Xoe Thai dance, Cham people’s traditional pottery making seek UNESCO recognition

The Ministry, on behalf of the Vietnamese Government, will submit the UNESCO to consider putting the country’s Xoe Thai dance in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and Cham pottery making art among Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

Comprising about 30 different dances in total, Xoe Thai is usually performed during community cultural festivals, funerals and cultural exchanges.

The dance has been developed, protected and handed down through generations intact over hundreds of years in many different forms including xoe quat (xoe dance with a fan), xoe khan (xoe dance with a scarf), xoe non (xoe dance with a conical hat) and many others with contents reflecting community activities and expressing the Thai people’s emotion and ancestral spirits.

With gentle and alluring rhythms, dancers usually form a circle around a festive flame and move to the sound of melodic traditional music.

The Cham is one of 54 peoples living mostly in the mid-central and southern of Viet Nam. Their art of producing pottery has been long-established, maintained and developed from generations to generations. 

One of the most outstanding features of the Cham people’s traditional pottery making is the technique of shaping their wares by hand rather than a wheel and using simple tools or shells to decorate them. 

The products are then dried under the sun from four to six hours before being fired outdoors using straw or wood.

By Thuy Dung