(VOVworld) – A national festival on Chau Van singing closed in Thanh Hoa province on Wednesday. Chau Van is a genre of spiritual singing accompanying the Hau Dong or mediumship ritual of the Mother Goddess religion.

The medium is considered “a bridge” from the spiritual to the real world. (Photo: http://vietnam.vnanet.vn)

The festival was jointly held by the Vietnam Union of UNESCO Associations and Sam Son Town’s People’s Committee. Vietnam is preparing a dossier to be submitted to UNESCO for recognition of Chau Van singing as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. At the festival, each singer performed five pieces worshipping and extolling the merits of beneficent deities or national heroes accompanied by instrumentalists and dancers. The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism has added the ritual to the list of national intangible cultural heritages.