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In the classroom, American students may be charmed by the way the student filmmaking team worked with the villagers to document puppet-making by giving them cameras and editing their efforts.

#Vietnams water puppetry how to#

Screen capture from the ﬁlm showing ﬁlm crew members teaching villagers how to use video cameras. And, not neglecting the more practical potential of both the old films and the new ones, the villagers were clearly aware of the possibility such media would draw foreign tourists to their village performances. Though they have no electricity in their homes during the day, several of the five interviewees watch TV every night no wonder that, when asked about the quality of the archival films, several responded like urbane film critics, commenting that the films showed “choppy film technique” and could have been more beautiful. The documentary also shows how traditional village life is embedded in a global economy. All villagers enjoyed the rich vein of humor in the traditional show’s depiction of farming life. One of the puppeteers notes that the performance reflects the five elements: water, fire, earth, wood, and metal. Several of the villagers interviewed relate that traditional puppet shows taught their children the values of community life and passed down the rich history and folk tales of Việt Nam. While information about the tradition and craft of puppetry is found throughout Peck’s film, students can also gain from it a sense of the role of traditional performances in village life.

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The team’s goal was to have “the process of digital repatriation traveling full circle.” Screen capture from the ﬁlm showing villagers critiquing the ﬁlm. A second screening was organized, which included the new short films made by the members of the community themselves.

In addition, Peck’s team recorded short vignettes of the five villagers’ daily routines and the craft of the puppeteers. Five villagers were then selected, including puppeteers, village officials, academics, and students, and trained to make films of their own about water puppetry. A community screening was organized, and villagers were encouraged to express their opinions about them.

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Peck and his team traveled to the village of Bao Ha with a series of archival, government-made films about the village’s famous water puppet shows. Sam Peck, a cultural anthropologist at Kenyon College, and a team of graduate assistants have produced a charming-if slightly uneven-documentary exploring the production and reception of the film in a rural village. Screen capture from the ﬁlm showing the water puppet theater in the village of Bao Ha in the red river Delta, Việt Nam. Few visitors travel to the rural Vietnamese countryside to see the water puppet shows in the settings for which they were intended, the rice paddy deltas. Troupes have also been brought to the US for Asian cultural festivals. Today, watching a performance of this unique folk art has come to be mandatory for tourists to Việt Nam, where water puppet shows are often held at sophisticated theaters in major cities, such as Hanoi. Villagers staged water puppet performances to celebrate the end of the rice harvest, at religious festivals, and simply for entertainment. Water puppetry arose in the Red River delta and other rice-growing regions of northern Việt Nam a thousand years ago, during the Lý dynasty.

#Vietnams water puppetry pdf#

Re-envisioning Asia: Contestations and Struggles in the Visual Artsĭownload PDF Water Puppetry in Vietnam An Ancient Tradition in a Modern World PRODUCED BY SAM PECK 31 MINUTES, COLOR BERKELEY MEDIA LLC, 2012 Reviewed by Karen Kane.Distinguished Service to the Association for Asian Studies Award.Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award.Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies: Humanities Grants for Asian Studies Scholars.

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