National Performing Arts Competition Explained

The National Performing Arts Competition (Burmese: မြန်မာတိုင်းရင်းသားတို့၏ ရိုးရာယဉ်ကျေးမှု အဆို၊ အက၊ အရေး၊ အတီးပြိုင်ပွဲ), commonly abbreviated Sokayeti (Burmese: ဆိုကရေးတီး), is an annual performing arts competition held in Myanmar since 1993.^[1] The competition is held in October of each year.

Divisions

The Sokayeti is divided into divisions, namely singing, dancing, composing, and instrumental performances, theatrical performances, marionette. and Burmese drama.^[2] Dances from ethnic minorities, including the Karen don dance have been included into the competition.^{[3] [4]} Most competitors are from the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon and Mandalay, the State School of Fine Arts, and other culture-oriented educational institutions.^[5]

The divisions are divided into gender, and include:^[6]

• Singing
  • Mahāgīta
  • Old and contemporary songs
  • Popular songs
• Dancing
  • Dance
  • Dramatic play - Suvaṇṇa Jātaka (သုဝဏ္ဏဇာတ်တော်ကြီ)
  • Marionette
    • Yokson (person, parrot, nat, mouse)
    • Yokthe (prince, princess, ogre)
  • Kwetseit (ကွက်စိပ်)
    • Sutanu Jātaka (သုတနုဇာတ်)
    • Scene of Rāhula Requesting Inheritance
    • မွေခံထိုက်စေရိုးရာအမွေ
• Composing
  • Amateur Level 1
  • Amateur Level 2
  • Professional
• Instrumental performances
  • Burmese harp
  • Pattala
  • Piano
  • Hsaing waing
  • Hne
  • Violin
  • Hsaingwainggyi
  • Ozi (အိုးစည်)
  • Dobat (ဒိုးပတ်)
  • Mandolin
  • Guitar
  • Donmin (ဒုံမင်း)

Levels

Competitors in each division are divided into 6 levels, according to age and ability:

• Amateur Level 1
• Amateur Level 2
• Professional
• Ages 15 to 20
• Ages 10 to 15
• Ages 5 to 10

See also

• Burmese music
• Burmese dance
• Culture of Myanmar
• Mahagita

Notes and References

1. Douglas. Gavin. 2003. The Sokayeti Performing Arts Competition of Burma/Myanmar: Performing the Nation. The World of Music. 45. 1. 35–54. 41700087.
2. Web site: Case Study Report: Myanmar Traditional Performing Arts Competition.
3. News: Vice President U Nyan Tun hails arts competition as vital to preserving culture. 2015-05-08. Ministry of Information.
4. Web site: Karen Don Dance Added to Burma National Performing Arts Competition « Karen News. karennews.org. en-US. 2018-09-14.
5. News: In the Sokayeti song contest, an out of tune nation-building project. Soe. Hein Ko. Frontier Myanmar. 2018-09-14. en.
6. Web site: မြန်မာတိုင်းရင်းသားတို့၏ ရိုးရာယဉ်ကျေးမှု အဆို၊ အက၊ အရေး၊ အတီးပြိုင်ပွဲ ပြိုင်ပွဲဝင်အဆင့်များနှင့် ယှဉ်ပြိုင်ခွင့်ပြုထားသော ဘာသာရပ်များ. Ministry of Culture.