The story goes:  “Long, long ago, in La Ngu Thuong Village (present-day Dalat City), a man named Lang who was the chief of the Lach tribe loved a girl named Bian who was the daughter of the chief of the Chil tribe. Due to being in a different tribe, Bian could not marry Lang. At last Bian and Lang chose death to preserve their love and oppose the strict rule. After they died, K’Zenh, father of Bian felt regret and took responsibility to merge the tribes of Lach, Chile , Sre… into the K’ho group. Since then, young men and women of different tribes are allowed to love and marry each other”. To remember the historical mergence day, the ethnic groups have named two mountains in the area Lang Bian.

At night, the Lach ethnic people who live by the foot of Lang Bian Mountain in Lat Commune, Lac Duong District, Lam Dong Province usually dance and sing like real artists. Although their small village in Lat Commune, 18km away from Dalat City, is less than 1km², it has up to 11 bands that perform on gongs every night. All households have their members participating in the bands. Each band has a set of six gongs plus drums, panpipes, guitars, organs and loudspeakers. Initially, the bands were established to promote the mass cultural activities, aiming to preserve the traditional cultural features based on the folk story about Lang Bian, such as reproducing the festivals of worshipping Heaven and praying for clement weather and bumper harvests, etc. Gradually, the bands started performing for a fee.

32-year-old Krajan Tham, who has a robust physical appearance and black eyes, a typical feature of the Lach ethnic people, is one of the leaders of the famous Dangjrung band. He was very glad when we asked him to perform the Lang Bian legend on the mountain among the vast space with cold breeze and firelight, instead of performing in the Rong house as usual. Krajan Tham said that young people in the village want to work as farmers during the day and perform like artists at night. LaNi, a 24-year-old student of Dalat College and a member of the band said that it saddened her if she was unable to perform at night for the visitors.

Although it was cold, the amateur actors and actresses in the Dangjrung band only wore their thin ethnic attire of black and white colours with green edges and danced by the fire to the boisterous drumbeats. They were engulfed in dancing and singing to reproduce the love story of Lang and Bian.

(Source: VNP)