Women artists light candles and sing during a Lim Festival Quan ho courtship song performance

Most Vietnamese have never seen a traditional performance of Quan ho Bac Ninh, a form of singing that originated as a courtship ritual in the 13th century.

Traditionally, the elaborate performance would begin with two small rowboats meeting in the middle of the lake. From one boat, traditionally dressed girls sang a line of poetry. From the other boat, elaborately costumed boys then sang a new line in the same melody.

The groups would sing songs for days, staging different scenes at different stages in the lush northern Vietnamese countryside: rice paddies, canals, rich green trees, and old wood and brick houses with rolling hills in the distance.

Quan ho Bac Ninh, so called as it began in the northern province of Bac Ninh, was officially nominated for a chance to become a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity last year.

As the art form is currently undergoing an appraisal process in Paris, its proponents will have to prove that it hasn’t lost its traditional values: that it is still sung in the right place, at the right time, and in the right way by the right people.

But Quan ho performances are not only rare, they’re often distorted from their true a cappella form with electric bass guitars, drum machines and synthesizers.

The art is eight centuries old and Vietnam has undergone a cornucopia of radical changes even in just the last 15 years. The true heart of the form has barely survived the assault of pop music and commercialization.

Only five of six Quan ho singers honored by the government as torchbearers for the culture in 1993 are still alive. It takes Quan ho artists years, even full lifetimes, to master the sophisticated antiphonal alternate singing.

And even those that become the best of the best Quan ho singers lament that they can barely make a living out of it.

In Bac Ninh, the only place where it can be said that Quan ho is anything close to “thriving,” industrialization has put a new face on even the most rural areas that were once the cradle of the traditional form.

Venues for Quan ho are vanishing quickly as the paddy fields and bamboo forests that are the art’s quintessential stage and backdrop are eliminated by factories and industrial zones.

Though a study several years ago found that there were still some 49 Quan ho villages – places where Quan ho performance has a long history and lively culture – many of these have since disappeared. One of UNESCO’s foremost criteria for an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is that the art forms on the list have remained popular throughout the generations without changing due to commercialization or modernization.

With Quan ho performances in the fields, on country roads, or beneath the shade of banyan trees dying out, its hard to say the art is still what it used to be.

The gentle a cappella harmonies are often lost in a web of microphones, amplifiers and loud speakers as modern Quan ho performers must oblige thousands of audience members sitting in well-lit auditoriums and modern theaters in order to make a living.

Even the tunes and notes of some of the oldest songs in the Quan ho repertoire have been changed over the years.

Revival?

Bac Ninh authorities have made efforts to archive Quan ho songs, publish books on the subject and even teach Quan ho in schools.

Bac Ninh Municipal High School of Culture and Arts is a good example.

Numerous projects and seminars aiming to revive Quan ho have been held at the school. However there are still very few people, even in Bac Ninh, who know what a “real” Quan ho performance looks and sounds like.

“The hospitable spirit in Quan ho villages, the elegance of the courtship ritual and the religious aspects of Quan ho have not been fully revived,” said Quan ho scholar Nguyen Danh Khiem.

“Quan ho is losing its ritual norms,” said head of the Vietnam Institute of Cuture and Arts Dr. Nguyen Chi Ben. “Quan ho is no longer associated with religious rituals and festivities. Quan ho karaoke and restaurant styles are more popular than Quan ho a cappella performances.

“Quan ho villages used to hold singing tournaments for singers to challenge themselves in festivals,” he said, adding that reviving this spirit of competition may be the best way to produce good singers and get listeners excited about the form.

Ben said the competitions could “wake up the aesthetic spirit of Quan ho.”

Despite waning interest, Quan ho is still able to mesmerize people who hear it in its traditional form for the first time.

In 1994, Vietnamese-American Nguyen Thuyet Phong, who holds a Ph.D. in music, visited Bac Ninh with 12 American and British researchers to study Quan ho recently. He was taken aback.

“Nowhere in the world have we ever seen such a wonderful folk art like this,” he said.

Some hope that tourism can help save Quan ho.

“Tourism can help to introduce the elegant characteristics of Quan ho to tourists,” said Dr. Ben.

“But not all tourists will want to spend the time to see a whole Quan ho performance. So tourism companies should publish Quan ho booklets and CDs that tourists can take home,” said Dr. Ben.

Ben said that tours could take travelers to Quan ho villages, show them the art, feed them traditional cooking, have them try on traditional costumes and even teach them to sing.

Reported by Hoang Pham