Arts performance opens tourism year

April 1st Square in the central province of Phu Yen's Tuy Hoa City sparkled during a special arts performance that opened the national tourism year 2011.
The event marked the beginning of a series of activities that will be organised in seven coastal provinces in south-central Viet Nam, including Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, and Da Nang city between now and the end of the year.
Activities will include folk song festivals, an international fireworks competition, a tourism beauty contest, ASEAN member country traditional music performances, street carnivals, sport events and food festivals.
"This area has great potential for developing coastal and island tourism. The events will integrate cultural heritage from throughout the area," said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan.
"This year will be an opportunity for Viet Nam to promote coastal and island tourism and lure more visitors to the coast and country as a whole.
Yesterday's 90 minute programme featured 400 actors and actresses, and focused on Phu Yen's fight for independence and development.
It also promoted the tourism potential of coastal areas throughout the region featuring original culture and art heritage from every locality.
Audience members absorbed Tay Son drum festivities, Binh Thuan through images of wind-blown sand-dunes, Nha Trang in pictures of swallow wings over wild offshore archipelagos, and Da Nang through the legend of Ngu Hanh Son mountains.
They could also folk cultural activities of people in the central region like fish praying, lithophone and gong performances.
"With this art programme, we want to bring a close sense of nature," said Le Ngoc Cuong, the general stage director of the programme.
"They will feel like they're in the countryside and it features the mixture of specific culture characters from the coastal waters, deltas and mountainous areas," he said
The director said what most inspired him in directing the programme was the land of Phu Yen, a land rich not only for beautiful natural sites and heritage, but also for its kind-hearted and homely people.
The performances ended with dazzling fireworks over Tuy Hoa city.
"I am very happy to see this great festival day take place, as it shows how the province is developing," said La Thanh Hoang, an eleventh-form pupil at the Phu Yen high school of ethnic groups.
"I'll learn more about Phu Yen's natural beauty so that I can act as an amateur guide for visitors who come to my home town," he said.