Dol Arastra Bengkulu performing their dol percussions.
KUCHING: The 19th Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) will present Dol Arastra Bengkulu from Indonesia and Lan Dieu Viet of Vietnam on stage to showcase their traditional Southeast Asian ethnic art and music to the Sarawak Cultural Village.
Dol Arastra Bengkulu brings a music tradition featuring the Bengkulu and the Pulau Enggano communities, which are from west coast Sumatera, Indonesia.
Originally known as Sanggar Mayangsari in 1982, Dol Arastra Bengkulu changed its name in 2010 to reflect their main musical influence, which is the ‘percusidol’ or Dol percussions, which comes from ‘Tabot’, an ancient ritualistic ceremony from Bengkulu’s Muslim society.
The Dol percussions or drums come in different sizes, ranging from 70-100cm and are about 80cm in height; and the DolArastra Bengkulu group parades them locally and internationally, as well as in workshops held for the younger generation of Bengkulu to learn the art of Dol percussion.
Lan Dieu Viet from Vietnam has been involved in many local and international festivals, where they play Vietnamese instruments accompanied by traditional singing and acting.
The five-member band are all music teachers at the Vietnam National Academy of music and also award-winning musicians in their own right in solo and ensemble categories.
The Lan Dieu Viet performers capitalise on their performing troupe as a mean to encourage the younger generation to take up and preserve the unique traditional art of the Vietnamese people, as well as to create international awareness on the beauty of Vietnamese music.
This year’s festival will be held on Aug 5-7 at Sarawak Cultural Village, offering a treasure trove of music, arts, crafts and food from all corners of the globe, with nightly performances from 26 performers and over 30 workshops and featuring cultural stalls spread over the course of three days.
Festival tickets and updates are now available online or from the ticketing agents listed at www.rwmf.net, with pre-sale prices available until Aug 4.
The weekend event has been voted as one of the top 25 World Music Festivals by Songlines Magazine for six years in-a-row and is supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak (MTAC) and endorsed by Tourism Malaysia with Malaysia Airlines Berhad as the presenting sponsor.