HÀ NỘI — Hundreds of international and Vietnamese dancers will perform at International Dance Festival in northern Ninh Bình Province from September 16 to 22. 

"The festival will be the first international important art and culture event to be held in Ninh Bình Province," said Tống Quang Thìn, the provincial deputy-chairman of People’s Committee and head of the festival organisation.

"This is a good chance for local people to access international-standard culture and art and an opportunity to popularise tourism in the province."

The festival will gather about 24 troupes from professional theatres and art schools, including 15 foreign and nine Vietnamese. The artists will stage dances lasting from 20 to 40 minutes that will be judged on artistic merit.

Inspiring: The First International Dance Festival was held in Huế in 2014. — Photo doanhnhancuoituan.com.vn

The foreign troupes will include Colombian Periferia Dance, Egyptian Port-Said Folk Dance, Japanese Mariko Tosa Modern Ballet Academy, and Russia’s Vezelitsa Art Troupe. Others will be from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, the Phillippines, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia.

Vietnamese artists will be from the Việt Nam Dance College, Military Culture and Arts College, southern-based Sao Biển Folk Dance and Sing Theatre, Việt Nam National Ballet and Opera and provincial troupes from Cao Bằng, Hà Giang, Hòa Bình, Sơn La and Tuyên Quang. 

The sixth panel will be of veteran artists and researchers including an artist from the Republic of Tatarstan, Aleksander Barmin; Swedish researcher in dance theory, Katarina Lion from the Theatre Department at the University of Stockholm; Dr Chua Soo Pong, chairman of the Singapore International Foundation; Tian Bei Bei, deputy-head of College Music in Capital Normal University in Beijing; People’s Artist Đoàn Vương Linh and the National Ballet’s director Phạm Anh Phương. Phương will chair the panel.

The festival is held to introduce the unique identity of dance from other countries. — VNS