The theater’s puppeteers have been making a great efforts to revitalize their art. This effort has succeeded in making puppetry more popular.

 

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Water puppetry is a unique form of Vietnamese theater that displays the intelligence and creativity of Vietnamese people. In recent years, it has become widely known throughout the world.

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Noticing that his son was keen on hip hop, emeritus artist Le Chi Kien of the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater offered his son Le Van (in the orange T-shirt) a chance to stage a performance of hip hop land puppetry. Van enthusiastically worked with his father and other artists from the theater.

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They encountered some difficulty at first as hip hop is fast-paced, requiring the puppeteers to be extremely skillful when performing in a big group. But they kept practicing and adjusting their technique.

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Puppeteer Nguyen Xuan Long, who made the puppets, said: “The biggest challenge is to make the puppets, not just eye-catching but also expressive enough to reveal their characters. It is important that the puppets look cute, so the audience, regardless of age, will like them.”

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Le Van (orange T-shirt) and his hip hop crew delivered their opening performance at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater.

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The group performance required great co-ordination.

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In one scene, there was just a “hot girl” puppet. In another scene, there was a group of five puppets, dressed up like hip hop dancers. The puppeteers danced along with the puppets, to the delight of the audience.

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The puppeteers let the puppets interact with the audience.

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More and more efforts are being made to revitalize Vietnamese puppetry.

VOV5