I decided to share music from Hanoi, Vietnam! This piece was performed at Hanoi’s Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. 

While the exact origins of water puppetry are unclear, it is believed to have developed as a form of entertainment among Vietnamese farmers during monsoon season when their rice paddies flooded. While water puppetry may have originated as a creative way to build community, this practice soon became so integrated into the culture of Vietnam that talented water puppet troupes were commissioned to perform in royal palaces. Performance of contemporary water puppetry is a strenuous activity that requires performers to stand among water for long periods of time while manipulating buoyant puppets made of fig wood. The water puppet show is accompanied by a musical ensemble. In the video I have attached, one can see a performer playing the dan co (fiddle) as well as the sao (horizontal flute). The melodic center of the performance I selected is the dan bau, a one-stringed zither. The pitches of the notes that are performed can be changed by moving a curved flexible rod made from a water buffalo horn. The dan bau can be plucked with the finger or with a small bamboo stick, the latter of which is seen in this performance. I selected this piece because I find the remarkably clear tone of the dan bau in combination with periods of powerful vibrato to be very captivating. It is truly incredible how many different pitches can be produced from the manipulation of a single string; performance of this instrument must require significant technical skill.

Musical performance I described: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nQuOHuajgE

Water puppet theater performance example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMWqvccmR3I

Sources:

“Danbau: Vietnamese one string zither.” Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra, https://vi-co.org/resources-study/instrument-corner/danbau/.

Windows to the World: Digital Artifacts for Global Educators. Indiana University Bloomington, https://w2w.indiana.edu/explore-collections/water-puppets.html#:~:text=According%20to%20legend%2C%20it%20was,stories%2C%20songs%2C%20and%20jokes. 

“All about Vietnamese water puppets.” Vietnam Tourism, https://vietnam.travel/things-to-do/vietnam-water-puppets.