The Rickshaw tour finished at the entrance to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. I must admit I had neither heard of, nor seen such a performance before but I gather water puppets are very popular in this part of the world.
Water puppetry or Múa rối nước, which literally means "puppets that dance on water" is a tradition that dates back as far as the 11th century when it originated in the villages of the Red River Delta area of northern Vietnam. The farmers of this region celebrated festivals and harvests by performing this unique form of theatre when the rice fields flooded and over the years different villages developed their own water puppet plays to mark battles or significant events.
The puppets are made out of wood and then lacquered. A large rod supports the puppet under the water and is used by the puppeteers, who stand waist-deep in a pool of water and hidden behind a screen, to control them. Thus the puppets appear to be moving over the water.
Hopefully you can read the programme of the scenes performed this afternoon – see photo. Most were only of a few minutes duration accompanied by traditional Vietnamese rousing music reminiscent of the ‘silent movies’.
No performance would be complete without fire crackers of which there were many although I think they were let of at regular intervals to frustrate photographers! So some of the photos are rather blurred but if you want to see better then go to:
www.thanglongwaterpuppet.org or visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_puppetr
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