoka Prize.
Nguyen Phuong Hoa, of the Ministry of Culture, said by e-mail that “Vietnamese Cultural Days” will showcase the diversity of a country that is home to 54 ethnic groups. She added that most of the performers will be traveling from Asia for the program, which will feature such specialties as the traditional choreography of Vietnam’s central highlands, a royal dance dating from the Nguyen dynasty and quan ho folk singing.
Hoa predicted that U.S. audiences will be particularly wowed by the single-string instrument known as the dan bau. “It’s been said that the sound of the dan bau reveals the soul of the Vietnamese people,” she said.
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