While the art of puppetry can be found throughout the world, water puppetry can only be found in Vietnam. The surface of a pool of water is the performing area, which services not only to hyde the puppeteers and the puppets’ strings, but also to create a reflective stage providing natural amplification for the singing puppeteers accompanies by percussion music and fire crackers.
The stage, constructed of bamboo, resembles a traditional village communal house, where villagers gather for important events.
Because of its special stage, this art also needs unique “actors”. The 24-45 centimetre puppets are made from the wood of the fig tree, which is said to be light and tough. The figures are then painted with seven layers of waterproof paint. As with many other performing arts, puppet characters are colourfully made up. |
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Behind the stage, puppeteers, both male and female, stand waist-deep in the water, manipulating the puppets on the water’s surfaced through a system of strings and poles below the waterline.
The players generally use a selection of some 30 traditional repertoires, which include Teu Dancing, Buffalo Fighting, Ploughing, Duck Tending and Fox Hunt, Boat Racing, Dragon Dancing, and Chess Playing, all of which portray either daily agricultural life or the wars of such national heroes as the Trung Sisters and Tran Hung Dao against foreign invaders.
Dating back to the Ly Dynasty, around the end of the 11th century, water puppetry is a product of the wet rice culture of the Red River Delta. Rach village in the northern province of Nam Dinh, Thach That and Dao Thuc villages in Hanoi, and Nguyen Xa village in the northern province of Thai Binh are some of the earliest known centres of this art.
Hong Nhung (The Vietnam Nation)
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