Fu Xixian

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Fu Xixian, Male, Han, from Handan, Hebei, is a second-batch national representative bearer of Shadow Puppetry (Ⅳ-91). The tradition is documented in Handan, Hebei. Within the regional tradition and school record of Shadow Puppetry in Handan, Hebei: Jinan shadow puppetry has a long history; it is said to have formed when Beijing court shadow puppetry drifted to southern Hebei, and it is distributed mainly in southern Hebei while influencing central and northern Hebei. The time of shadow puppetry's formation is not yet determined, but according to Meng Yuanlao's Dongjing Menghua Lu of the Southern Song it had matured and flourished by the Song at the latest, and among the shadow artists of the Bianliang pleasure quarters there were already nine men such as Dong Shiwu, Zhao Qi and Cao Baoyi. Through the Song, Jin, Yuan and Ming dynasties shadow puppetry, spread across the whole country, presented a flourishing scene in the Qing. Jinan (southern Hebei) shadow puppetry is an important direct descendant of Song central-plains shadow puppetry and has important links with Henan shadow puppetry.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnic group, born in 1936 in Cheng'an, Hebei. In 1952, influenced by the shadow puppet performances then in fashion, Fu Xixian took up shadow puppetry and became involved in making and performing puppets. In 1953 he formally studied rod manipulation under the shadow puppet artist Su Wenxiu while also learning percussion instruments, and his skills gradually became exquisite. In the 1950s he worked at the Shijiazhuang Shadow Puppet Troupe as a principal rod manipulator and became a core performer of the company; he still performs in towns and villages across southern Hebei and has repeatedly formed troupes and passed on his craft. The shadow puppets he carves have a plain and honest modelling and a seasoned command of the knife; his rod work is accurate and crisp, his performance utterly convincing, and he is known as "Iron Rod"; in dialogue he excels at drawing on current slang and witty sayings, and is humorous and engaging; as a singer he specialises in the qingyi and xiaosheng roles, with a full voice and long-drawn melodic lines, and he has won awards from local cultural departments on many occasions. Within the documented technical tradition of Shadow Puppetry in Handan, Hebei: Shadow puppetry is an operatic form that cuts figures from hide or cardboard and tells stories by projecting the cut figures in lamplight. Its distribution is extremely wide, covering almost every province and region, and different local vocal styles have produced a great variety of shadow puppetry—Huaxian, Huayin laoqiang, Agong qiang and Xianban qiang shadow puppetry in Shaanxi; Huanxian daoqing shadow puppetry in Gansu; Xiaoyi wanwan qiang shadow puppetry in Shanxi; Tangshan and Jinan shadow puppetry in Hebei; Haining shadow puppetry in Zhejiang; Jianghan plain shadow puppetry in Hubei; Lufeng shadow puppetry in Guangdong; and Fuzhou and Lingyuan shadow puppetry in Liaoning. In the Wenshu hall of Yanshan temple, Fanshi, Shanxi, a Jin-dynasty mural “Picture of Shadow Play” vividly shows shadow performance in Shanxi at the time. Though there are many kinds, they differ mainly in vocal style and repertory, while figure-making and performance technique are broadly similar. Figures are generally made by scraping the hair and blood from oxhide, donkey hide or sheepskin, processing it to semi-transparency and then carving and colouring it, stressing fine knife-work and lifelike modelling. A figure is divided into head, body and four limbs, all in profile, the head with helmet or cap, the body and limbs dressed, baked and pressed flat over a firebrick after oil colouring. In performance the head is inserted into the body, the body joined to the limbs, and three bamboo rods fixed to the body and two hands for operation. Besides the characters, stage props, tables and chairs and scenery must be carved. The main prop is the screen, popularly “liangzi”, generally three feet high and five wide, at most four by six, with white paper as the backdrop for single-person operation, and next an oil lamp to project the figures and their movements. Jinan shadow puppetry is distributed mainly across several counties and districts of Handan, Hebei; its modelling is archaic, combining carving and painting, its modelling system concise, embodying the early aspect of Chinese shadow puppetry. Its repertory is rich, its singing entirely oral without a text, its dialogue humorous and very colloquial and easy to understand, with a clear local character. Its props are chiefly the figures, the performing screen and accompaniment instruments: the band has banhu, erhu, mendi, sanxian, suona and sheng, with an electronic keyboard now added; the martial band has ban drum, war drum, big drum, big gong, small gong, big and small cymbals, mahao and bangzi. Jinan shadow troupes still keep traditional customs, basically embodying the original performing form of shadow puppetry. Jinan shadow puppetry has had a glorious history but today is in a very awkward position for survival: most shadow artists are too old to sing, middle-aged and especially young artists are few, and the shadow trunks grow fewer, some troupes having only props left with no artists, so its traditional performing skills are hard to transmit and its singing, orally transmitted repertory and carving methods face almost total loss. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Orally Transmitted Repertory (Formerly More Than Two Hundred)": Jinan shadow puppetry has a rich repertory sung entirely without a text, transmitted orally; by statistics from six counties of southern Hebei the performed repertory has fallen from more than two hundred to more than thirty. "The Shadow Trunk and Rod-Handling Craft": Jinan shadow puppetry's props are chiefly the figures, the performing screen and accompaniment instruments; rod operation, dialogue and carving make up the troupe's core craft.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

A representative bearer of Shadow Puppetry (Southern Hebei shadow puppetry), a second-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Fu Xixian · National Representative Bearer Archive