Many towns and villages in this area feature communal ponds, and it was in these public spaces that the art of water puppetry first developed in the eleventh century AD. Water puppetry has its origins in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. To help western readers understand Vietnam-specific references, the book features excellent footnotes that clarify various points in the text. According to the authors, the goal of the book is to provide readers with insights into the historical development of water puppetry, its roots and roles in traditional Vietnamese society as well as the stories, language and songs featured in this enduring form of folk entertainment. The authors cover the emergence of water puppetry guilds, the workings of water-based theater and the evolution of puppet characters and story lines. Co-authored by Nguyen Huy Hong and Tran Trung Chinh, this 79-page softcover features numerous full-color photos of water puppetry-known as roi in Vietnamese. The Gioi Publishers of Hanoi printed the second edition in 1996. To learn about this 800-year-old art form, which prominently features severed heads, there is no better book than Vietnamese Traditional Water Puppetry. But amphibious Vietnamese water puppets beat all these diverse strands of puppetry. And in America Jim Henson created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and all the other members of the madcap Muppet gang. Europe offers the rambunctious Punch and Judy, not to mention fantastic nose-growing marionettes like Pinocchio. Sure, Indonesia has the graceful Javanese shadow puppets and Japan the bunraku theater with black-clad ninja puppeteers. Puppetry has a long and varied history that spans the globe, but only in Vietnam do puppets slice off each other's heads.
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