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Cheo Opera is a form of popular theatre in Vietnam that descendent from ancient village festivals. It consists of folk songs with pantomime, intrumental music and dances, combined with instructive or interperative sketches dealing with stories from legends, poetry, history or even your everyday daily life. Also mixed into Cheo are acrobatic scenes and magic. Cheo usually tells tales of chiefs, heroes and lovely maidens and offers an eclectic mix of romance, tragedy and comedy.
Traditionally Cheo was composed orally by anonymous authors. Today's playwrights compose cheo operas along traditional lines: the characters in the plays sing popular melodies with words suited to modern circumstances.As a perfomer the costumes, makeup, gestures and language create characters familiar to every member of the audience and the stage props are of a simple design. As a result, there is a close exchange between the performers and the spectators.
