Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppets Head to France

Sharing with us after the show in France, Mr Nguyen Tien Dung, Deputy Director of Vietnam Water Puppet Theatre, said, the combination between foreign works and a Vietnamese traditional art form was perfectly presented by Vietnamese artists, it attracted foreign audience and still retained Vietnamese identity, soul and language.

 

Regarding their difficulties when taking over the French stage, he said, the most enormous obstacle for the team was water stage. While the minimum water depth required is one metre, the water depth of stage in French was only 0.5 m so artists had to knee to perform. Moreover, when performing in France, nine artists had to undertake the duties of 20 artists in a normal performance as usual. No changes in the number of puppets were also a challenge for artists as they had to strictly train before the performance.

 

As for French audience, artist Nguyen Tien Dung said, "When the show is on, it seems that artists escape from their daily life to put themselves in the puppets. When watching the performance of Vietnamese artists, I can laugh or be moved to tears with wooden puppets”. Many French audiences shared that they had admired Vietnam water puppetry for many years, but it was more surprised as enjoying foreign art works performed uniquely, attractively and creatively by Vietnam water puppetry.

 

“We cannot deny the value of the traditional water puppet show, but it is also essential to create new directions to help Vietnamese water puppetry convey the message of shared values ​​among Asian –Europe cultures in general and Vietnam - France in particular”, said Mr Jean -Luc Larguier, Director of Interarts, one of the pioneers who cooperates and brings Vietnam Water Puppet abroad.

 

This is the first time the project "Andersen" has been co-organised by Vietnam Water Puppet Theatre and Interart Rivierasa of France, therefore, the optimistic opinions of French audience partly acknowledged the success of Vietnam Water Puppet Theatre. Following the success of this show, Vietnam Water Puppet Theatre and their French partners will go ahead with the plan that they shared with reporters before going to France "Vietnam water puppetry can tell a lot of stories and characters in many different countries, which will promote cooperation among cultures". It also showed the efforts in creating, preserving and developing Vietnamese traditional water puppetry, from that to expand the cooperation with international friends. This new and skillful combination through water puppet art created a good impression as the opening event for "Vietnam Year in France". This is also the creative orientation which helps refresh and revive the art of Vietnamese traditional water puppetry.