Water Puppetry (Mua roi nuoc)

Water puppetry was created by farmers thousand years ago who spent their days in flooded rice fields. They discovered that the water not only hides the puppeteers' long poles, it also provides exciting effects like waves and splashes.


It is performed in a deep pool of water, with the water's surface as a stage and puppeteers standing behind a curtained backdrop controlling the puppets. Water puppetry was first performed on the surface of the ponds and paddy fields in Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam, Hanoi.

During the water puppet show, I have noticed that the puppeteers control the puppets using long poles which are hidden beneath the water. I think that it is quite difficult to control the puppets using long poles due to the pressure of water. I believed that besides having a strong pair of arms, the puppeteers must also have good skills in order to control the puppets properly.

Water puppets bring humor to scenes of farming, fishing, legends, national history and festival events such as buffalo fights, children's games, etc. In the show, I noticed that puppets have different characters; lion dogs, human, fish, dragon, turtles, wolf, etc. And in different scenes, there are different characters of puppets.


In the scene of fishing, there are characters like the fishermen and the fish. It turned into a game of wits between the fisherman and his prey (fish), with the fisherman getting the short end where the fisherman captured the other fisherman by mistake. There are other puppet characters like the lion dogs which romp like puppies and dragons which exhale smoke and shoot sprays of water at the audience.



the guys try to avoid the sprays of water shoot by the puppets



Below is a short videoclip on the show. Enjoy!



All the shows are performed in Vietnamese. Although I do not understand the language but I think it is nice and I have enjoyed the performance.