Description

Throughout the Central Highlands of Viet Nam, Gong ensembles are part of various ceremonies and closely linked to the communities’ daily life and the cycle of the seasons. The instruments, measuring 25 to 80 centimetres, are played by men as well as women.

© Institute of Culture and Information / Duong Thanh Giang

The cultural space of the gongs in the central highlands of Vietnam covers several provinces and seventeen Austro-Asian and Austronesian ethno-linguistic communities. Closely linked to daily life and the cycle of the seasons, their belief systems form a mystical world where the gongs produce a privileged language between men, divinities and the supernatural world. Behind every gong hides a god or goddess who is all the more powerful when the gong is older. Every family possesses at least one gong, which indicates the family’s wealth, authority and prestige, and also ensures its protection. While a range of brass instruments is used in the various ceremonies, the gong alone is present in all the rituals of community life and is the main ceremonial instrument.

The manner in which the gongs of Vietnam are played varies according to the village. Each instrumentalist carries a different gong measuring between 25 and 80 cm in diameter. From three to twelve gongs are played by the village ensembles, which are made up of men or women. Different arrangements and rhythms are adapted to the context of the ceremony, for example, the ritual sacrifice of the bullocks, the blessing of the rice or mourning rites. The gongs of this region are bought in neighbouring countries, and then tuned to the desired tone for their own use.

Economic and social transformations have drastically affected the traditional way of life of these communities and no longer provide the original context for the Gong culture. Transmission of this way of life, knowledge and know-how was severely disrupted during the decades of war during the last century.Today, this phenomenon is aggravated by the disappearance of old craftsmen and young people’s growing interest in Western culture. Stripped of their sacred significance, the gongs are sometimes sold for recycling or exchanged for other products.

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Throughout the Central Highlands of Viet Nam, Gong ensembles are part of various ceremonies and closely linked to the communities’ daily life and the cycle of the seasons. The instruments, measuring 25 to 80 centimetres, are played by men as well as women.

The main goal of this project is to safeguard the space of gong culture in one province of the Central Highlands of Viet Nam, Dak Nong Province. This project has been designed to develop a network of gong practitioners and enthusiasts and to support preservation and promotion of the Central Highland’s gong performance tradition in the actual cultural context where it was born and has been maintained in social life until today. The project will directly benefit the artisans, artists, the devoted people and caretakers who have greatly contributed to the safeguarding of the gong heritage, but will also benefit the broader Vietnamese people. By mobilizing all potential sectors from society, the project seeks to provide the foundations for transmitting the skills of playing and especially of tuning gongs to young generations, and to promote awareness of the significance of intangible cultural heritage not only at the local level, but also at the national level. It will include a systematic inventory of the practitioners of gong tuning and performance and establish a policy of recognition and valorization of older master artists.

The project’s goals are to:

• safeguard gong culture in the present social situation in which modernization and globalization are rapidly occurring, and young people’s aesthetic taste has increasingly been deflected from traditional heritage;
• assist ICH custodians and practitioners in their efforts to safeguard and transmit this heritage to future generations and to target young audiences and potential performers;
• raise the awareness of young people in the local community of the important role they should have locally and nationally in Vietnamese society at large by ensuring the conservation and transmission of the know–how of gong tuning and performing ;
• identify best practices in implementing the 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of the ICH , in respect of community involvement.