Coffee festival promoting Buon Ma Thuot brand

The fifth Buon Ma Thuot’s Coffee Festival promoting the coffee brand of the Tay Nguyen Central Highlands is scheduled to take place from March 9-12, said Vice Chairman of the Dak Lak People’s Committee Dinh Van Khiet at a press conference on February 10. 

According to Khiet, the festival is an occasion to honour coffee growers, promote coffee tourism culture, and solidify Vietnamese coffee’s position in the global coffee industry.

The festival also connects coffee farmers and enterprises and consumers.

Tay Nguyen is a major coffee growing region in Vietnam. Dak Lak province, with Buon Ma Thuot as its capital city, has 203,000 hectares of coffee plants with an annual output of at least 450,000 tonnes of beans, making it the country’s biggest coffee-producing province.

Vietnam is now the second largest coffee exporter in the world. The country shipped 1.73 million tonnes of coffee beans abroad in 2014, earning 3.62 billion USD in revenues.

Source: VNA

Festival fetes traditional opera

A national festival celebrating cheo (traditional opera) opened on Nov. 26 night in the northern province of Thai Binh, where is considered to be the birthplace of the art form.

Thirteen theatres and art troupes across the country will stage 16 plays that address issues of contemporary life, in accordance with the theme of the festival: Traditional Opera with Modern Topics.

According to Vuong Duy Bien, head of the cultural ministry's Performing Arts Department, the theme was chosen in order to bring "new vitality" to a traditional art form that mostly focuses on legendary and historical material.

"This is the first time we are requiring a specific theme for the plays presented in the festival. We strongly believe that cheo plays could be a preferred art form for mass audiences if a link can be established to the present day. In fact, Vietnamese are already familiar with the classic cheo plays that have been performed consistently for many years," he said.

Cheo is a form of popular theatre in Vietnam that has its roots in traditional village festivals. The plays consist of folk songs with pantomime, instrumental music and dance, combined with instructive or interpretative sketches based on stories from legend, poetry, history or even daily life.

Hosted by the Performing Arts Department and the Vietnam Stage Artists' Association, the festival will run until December 4.

(Source: VNA)