Ogre-Demon (Nyak) in a Pink Sarong

Some time ago there was a traditional Burmese marionette made from teak the seller called "Ogre-Demon in a Pink Sarong."  Regular readers of this blog will recognize it as a depiction of the Burmese counterpart of a Nyak, who figure prominently in many Lao legends, including the epic Phra Lak Phra Lam. You'll also find more than a few in my forthcoming book DEMONSTRA. This wonderful specimen stands at 14".

Among the notes included, the seller mentions "His outfit is so heavily embroidered, studded with sequins and glass jewels, that you can barely see it. His wood fingers and toes have red designs painted on them.  His neck is carved with a separate disc to make it more movable, as are his legs which have two sections." 

The seller also notes: "Small flecks off the paint here and there, but he is clean, no odors and no major damage." This last bit saddens me a bit, because if he smelled as foul as a Nyak is reputed to smell from consuming humans and other sentient beings, I might applaud it for its multidimensional artistry truly going the next step.

I'm doubtless in the minority on this, but I think a masterful piece of sculpture changes from the angles one views it, and also the way if feels when one can touch it. As one criteria of this multisensory engagement with a particular piece of art: Do different elements have different and appropriate (or meaningfully inappropriate) temperatures and textures? Not many artisans incorporate this into the work, but when it's done, I respect it.

The olfactory rarely comes into play with sculpture, but when it does, and if it's masterfully done, I would hope its audience can truly appreciate it. Then there's the aural dimension: When you have a marionette like this, perhaps it's a bit much to ask if it can also move with particular sounds that evoke its ferocious nature, but I would not discourage an artisan from exploring this.

While I will doubtless never get a chance to own this lovely brute, I do admire what's gone into his craftsmanship, and I think it would be wonderful is Lao can master puppetry and marionette construction as well as this. At the moment, I think we still have a long way to go to really hit our golden age of puppetry.

Salon: If Tolkien were Black

This week at Salon, the work of prose writers of color in speculative literature has gotten some attention. It's worth checking out, but I would also give a shout out to the Carl Brandon Society and a nod to recent World Fantasy Award winner, Dr. Nnedi Okorafor who are all doing significant work to contribute meaningfully to this discussion.

I appreciated the section where "Jemisin finds deeper problems in “certain expectations of the genre that are rooted in Western cultural assumptions that are not necessarily true. For example: the whole good-versus-evil focus, the binary. You see that in so much of epic fantasy. The Dark Lord is really bad, we know this. Because he’s dark. Well, did you do something to him? Doesn’t matter, he’s dark. That’s why he’s bad and that’s why you’ve got to go kill him. That kind of thinking I inherently do not trust.”

Hopefully, through the course of NaNoWriMo this month, we'll see the creation of work that will really keep the momentum going on tackling the monotony that's always lurked at the worst edges of the field.

The Iliad in the New Yorker and Lao Epics

The New Yorker has new piece by Daniel Mendelsohn contemplating a slimmer, faster Iliad, based on Stephen Mitchell's new translation, which, among other things, completely cuts out Chapter 10, or the Doloneia. The abstract is extremely truncated, but the actual article is filled with some very interesting observations that would also apply for Lao American writers as we wrestle with our own literary traditions, for epics such as that of Sinxay.

We can spend so much time focused on the preservation and historicity of the classical Lao texts that we forget to make them living, breathing texts for ourselves. But that's for a larger discussion in the years ahead, I suppose.

"Indochina's Vicious Swamp Demons"

Author Brad Steiger, in his 1999 work, The Werewolf Book, notes a curious 1940 account in Ed Bodin's Scare Me! A Symposium on Ghosts and Black Magic. 

In Steiger's entry "Indochina's Vicious Swamp Demons," he retells Bodin's story of a Colonel Marchand supposedly sent in 1923 to a French military colony. It isn't clear which part of Indochina, but he brought his daughter Yvonne Marchand with him.

A native thief,  faced between the choice of turning himself in to the authorities or crossing a haunted swamp, chose to surrender to the French.

Colonel Marchand, amused by the superstition, ordered the thief cast into the middle of the swamp. The thief begged for lenience and threw himself at the feet of Yvonne Marchand, but to no avail. He was marched into the swamp at bayonet point.

However, later that evening, he came back to the French camp and carried off the colonel's daughter to the swamp.

A search party was organized and they found the thief bleeding to death, covered in severe bites and scratches, his jugular torn open. With his dying breath, the thief claimed Yvonne did this horrible thing to him.

Pressing further into the swamp, the men found Yvonne, "naked except for a strip of cloth about her thighs. The searchlights caught the streaks of blood on her body, but her father was more horrified by the fiendish grin that parted her lips. Yvonne stood there before them, her teeth flashing as if she were some wild thing waiting for prey to fall within reach of her claws and fangs. To the astonishment of the entire search party, the girl rushed the nearest soldier, ready to gouge and bite."

They subdue her, but when Yvonne comes to her senses, she describes her capture. When they stopped in the swamp, hideous, fanged demonic faces bobbed all around the pair.

She described the strange sensations that came over her that drove her to kill the thief, remarking "I gloried in tearing away his flesh, in hearing him scream, in seeing him drop to the ground and crawl away. Then the faces summoned me on into the swamp. I tore off my clothes and began to bite myself. The faces laughed at me, and I laughed too."

Bodin's account is difficult to corroborate.

I haven't found any resources highlighting the service of a Colonel Marchand being stationed in Indochina around this time, but that does not wholly rule out the possibility. Proper, serious research of Southeast Asian metaphysics and the supernatural was not extensive among Europeans at the time, so we can only speculate what exactly they had encountered.

The floating fanged faces could have been any number of phi, including krasue, but there may be other possibilities. What do you think?

Toys Are Us and Wight in Apex

A few months back I supported Zac Shavrick's kickstarter project, the awesome Toys Are Us: a Crowd Driven Art Project. The results were great and to me really exemplify the best of what kinds of projects Kickstarter can support:

And it arrived just in time following my recent admission to the Horror Writers Association and the publication of my poem  'Wight' in Apex Magazine thanks to their new editor Lynne M. Thomas. It's rare that such moments of greater poetry occur in life, I think.

He's not accepting commissions until after mid-December, but I'd definitely recommend him and give my thanks to Kickstarter for connecting us as artists. Here's to his continued success. And here's a video of his traveling exhibition visiting the kickstarter founders. Watch closely, and you might see someone holding a familiar sculpture: 

Toys Are Us- Pickup Truck Exhibition from Kickstarter on Vimeo.

Poet to Poet: An Interview with John Rezmerski

Usually when we see interviews of poets it's done in a conventional journalism format. Question and response. And rarely do we see journalists ask questions that reflect a real familiarity with poetry and poets. Or else, they're so academic, they're unreadable.

Ezra Pound is famous for his quip, "poetry is news that stays news." When poets interview poets, I've begun to question why we aren't interviewing each other truly as poets.

So, for the last few months, I've been interviewing Minnesota poets through the format of poetry to see what would happen. John C. Rezmerski, an amazing Minnesota poet, particularly in the field of speculative poetry, graciously agreed to be interviewed using this method, and the result is now up at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. 

Enjoy!

Journal of the Day: The Innsmouth Free Press

2011 marks 20 years since I began writing poetry and short stories seriously, and placing them in publications. Some have come and gone. Others are still chugging along. For the next few weeks, I'm going to look at some of those who were there for me at different points in my career.

Seeing that today is Halloween, I'll start off with one of the journals dedicated to horror and the supernatural, I've appeared in, the Innsmouth Free Press.

Established in 2009, the Innsmouth Free Press is many things, printing short fiction, poetry, and news clips in the vein of The Onion, if The Onion did horror.  They also put out reviews and commentary on topics related to the mythos and cosmic horror envisioned by 20th century writer H.P. Lovecraft.

The Innsmouth Free Press is where you can find my horror story, "A Model Apartment," about a Hmong painter who moves to the city of Arkham and what happens when she runs into the horrors of New England and the Old Country.

My poem, "The Deep Ones" will be featured in their forthcoming anthology, Future Lovecraft.

They also printed what I believe may be one of the first Lovecraftian historcal horror stories set in Laos, "What Hides, What Returns" in their anthology, Historical Lovecraft this year.

One of the things I've enjoyed about the press is its commitment to multicultural voices and their search for well-written, new perspectives. The Innsmouth Free Press has been very good about encouraging mythos fiction that reflects diverse perspectives and cultural viewpoints, which is still somewhat rare in this sub-genre of horror.

This is the journal where I've also deposited any number of short horror bits to help flesh out the city of Innsmouth, first featured in Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."  Some have been tongue-in-cheek, such as the discovery of lost Twain manuscripts that hint of the Jumping Frog God of Tsathogghua County,  while others have been efforts of mine to broaden the perception and role of Southeast Asians in Lovecraftian fiction.

A significant example is the work I've done regarding a Lovecraftian race known as the Tcho Tcho, who first appeared in August Derleth's 1933 short story "The Thing That Walked on the Wind." In that story, a character refers in passing to "the forbidden and accursed designs of the Tcho-Tcho people of Burma". Later that year, in "Lair of the Star-Spawn", co-written with Mark Schorer, Derleth expanded on the Tcho-Tcho, describing them as a short, hairless people that worship Lloigor and Zhar. Given their treatment over the years by other writers, I've felt much better work can be done handling them. We'll see, over time, what prevails in the Lovecraftian canon.

The Innsmouth Free Press is still looking for occasional and regular contributors and readers. They recently finished their Apocalypse Week series, and have many other exciting issues ahead. Check them out!

Vince Gotera on Serial Killers, Profilers, and Poetry Imitation

Filipino American poet Vince Gotera has an interesting post on his blog The Man with the Blue Guitar. This month, he addressed Serial Killers, Profilers, and Poetry Imitation.  Here, he's going back to a 2002 poem he wrote nearly 10 years ago with his class as an exercise in poetic imitation.

He was conducting a writing exercise to ask how one chooses subjects, and how one empathizes with the creative process of other writers. This is useful, because it allows us to build our own greater, personal understanding of the techniques and moves a poet has available.

He chose to work with Louise Glück’s poem "Siren," and emerged with "Sniper, 2002," which would later be included in his 2003 book, Ghost Wars. (And I really would say you ought to check this volume out. Vince has some great perspectives that should be read with the work of Yusef Komunyakaa, especially Komunyakaa's Dien Cai Dau and Talking Dirty to the Gods.)

It's always a question, when we write poems so close to recent histories and search for the aesthetics within it.

As a Lao American poet, I haven't seen any of us yet widely respond through verse to Jeffrey Dahmer the way David Mura has, despite our community's more direct connection. The same might be said for Thung Phetakhoune and Ped Phantavong's killers.

The Lao American poet Saymoukda Vongsay has a poem regarding the murder of Kitty Genovese, in her chapbook No Regrets, but we wouldn't consider it a poem that identifies with the killer or makes an effort to find their voice in the conversation, the way "Sirens" or "Sniper, 2002" approach the possibility.

In my poem, "Dr. Songkran Niyomsane's Forensic Medicine Museum" I briefly tackled figures like the Chinese cannibal Si Ouey Sae Urng, who is regarded as the first serial killer in the history of modern Thailand, but I wouldn't say I linger too long with them, or put my readers into the perspective of serial killers on a regular basis.

I come close to this technique in my short horror story, 'The True Tale of Yer,' by framing a larger discussion on multiple murderers through a mythic lens. There are advantages and disadvantages to this in hindsight.

From a poet's point of view, we often hear each other discuss lines we won't cross and many saying there's no limit, it's all fair game, but perhaps, as we look at our bodies of work, we need to re-examine the truth of that. 

Not that I think many want to really engage with poems of cannibals from the cannibal's point of view every day or zombies in penguin suits.

But at the same time, Lao American poets are observing others creating poems from perspectives vastly different from their experience, but generating few examples of these themselves. Will this be a continuing trend?

Nietzsche famously warns that those who fight monsters too long eventually become monsters themselves, but by the same token, there are times we have to make efforts to understand the perspective of our enemies and those we fear. Otherwise, especially for communities in the antebellum years, truth and reconciliation becomes difficult at a personal and a national level.

This can already be seen in how Lao American and Hmong American poets have or haven't been creating work regarding UXO, Agent Orange, and other elements of the war for Laos. 

Some parts are certainly still to painful to talk about. I had a brief conversation once with Yusef Komunyakaa who said it took him nearly 14 years to be able to begin writing poems about his time during the Vietnam War. We seem to be writing at a similar pace.

In Lao American poetry on the conflict, combatants and civilians in poems about the war for Laos are frequently nameless abstractions. Even in the aftermath. Often, our poems are written in such a way that we're basically talking around the glass, but not about what's IN the glass. It's the elephant in the room, if you will. 

While as a literary device this can be useful, and protective, due to sensitivities that persist. But there are many instances that this remoteness, this abstracted 'other' and 'enemy' might as well be some space alien, and not another human being whose experiences were also a part of our history, and without whose perspective we have an incomplete knowledge of that moment we were both a part of.

Getting back to Vince Gotera's "Sniper, 2002" as a response to Louise Glück’s "Siren," I'm reminded of Catzie Vilayphonh's "You Bring Out the Laos in the House," which is a response to Bao Phi's "You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me," which is in turn his response to Sandra Cisneros' "You Bring out the Mexican in Me." 

There are elements within "You Bring Out the Laos in the House" that have strong ties to both, but then also make significant detours and divergences that are examples of what Gotera is talking about: Those moments where we find ourselves facing an all-new poem that has gone beyond the imitation of poem, but has been shown the way by its predecessors.

Admittedly, this is all just be a roundabout way of telling you: Read more poetry.

Ghost poems and Nang Nak

For Halloween, the Academy of American Poets presented a list of poems by prominent poets including Yusef Komunyakaa, Garrett Hongo and some guy named William Shakespeare dealing with ghosts at http://bit.ly/Ghostpoems11.

I would also point out that in America, at least, this is a great validation of the work of speculative poets who write around themes of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

IO9.com also has a great article "Forget why does fantasy matter. Why does realism matter?," which I would argue applies not just to prose narratives but also to poetry.

While doing a recent call for submissions for an anthology of Lao American speculative art, I received a few responses that suggested speculative poetry wasn't something that serious Lao poets wrote about.

When we look at the Odyssey, the Ramayana, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Canterbury Tales, the Lais of Marie de France, Le Morte de Arthur, Beowulf, and the Raven, these are speculative poems of the highest order that transformed entire cultures and affected the world.

In the Lao culture, our poetry included Phra Lak Phra Lam and the epic of Sinxay that began as poems. If anything, I would argue the maintenance of  our cultural traditions that our elders so fervently argue for obliges us to continue to write poetry that touches upon the mythic and the fantastic. Speculative poems are not the only thing to write of, but neither are they nothing to write of.

As for me, I've written a number of ghost poems over the years that have been published. This year, I present one of my favorites of these, based on the classic Thai legend of Nang Nak, which first appeared in my collection, On The Other Side Of The Eye. Have a happy Halloween season!

The Ghost Nang Nak 

Hates the draft.

Isn’t very good on issues

Of fertility

But isn’t too bad

With the lottery

If you pay your respects

Properly by the takian trees.

She’s eating diced mangos

With a mouth of ebony ants.

Kept company by a

TV tuned to tacky Thai soap operas.

Surrounded by white mutts

Who hate black dogs of any pedigree.

Wants a simple life again.

To set down the Buddha’s yellow candles

For just a minute.

But she has a lot of karma to pay off

For trying to keep her family together

Spooking mischievous children at night

Who thinks she’s looking for playmates

For her beautiful baby

Toddling between Wat Mahabut 

And the Prakanong River. 

Free Poetry E-books

I have a number of free e-books scattered around the web. But to make things easier, here are the locations for several of them:

Between Souls: http://bit.ly/betweensouls11
This is my most recent short collection of poems connected to the Lao experience around the world, along with a bibliography and some biographical information.

Tanon Sai Jai: http://bit.ly/TanonSaiJai is a full-length, 2009 collection of poems including a photopoetic essay on Laomerica. It is also available in a bound and printed edition.

On The Other Side Of The Eye: http://bit.ly/otosote was my first full-length collection in 2007, with a foreword by Barbara Jane Reyes.  It is a book of speculative poetry from a Laotian American experience, drawing on both the history of Laos and the themes and techniques of science fiction, horror and fantasy. Currently out of print, this e-book version was a pre-publication version stored at archive.org for scholarly purposes. There are a few differences between this version and the print edition.

Touching Detonations: http://bit.ly/TouchingDetonations was the first e-book to emerge from my first trip to Laos in 30 years in 2003. It also collects many of my initial poems written in response to the continuing challenge of UXO still leftover in Laos after nearly 40 years.

They should be compatible with any e-reader that can read pdfs. Enjoy!

Puppoetics: The Killing Joke

It's been a while since I've written about puppoetics, but I don't really consider the topic dead.

ComicsAlliance.com reported on a recent project by Oscar Andrés Rodríguez and his classmates shows an amazing example of what could be done. They recently adapted The Killing Joke to the medium of shadow puppetry. In 13-minutes, they created a Spanish language version of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's classic Batman story.

You can see it on youtube at: http://youtu.be/z4fCLibBrto. The sound's a little rough, but for a student project it's really something.

This is an art form I'd love to see Lao and Lao American artists return to, employing contemporary techniques and stories. There's deep potential here. In the meantime, a big congratulations to the artists and I look forward to how they push themselves in the future.

 

[Puppoetics] NYT: Ramayana Casts Its Ancient Spell

The New York Times has an interesting article on the Ramayana exhibit “Ramayana Revisited: A Tale of Love & Adventure,” an exhibition at the Peranakan Museum in Singapore until Aug. 22,and the cross-cultural power of the epic.

They make mention of the Thai and Cambodian version, although not the Lao approach. In the Lao tradition, one of the most notable variations from the original epic is we also often consider it a Jataka.

The curators noted that it's hard to find very old artifacts. Many of the original pieces were made of leather and papier-mâché which don’t last long in the conditions in Southeast Asia.

Of particular note are the nang yai, large shadow puppets from Thailand for Ramakien performances. These puppets are constructed from buffalo hide, and it's part of a dying art tradition. Contemporary examples are traced from original 19th-century puppets stored in Wat Kanon in Thailand's Ratchaburi province. They're large 2 meter panels or 6.5 feet tall by 1.5 meets or 5 feet in width. They're then propped up on large poles.

There's been a resurgence of the papier-mâché mask making techniques of Cambodia now that the Pol Pot regime ended in the 1980s. They also call attention to differences in the Wayang Kulit Siam puppets of Malaysia, which employ very fine features and tall crowns, with bodies decorated with distinctive geometric patterns. These puppets traditionally move only one arm, compared to the similar puppets in Indonesia.

Large Tholu Bomalatta puppets from India are also on display. The Tholu Bomalatta puppets are made from translucent leather that's painted with strong colors so they can be projected onto a small screen. Puppets are made in profile and with frontal views and embellished with floral and geometric ornamentation in this tradition.

They note that in other nations, adaptations of the Ramayana tend to present the demons and dieties and demigods in a more human light so that regular audiences could relate to them. The monkey Hanuman in India is celibate but elsewhere, he's quite a womanizer. Which is preferable? I think that depends on who you ask. But if you're in Singapore, check it out.

[Puppoetics] The Indonesian Wayang Golek tradition

In the distinctive Indonesian puppetry traditions, we find the three-dimensional puppet form of Wayang Golek. It was performed in Java for all audiences, not only the aristocratic class.

Although children are often fascinated by the art, it is a thoroughly adult form of entertainment, drawn from Hindu and Islamic tales including the Mahabharata.

The puppets are made of wood, with the facial features, colors and costumes defining which characters they represent. The heads can turned by the puppeteer, with the rods attached to hinged arms that move at the shoulders, elbows and wrists. This allows a significant degree of versatility in expression. The costumes are made from leather, sequins, beads, batik and other fabrics.

The audiences are familiar with the characters and all of their personalities, powers and weaknesses to such a degree that one can often make pop culture allusions to them in Indonesia and be understood.

This is a demanding tradition- it's a solo show as the puppeteer handles all of the characters and speaks for all of them, making sound effects and directing a live musical ensemble. A puppeteer can have between 50 to 90 puppets. The larger collections are found in West Java where the Hindu epics tend to be the most popular and require more individualized characters. In northern coast of Java, the collections tend to be smaller, and many puppets act as more than one character.

A show lasts many hours and can't be interrupted, or else tradition suggests it will cause disruption in the everyday world it is paralleling. These shows depict war and comedies, confront social problems of poverty and relationships between the state and the people, and a master of the art is considered to have significant spiritual power.

The puppets basically break down into those with refined or crude personalities. Refined characters tend to have white faces, bowed heads, narrow eyes and noses.Crude, villainous characters have red faces, round eyes and big noses.

Refined nobles are given slow, smooth gestures and the voices are soft and elegant. Cruder characters are given wide gestures and grating, harsh voices.

When a puppet is not being used in a performance it is lined on the side of the stage. Those on the right side of the stage are heroes, those on the left, the villains.

[Puppoetics] When in doubt, make your own.

One of the long-term projects I'd been thinking of developing over the years had been exploring the zone of puppoetics. Can a meaningful art form emerge that embraces puppetry, poetry and the literary arts, especially for a Southeast Asian American perspective.

The idea first emerged for me while observing the Joe Louis Puppet theater in Thailand where the puppets were used to retell tales from the Ramayana and other Thai epics.

Lao puppet shows are either traditional tales or incorporate public service announcements like "Don't touch the leftover bombs." Personally, I'd like to see more contemporary and meaningful works emerge within a contemporary context.

Lao American and Hmong American puppet traditions in the US have not really taken off to date.

I find this odd, considering the presence of Heart of the Beast Theater and other related arts organizations in Minnesota, where a significant number of Hmong and Lao artists reside.

To be fair, the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent has one set of giant puppets which are used, but considering there's over 80,000 Lao, Hmong and other Southeast Asian Americans in Minnesota, there could be so much more and such a vibrant and interesting scene.

But again, this also goes back to the ongoing problem that there isn't enough infrastructure in place right now to allow deep artistic risk for most of our would be artists.

A special nod and thanks, then, to Gordon Smuder, of Minnesota's hilarious Transylvania TV for pointing out www.puppetproject.com which provides a starting point for people interested in making great and innovative fabric and foam puppet characters. Some great examples of the versatility of these patterns can be spotted here. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we see some more Hmong and Lao American puppet work!

In the meantime, enjoy some of Transylvania TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI2FxUhc_RU

A meeting with the Joe Louis Puppet Theater

Sakorn Yang-keawsot (Thai: สาคร ยังเขียวสด; b. 1922 in Nonthaburi Province, d. May 21, 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand) was a Thai puppeteer. He was a master of the hun lakorn lek (traditional Thai small puppets). Also known by his English nickname, Joe Louis, in 1985 he founded the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre. He was named a National Artist for performing arts in 1996.

I found the technique to be very interesting during my visit to Thailand in 2002, and will be considering their methods and others in the process of developing Laotian American puppoetics in the coming years ahead.

The following video was taken examining their construction process and other elements regarding the puppets.

Hmong Art Festival: 2008

Here are some scenes from this weekend's annual Hmong Art Festival in Saint Paul, organized by the Center For Hmong Arts and Talent. Congratulations to everyone involved!:

This year's show had numerous performance acts, some visual arts displays by both established and emerging Hmong artists, puppets, food and so much more. For a free event, it was well worth the cost of admission! :)

On Thai puppets and performances

Some results from my current research online:

In Thailand, performing troupes have similarities to a degree, but close observation also shows each troupe has unique performing elements.

With the Nai Wing troupe, each puppeteer holds the puppet with the right hand and the stick with the left hand, while other troupes do the reverse.

Master Chuen Sakulkaew trains his beginning puppeteers at the early stage to hold puppets by centering the bamboo core (as a handle) in a bowl. Reportedly, this way, puppeteers can control the movement of puppet in the way they want.

Chakkrabhand Posayakrit is said to incorporate different posture or movements from various masters such as Chuen Sakulkaew and Wong Ruamsuk into his own way style. He is famed for performing key characters in the Ramakien: Phra Ram, Sida, and Benchakuy among others.

Hun Krabok is regarded in Thailand as a high art form for its emphasis on the expression of moods, actions, and dance styles. I'll try to track down more information later.

The Children’s Cultural Centre (CCC), Luang Prabang Performing Troupe

Established in February, 2000, The Children’s Cultural Centre (CCC), Luang Prabang Performing Troupe was created when when Ipok puppetmaster Lung Ouane Phothiphanya trained former dancer Senghchanh Phadith how to perform Ipok puppetry.

Ms Senghchanh has since developed a simpler version of Ipok puppetry most notably without the sacred ceremonies for CCC children to perform.

This story is reportedly closer to the original than that performed by the Central Puppet Troupe in Vientiane.

But here, the puppets are not exact replicas of the originals, while those of the Central Puppet Troupe are closer thanks to funding from foreign aid sources in the 1990s.

In addition to Ipok puppetry, the troupe also performs classical and folk music and dance, including a style known as khap thum.

Lao Puppetry: Théâtre d'objets Kabong Lao

Leuthmany Insisiengmay is the Director of Théâtre d'objets Kabong Lao, an offshoot of the Central Puppet Troupe.

They were established in 2001 with assistance from Michel Laubu, founder of Lyon-based Turak Theatre.

Théâtre d'objets Kabong Lao has six members who perform a contemporary style of puppetry known as hun kabong, developed in 1999 with assistance from French experts.

The puppets are made from recycled materials and the troupe develops its own stories which feature both human and animal characters.

The company places strong emphasis on artistic form, with object and actor in close collaboration.

The group aspires to reach children in schools and youth centres and to spread interest in the development of creative pursuits.

Théâtre d'objet Kabong Lao has toured in France, Portugal, Sweden, Cambodia, Thailand, China and Japan.

Lao Puppetry and Lung Ouane Phothiphanya

Lung Ouane Phothiphanya, was one of the last Ipok puppetry masters.

Ipok puppetry originated at the former royal court of Luang Prabang, and the puppets carved for the royal family were stored there since 1975.

The puppets repertoire focuses on 3 Lao traditional stories - Karaket, Sithong Manora and Linthong.

Ipok puppets are quite different from Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese style puppets. Ipok puppets are controlled by hand and rods.

There were originally 12 puppeteers. The provincial government seeks outside assistance to preserve the art form; both the Central Puppet Troupe in Vientiane and the Children's Cultural Centre (CCC), Luang Prabang Province Performance Troupe perform Ipok puppetry, but neither version is considered authentic.

In Luang Prabang performances are given only on festival days and other special occasions. The show is preceded by a ceremony to honor the spirits of ancestors believed to reside in the puppets.