Tan Qishu
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1941 in Qiyang County, Hunan Province. He is a national first-class actor and an expert who receives a special allowance from the State Council. He has long been engaged in the art of puppet performance and has created the principal roles of the sheng, dan, jing and chou role types in more than forty plays, including Journey to the West and Generals of the Yang Family, such as Sun Wukong and Yang Bajie. In performance he lays stress on the portrayal of character and the expression of inner feeling. He insists on steadiness, accuracy and spirit in manipulative performance, and has mastered a variety of puppetry techniques such as the fluttering of wings, the swinging of the beard and sleeve work, being especially skilled in puppetry performed with internal rods. He first turned to writing and directing in the early 1960s. He has written and directed the puppet play Sun Wukong Thrice Defeats the White Bone Demon and participated in directing Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, among other works. He has written articles including A Brief Account of Basic Training for Rod Puppet Actors, and has also created scripts such as Southern Youth and Stealing the Herb.
Honors & Recognition
Representative bearer of Puppetry (Hunan Rod Puppetry), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
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