Being a type of traditional Vietnamese theater art, Cheo was formed and developed strongly in the North of Vietnam with a focus on the Red River and Thai Binh River deltas and two spreading areas being the Northern midlands and mountainous region and the North Central region. Cheo is popular and is considered a performance art form of Vietnamese farmers, meeting the aesthetic needs of farmers, carrying the flavor that farmers have loved to preserve and develop for many generations. Cheo is a performance art in festivals with the characteristics of using multi-vocal, multi-meaning language combined with rich narrative and lyrical similes.
Originating from ancient dance and singing forms that existed before the Dinh, Le, and Ly dynasties, the art of Cheo is said to have a formation history from the 10th century. In the early period, Cheo had many elements of Buddhist beliefs with rich and lively storytelling and singing, formed with two main properties namely performance stories and performance improvising. Over the time, the Vietnamese developed Cheo’s short stories based on these parodies into plays. In the 15th century, King Le Thanh Tong did not allow Cheo performance in the imperial paradise, due to the influence of Confucianism. Cheo returns to the farmers, the script is taken from the story written in ancient Vietnamese scripts. By the 18th century, the form of Cheo was strongly developed in rural areas of Vietnam and continued to develop, reach its peak at the end of the 19th century. Famous plays such as Quan Am Thi Kinh, Luu Binh Duong Le, Kim Nham, and Truong Vien appeared during this period. In the early 20th century, Cheo was brought to the urban stage to become civilized Cheo. There are some new plays released based on fairy tales and Nom stories such as To Thi, Nhi Do Mai...
Four unique qualities of Cheo are:
— Harmonious combination of realism and romance.
— Harmonious combination of Comedy and Tragedy.
— Harmonious combination of folk and scholarship.