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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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

The group performance required great co-ordination.

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.

The puppeteers let the puppets interact with the audience.

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