A mass performance of xoe folk dance with more than 2,000 participants will take place on September 29 in Nghia Lo Town in the northwestern mountainous province of Yen Bai.

A mass performance of xoe folk dance with 2,000 participants will take place on September 29 in northern Yen Bai Province's Nghia Lo Town.

Participants will perform six popular xoe dances of Thai ethnic people with 20 traditional instrumentalists performing the music.

Chairwoman of the Nghia Lo People's Committee Hoang Hong Hanh, who is also the head of the performance's steering board of the event, said that locals are excited to join in the activity. They want to take this opportunity to introduce the beauty of their culture to domestic and foreign visitors.

The event will also mark the approval of a project developed to make Nghia Lo Town a cultural and tourist destination for the 2013-20 period.

Xoe dance is an important collective dance of the Thai ethnic people, especially in the northwestern region. The xoe folk dance comprises about 30 different dances.

The event is part of a series of activities promoting culture, sports and tourism in the terraced rice fields in Mu Cang Chai District.

Titled Sac Mau Tay Bac (The Northwest Colours), the festival will be held from September 26 to 29 under the framework of a Culture, Sports and Tourism Week highlighting the fields, which have been recognised as a national landscape.

Organisers have asked several communes in the area to prepare to display traditional local products like musical instrument, violet glutinous rice, medicinal herbs, wines and banh day (glutinous rice cake).

Local communities will also showcase their traditional brocade, embroidery, honey, tea, and others specialties.

Mu Cang Chai's 2,300ha of terraced fields have been cultivated for hundreds of years by the Mong people.