Vietnamese puppets to impress America

16:26' 14/06/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – On the sideline of President Nguyen Minh Triet’s first official visit to the US, well-known puppeteer Chu Luong plans to make a great impression with a 700-puppet exhibition on Vietnam’s water rice civilisation. Opening on June 20 in a 150sq.m area inside the Ronald Reagan Building, Washington DC, Chu Luong’s exhibition at the upcoming festival will be a version of the Human World Water Puppet Exhibition recently organised in Hanoi. At the exhibition, puppets which have been made manually by Chu Luong and a group of artisans from the northern province of Ha Tay will be arranged alongside agricultural tools and products to reproduce faithfully the daily agricultural and spiritual lives of Vietnamese farmers. “I hope American visitors will understand the stories we want to tell. We want to tell stories about Vietnamese people’s purity, optimism, and generosity by reproducing images of ancestor thanksgiving ceremonies, festivals, fish catching activities, and others,” said Chu Luong. In April, Chu Luong, writer Nguyen Quang Thieu and director Luong Tu Duc as well as 200 puppets, spent almost one month in the US to talk about the history and development of Vietnamese water puppetry. “Audience members put forth very interesting questions. Vietnamese folk culture is something that particularly attracts Americans. I gathered enough courage to play the H’Mong flute and Nguyen Quang Thieu showed off his monochord playing skills. Many later said they had been drawn towards our pure, expressive musical notes amid the atmosphere of water puppetry. So I believe this upcoming exhibition of land puppetry will also be highly appealing to American audiences,” said Chu Luong. Chu Luong’s puppet exhibition in the US will also include black-and-white photos by photographers Viet Thanh and Hoai Linh, both of whom are known for their forte in journalism photography as well as fluent in English. Black-and-white photos will be used to convey the message that the power of culture and the human spirit is timeless. Nguyen A Phi from World and Vietnam Magazine, who will be in charge of the exhibition, said: “When I read in newspapers about Chu Luong’s puppet exhibition, I felt as though I was coming across some gold. Water rice civilisation carries in it the best of each and every Vietnamese person. It is also a strange dish to foreigners. I think we can only win foreigners’ hearts with our most sincere, simple and traditional values. Exhibited works without their authors will become spiritless. Thus, all of the three artists will give explanations in English. Chu Luong still has a little bit of an accent. But it won’t matter. It is Vietnamese naturalness and folksiness that will be captivating,” said A Phi. The exhibition is being organised by World and Vietnam Magazine under the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sponsored by Vietnamese businesses, which will spend about US$100,000 to cover organisation costs. (Source: Tuoi Tre, Lao Dong)