1,000-year-old heaven worship ceremony re-enacted in Ninh Binh
This programme recreated the place where Dinh Bo Linh performed the heaven worship ceremony more than 1,000 years ago.
The Kinh Thien Altar, also known as the Nam Giao Altar, was where feudal kings performed the heaven worship ceremony and was considered the most important ritual in the royal court's ceremonial rites to pray for national peace and prosperity, favourable weather, and a peaceful world.
Organising the 2026 Kinh Thien Altar Festival not only carries spiritual and cultural significance but also honors the cultural and historical values of the Hoa Lu region, while affirming Ninh Binh's position as a heritage centre with profound history, culture, and unique identity within the flow of the Vietnamese nation.
Through a combination of traditional ritual elements and modern performance technology, lighting effects and a multi-layered stage system are used to recreate the ancient ceremonial space in a contemporary art form.
The programme consisted of four chapters, bringing together approximately 2,500 actors, theatrical artists, circus performers, dancers, and people, along with scenes of daily life, rituals, and battles during the Dinh Dynasty, staged in a vast real-life setting, vividly recreating the historical atmosphere.
The Kinh Thien Altar is a site recording traces of human habitation from approximately 13,000 years ago. The cultural sediments here reflect a continuous development process of ancient communities, laying the foundation for the formation of ancient Vietnamese culture in the Hoa Lu area./.
