When considering awarding the title of artisan: Don't be rigid!

For many years, various forms of heritage art across the country have been in a critical state due to a lack of successors. According to People's Artist Thanh Tuyet (Ho Chi Minh City), in the field of Southern Vietnamese folk music, for example, finding worthy successors to pass on the craft is a difficult problem. "Many young people only know how to play folk music in the traditional sense, without intending to study it in more depth," she stated, highlighting the current situation.

Artists from the Binh Quoi Traditional Music and Folk Song Club (Ho Chi Minh City) perform in the "Artists and the Stage" program organized by HTV. (Photo: THANH HIEP)

People's Artist Ut Ty (Ho Chi Minh City) believes that many people, despite being skilled in practice and performance, lack the pedagogical methods to teach, making it understandable that they don't have students. He assesses that the aforementioned regulations still have some shortcomings, such as: not specifying the number of people to be trained; and how the titles are awarded based on certification – since it's called passing on a craft, it's difficult to have a certificate or an agency to certify it... These issues could easily lead to unnecessary disputes.

In addition, artisans must also submit a "Declaration of Achievements for the Title of Honor." This must be accompanied by documents proving their knowledge, skills, and contributions to the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, including: audio and video recordings, images, documents related to medals, awards, certificates of merit, etc. Music researcher Bui Trong Hien noted that these requirements pose difficulties for older artisans, especially some ethnic minority artisans who are illiterate.

Many artisans working in the field of intangible cultural heritage arts in Ho Chi Minh City in particular and the whole country in general have expressed concerns about the somewhat rigid regulations mentioned above. They believe that these regulations need to be amended soon to better suit the reality.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/van-nghe/xet-tang-danh-hieu-nghe-nhan-dung-cung-nhac-20230831201416772.htm