Pursuant to the Decision No. 2836/QĐ-BVHTTDL dated 8 September 2014 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnamese Institute for Musicology was in charge of making the national file “The art of Bài chòi in Central Vietnam” to submit to the UNESCO for the recognition in the Representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To prepare for this extremely important work, from October to November 2014, the Vietnamese Institute for Musicology in cooperation with the Departments of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên - Huế, Đà Nẵng, Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Bình Định, Phú Yên, and Khánh Hòa held two fieldtrips for the information collection of this art.

The fieldwork team included 17 members working under the direction of Dr. Nguyễn Bình Định (Director of Vietnamese Institute for Musicology), Mr. Trần Hải Đăng (Deputy Director of Vietnamese Institute for Musicology) and Musician Đặng Hoành Loan - scientific advisor.

After forty one hard working days with strong sense of responsibility, the team filmed more than 2,800 Gigabytes of image data and recorded approximately 70 Gigabytes of audio data including: 56 performances of Bài chòi on mat, mobile Bài chòi, Bài chòi on the ground, Bài chòi on the stage… and many Hô thai verses (announcing names of the cards) in Bài chòi festivals practiced by folk artists and artists from provinces. Additionally, the team investigated, approached and interviewed the leaders, cultural managers and many folk artists about the activities, preservation and promotion of the art of Bài chòi in each locality.

In these two fieldtrips, the team approached distinguished folk artists as the “living treasures” of Bài chòi such as folk artist Lê Thị Đào, folk artist Nguyễn Thị Minh Liễu (Bình Định); folk artist Trần Rí (Khánh Hòa); folk artist Trương Thị Hằng, folk artist Trần Thị Hồng (Phú Yên); folk artist Lê Thị Phương (Quảng Nam)… 

Collected materials would surely make a considerable contribution to the making of the file and the archive in the Vietnamese Institute for Musicology.

NGUYỄN VƯƠNG HOÀNG