The Hon Que play by the Central Puppet Theatre of the host country won the only gold for plays.

The Sports and Culture newspaper run by the Vietnam News Agency awarded the “Preservation and Promotion of Traditional Arts” prize to the Cairo Puppet Theatre from Egypt, the Mascots Puppet Troupe from Singapore and the Tali Galaww Troupe from the Philippines.

Asian troupes dominated the show for their diversity of styles and cultures such as shadow puppetry performances by troupes from Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Artists from the Chieng Mai puppet troupe of Thailand handled puppets in gentle and slow movements that managed to bring audiences to the nihilistic state of Buddhism. Chinese puppet artists had great impressive performances with their “heartthrob” puppets, which seemed to come alive on the stage.

Vietnamese troupes put on the stage magnificent plays that drew between 20 and 30 artists with mixed styles of puppetry arts such as human and mask puppets with a harmonious combination of traditional and modern arts.