On 10 February lunar calendar annually, in the temple worshipping the Tutelary God of  the village, Xuan Truong Commune, Tho Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province, there are 5 ancient unique dances, which only appear in Xuan Truong  being called “Ngu quoc lan bang do tien cong” including the games Hoa Lang, Ai Lao, Tu Huan, Chiem Thanh and Ngo Quoc, which are performed at the Xuan Pha festival.

Tro Xuan Pha is one of 3 precious art and cultural heritages of Thanh region (including the suite of Song ma chanty, the suite of Dong Anh folk and Tro Xuan Pha. If Song Ma chanty or Dong Anh folk reflects the daily life of people, Xuan Pha reflects the daily life of the royalty full of diplomacy...

Besides, if comparing Tro Xuan Pha with some dances such as Dam dance (worshipping Ly Thuong Kiet), Do dance ( worshipping Tan Vien and the set of his generals), songs and dances in Tong Goi (Dan Phuong – Hanoi)…, there dances have the mixture of royal and folk elements full of conditioning features but full of mysteries reflecting the aesthetic conception of the nation in general, and of people where it was born in particular. Tro Xuan Pha, therefore, totally has the ability to create a cultural activity that through performing, people can enjoy on the side of sense and deeply understand it.

Tro Xuan Pha – from legend  …

Up to now, there have not been yet any scale research on Xuan Pha, but some cultural people when studying dances in Xuan Pha all confirmed that these are dances which have full of continuous features, a piece has 5 layers which is equivalent to 5 plays and full of characters of ancient Vietnamese people.

The legend tells that in Le King era, the country was invaded, the king appointed the messenger to call for gods and people and talents to together fight against enemies to save the country. When soldiers and mandarins go to the bank of Chu river, near Xuan Pha village, they catch rainstorms and have to stop. At midnight, the Tutelary God of Xuan Pha informs in an omen in a dream of the way of fighting against enemies, the King follows the instructions and get victory. The country is peaceful, and the king open the festival for it. On the festival days, the neighboring countries attend the festival, and show the admiration for the king of Dai Viet, and show the friendship of the countries.

Especially, satellite countries, or tribes bring to the festival many special dances and songs of their countries. The leader of the orchestra bring with a wooden board being red – lacquered trimmed with gold to introduce the nation, country such as “Chien Thanh do tien cong”, “Ai lao do tien cong”, or “Hoa Lang do tien cong”….... to show the gratitude for the Tutelary God of Xuan Pha, the king confers the most beautiful dances for villagers which are dances of Chiem Thanh, Ai Lao, Ngo Quoc, Hoa Lang and Luc Hon Nhung(or Tu Huan).

From generations to generations, Xuan Pha people still hold festivals of Xuan Pha on 10, 11 February lunar calendar to memorize the gratitude of the Tutelary God of the village.

….the top art of royal dance of Vietnam – precious cultural heritage

Xuan Pha dance is transferred through many generations. In the old time, Nguyen Trai based on Xuan Phan dance to compose Chu hau dance to give audience for Le Nhan Tong king. Nowadays, many choreographers also base on the quintessence of this dance to compose dance performances. Xuan Pha dance was one selected to be the representative of the culture of Thanh region which are performed in events shus as: “greeting the new millennium” in 2000, Festival Hue 2004...

Tro Xuan Pha festival are performed before the yard at the beginning of the village, on the occasion that the gods are worshipped by the village, such as Dragon king, Tycoon Hoang Lang, a meritorious official of Dinh and Tien Le dynasties ( 10^th century). The relation between the god being worshipped and the festival games is the thing that people show most concerns for but according to the legend, 5 dances which are performed currently are conferred by the king shown by a male fairy to a local person to teach the villagers. Being a famous festival game in Thanh region, the preparation for simple physical things, the stage does not need decorating carefully, even on a large grass plot, these dance can be performed. The musical instruments are a drum, some bars of bamboos… the audiences are not restricted in quantity. The thing that determines the value of the festival games is the team of dance of festival games including 20 members, often are farmers and young village boys. They have to train frequently the role of performance and the most important  role of 5 dances is the role of god. The roles of gods are performed by young and beautiful girls in the village. These things should be prepared 5 days before the festival.

Xuan Pha dance, there are 5 dances but there are three dances that characters participating in such dances should wear masks (including Chiem Thanh, Hoa Lang, and Tu Huan) and festival games are taken the duty by men. Only Tu Huan, Hoa Lang, and Ngo Quoc dances have a song aped but only two dances Hoa Lang and Ngo Quoc are performed by girls in the roles of fairy. Hoa Lang song is sung when the god and the soldiers finish dancing, the sound of the drum starts to mark to prepare the oar of the boat to row ..characters participating in festival games should wear colorful costumes, with the main colors are red, green and yellow. Dances of characters participating in each festival game make audience have a sense of excitement. 

5 dances in Tro Xuan Pha including :

1 – Hoa Lang dance: there are 2 people wearing kylin to dance. Then, the god performs super dances, and the two troops carry out horse- fighting dance. Following is the troops of 10 people dancing with paper fan. The final phase of boat –row dance instead of saying goodbye. The costumes for this dance is the green traditional long address and white trousers  and leather hat bending in two tops.

2 – Chiem Thanh dance: including 14 people (1 god, 2 clay statues of giant guards, 10 soldiers). The costumes have 11 red cloth shirts 1m long hemmed in the border, the chess shirt has the shape of supporting tiger, 2 costumes by hard cloth, 3 colors, the black worn in the neck, and bound in the bell, the white cloth shirt inside, 11 crafts bound around the back 0,4m wide, and two-fold length, when tying to the bias piece of a handkerchief and bind the red point, the side 0,6m long, 11 red wooden masks, having the eye of peacock feather, inside the mask having a bar to hold in the mouth when hanging, 13 couples of stocks white or red. The game does not have a song. The clay statue of giant guard has two thurification dances, then the orchestra of dancers stretch and perform to the rhythm of the drum. The god and soldiers. The god and soldiers perform the movements to three times as regulated. The final phase is the flower-throw dance.

3 – Luc Hon Nhung dance: at first, an old man leaning against a stick, following by the delegation of knocking castanets. All seem to be like a herb of bees surrounding the mother. The costumes for dancing  include a black green long dress, the brown scarf binding around the back, and the wearing fairy hair.

4 – Ai Lao game: one person imitating the tiger running for at first. Two people imitating elephants dance, and open the road. Lao god (wearing at hat, large shirts of green color) the two sides have soldiers to protect. The whole delegation go under the sound of bamboo castanets knocking the rhythm continuously, reflecting the strength of boys going hunting.  

5 – Ngo Quoc dance: at first, there is a  seller selling medicines, sweets and the geomancer dance a sudden performance and then leaves for two fairies and the delegation to go out. This delegation dance with paper fans and scarves, then dance with bow-row.

As for music, Tro Xuan Pha is used ethnic group instruments: drum, cymbals, gongs, which are unique and make a strong impression . "bo cua, bon nha, bo gao cho an…leave house, leave rice to let dog eat…”  - When hearing the sound of the musical instruments of dances, everyone is on a knife edge. People regard it as Tro Xuan Pha because there is an opening part of characters and animals – perform suddenly and bring about audiences a comfortable laughter. Xuan Pha dance have to use many instruments and each instrument have a private image. The movements when dancing sometimes are flexible, sometimes strong, creating climax and bring about audiences a strange sense of aesthetics . In each dance of Tro Xuan Pha, there are unique features that other dances of Kinh people do not have.

As for musical instruments and props. Most of props performing Tro Xuan Pha are made of available materials such as: bamboo, small bamboo, coral tree, ….Musical instruments include drum, gongs, cymbals, wooden bell, bamboo castanets …... the drum has the diameter of the face of  60- 65 cm but should have sound being suitable for the type of the game. The wooden bell has the shape of sickle which is 20 cm long, which is made of old bamboo root, the outside face is made smooth, inside is carved empty to have the resonant level of sound.

Phả:  Hầu hết nhân vật trong các trò đều phải đeo mặt nạ, tạo cảm giác lạ, ngộ nghĩnh. Và cũng hầu hết trong các trò đều do diễn viên nam đảm nhiệm, còn nếu có diễn viên nữ tham gia thì chỉ ở các vai tiên, phỗng.

Features in Xuan Pha dances:   Most of characters should wear masks, create strange senses. And most of games are performed by actors, and if actresses participate in the Tro Xuan Pha, they only take the role of fairies, clay statue of giant guard.

In Xuan Pha dance, “the marking point” belongs to actors with the broad-minded movements and strong arms and legs spreading, reflecting “now flexible, now firm” through many movements of dances, the dancing formation, which honor the feature of wet rice culture, the charming and secret as well as the strong feature of Vietnamese people. Such dances memorize the dance Chu hau lai trieu, Binh ngo pha tran under Le thanh Tong dynasty with the worshipping ritual in the many other sacrifices before worshipping the Tutelary God of the village, scarcely see in familiar traditional dance because the song sentences do not relate to dances, ensure to stabilize both the part of the soul and the sound in languages and dance structures…

Xuan pha dance often reflect the desire to better oneself of human beings, as the top of art of royal dance and Vietnamese traditions. Seeing Xuan Pha dance, people easily see the sparkle beauty of a precious diamond.

Xuan Pha dance is the most intangible cultural heritage which kept undamaged in Thanh Hoa through hundreds of years to now. It is known that in the forthcoming time, the Tho Xuan District  People’s Committee – Thanh Hoa will continue to invest, collect more documents to make documents, propose the MOCST to recognize Xuan Pha to become the national cultural heritage. Besides, Xuan Pha formation of Xuan Truong commune will participate in performing to serve audiences in the whole country on the great event of 1000 years old of Hanoi.

Cinet