Efforts to keep water puppet performance of Rach village alive

According to the elders, Rach village’s water puppetry troupe was founded in 1755 by the founder of the profession, Mai Van Kha. Since then, water puppetry has become a cultural activity of local people and is one of the cradles of the water puppetry art in the North.

Every year on the full moon of the first lunar month, Rach village organises a festival and performs puppetry.

Currently, Rach village’s water puppetry troupe gathers more than 20 artisans of many ages, including women and high school students.

The puppetry art here has a strong traditional identity, standing out with a rich repertoire, reflecting the true life of labour, belief and national history.

The Rach village water puppetry troupe is preserving and regularly performing 18 traditional puppet shows, divided into thematic groups: opening and introduction shows, agricultural activities - village life shows, legends - folk tales, festivals - beliefs.

Most of the performances do not have dialogue but convey the content through expressive movements, folk sounds combined with traditional musical instruments such as drums, two-stringed fiddles, flutes, moon lutes, and wooden fish.

The performance stage is a lake or village pond. The artists must stand immersed in water, behind bamboo curtains to control the puppets. They use sticks, strings, and bamboo tubes to control the puppets.

Not only are they performing artists, Rach village’s water puppet artists are also talented craftsmen.

The craftsmen here can do all the steps themselves from choosing wood, making puppets to performing. Each puppet - only about 30-40cm high - is made from fig wood, then carved, shaped up, smoothed, painted with many layers and drawn to create the character.

The puppet's shape is stylised to be fresh and lively, and colored to depict typical characters in many ways such as women from different regions, boys riding buffaloes and golden dragons.

It usually takes four to five months to complete a set of water puppets.

Currently, Rach village has 5-7 households which opened workshops and directly performing water puppetry in all regions, creating jobs and stable income for some people. The village's products are supplied to other provinces according to orders with a variety of designs and sizes depending on customer requirements.

Rach village is also developing the water puppetry profession in the direction of craft village tourism. Workshop owners, artisans and tour leaders have cooperated with travel companies to welcome visitors to visit and experience the craft, contributing to preserving the traditional craft of making and performing puppetry while increasing income for local people and contributing to the development of local tourism./.