According to the organizing board, the festival theme will be “Dragon Bridge tells the story of 1000 years. The four-day event (Oct. 6-9) will consist of four stages.

 

Chief organizer, Nguyen Nga, a French-Vietnamese, said on the first day, local people will be encouraged to wear makeup and dress up to tell their stories through their costumes.

 

The second day will be for the memory of the Vietnam People’s Army. Local people can wear clothes in the style of days gone by.

The Long Bien bridge last year’s festival.

Oct. 8 will be the day for the young generation and young people’s activities.

The last day will be the day of Vietnam and the world. People will wear traditional costumes of 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam while foreigners will wear their traditional outfits to join the festival.

Long Bien bridge will be divided into 10 sections to symbolize 10 centuries. When participants go through the bridge, it will symbolize passing through the memories of ten centuries. The country’s memories will be shown through various documents, objects and art performances.

Two months before the festival, an event will be held in Paris. This will be an art display and concert entitled “Vietnamese dragon, culture of a thousand years." A Vietnamese dragon 145 m long, a combination of contemporary art, sound and light, will be built near the l’Arc de Triomphe.

Vietnamese artists will perform Hue royal court music, ca tru and quan ho alongside the band Urban Sax at the foot of the dragon for five days. After that, the dragon will be brought to Vietnam.

The most important activity will be a music and art show on a big dragon-fairy boat traveling from the ancient capital of Hoa Lu (Ninh Binh province) to Hanoi and Ha Long (Quang Ninh). The boat will carry 100 Vietnamese artists and the Urban Sax band.

At the same time, another boat will carry Buddhist monks from the Hung Kings Temple in Phu Tho to the Long Bien bridge. The two boats will meet each other at the bridge on Oct. 9 in the closing ceremony, which will be supported by fireworks. The two boats will go to Ha Long bay in the morning of Oct. 10. The journey will close with a gala on Oct. 17 in Ha Long.

 

Nga estimated that she needs over 30 billion dong (around $1.6 million) to turn this script into reality. She hopes to raise one third from Hanoi government and the remaining amount from sponsors.

 

“I will call for the people’s contribution to this event by sending text messages by cell phones," Nga said. "Each message is worth only 1000 dong. This is a festival for the people. The only problem is funding."

 

Vietnamnet