Traditional music and dances of the Cham, Khmer, Hoa and Kinh communities will be performed on April 15 to celebrate the first ever Vietnamese Ethnic Groups’ Culture Day on April 19.

Hundreds of pictures depicting the cultural and spiritual life of the Kinh, Hoa, Cham and Khmer people in HCM City will also be on display.

Featured in the music and dance programme will be Chinese traditional music, “don ca tai tu” (traditional southern folk music) and Cham and Khmer dances performed by artists from the Lotus Theatre.

The HCM City Information and Exhibition Centre will open an exhibition featuring images of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups.

The centre will also bring the Kinh and Hoa traditional musical forms to a two-day festival in Hanoi’s Son Tay Town to celebrate the Ethnic Groups’ Cultural Day. The festival in the capital city will also host an exhibition of 10 water-colour and calligraphy works by Hoa artisans from Ho Chi Minh City.

Ethnic Hoa painter Truong Han Minh will demonstrate his calligraphy and finish a water-colour before presenting them to the Vietnam Culture and Tourism Village.

Artisan Nam Dum will create the 1.4 m high and 1.6 m wide fruit sculpture using papaya, mandarin, grapefruit, mango, mangosteen, pear, apple and coconut.

All Kinh and Hoa artisans participating in the festival will wear their traditional long dresses “ao dai” with turbans “khan dong” and trousers or skirts with five panel vests.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism says celebration of the nation’s first Ethnic Groups’ Culture Day will attract about 1,500 artists and artisans from 33 cities and provinces.