Experience The Astonishing Water Puppetry, Hanoi

You must have witnessed many puppet shows in your life but would never ever have come across the performance of puppets in water, isn’t that amazing? Get ready for the extreme fascination and take cheap flights to Hanoi to view the amazing puppets, dancing in water at Thang Long Theatre. Mua roi nuoc which means ‘the puppets that dance in water’ is a Vietnamese tradition which has its origin in the Red River Delta villages dating back to 11th century.
The Vietnamese villagers believed that some spirits have a strong hold on their lives so they invented this thrilling activity to gratify those hidden souls. The flooded rice fields and ponds were used as a stage for performing the acts. In 1990 three theatres gained much fame which are National Puppet Theatre (Nhà hát Múa roi Trung uong), Ho Chí Minh City Puppet Company (Đoàn Nghe thuat Múa roi Thành Pho Ho Chí Minh) and Thăng Long Puppet Theatre (Nhà hát Múa roi Thăng Long).

It is an unparalleled change over old Asian puppet dancing culture. The Thang Long Puppet troupe performs worldwide and is admired a lot by various people of numerous cultures. Basically there are three venues where show is performed-ponds of villages where a proper stage is made, portable tanks used by travelling artists and a theatre or building where a water- pool stage is constructed. These puppets are made of coloured varnish and wood, normally weigh 15 kilograms and they dance in waist-high water pools. The puppeteers remain hidden at the back of stage and use elongated bamboo rods to operate them and the viewers feel as if the puppets are floating on water and cultural Vietnamese musical group who provides entertaining music by using drums, vocals, bells, horns, cymbals, xylophone, flutes and gongs. The splashing clear sound of flute, royal notes, loud sound of cymbals and drums, fireworks, poetry and the great entry of fire-spitting dragon will truly mesmerize you.
Through singing, the singers of Vietnamese musical theatre tell the folks, being performed. The show is a sequence of disjointed incidents and skits where some illustrates the stories from village life such as fishing, rice farming, catching Frogs, and many others perform myths and fables. A special distinctive puppet is made for each different act and an extraordinary illuminating effect is used on stage which makes the performances magical and bewitching.

When you are at Vietnam you must visit water puppetry theatre which is a real amusement for all age groups as it totally enthrals its audience. The climate of Hanoi is humid subtropical and monsoonal, the summers are extremely hot and humid with abundant rainfall where the temperature reaches up to 35 degree Celsius where as the winters are dry and cold and temperature falls to  as low as 6 degree Celsius. The best time to visit Hanoi is spring season when rain drizzles and weather is pleasant and comfortable. So this time you must plan your vacations for this enchanting city.