He Wenfu
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1946 in Gaozhou, Guangdong. He Wenfu joined the Gaozhou Puppet Cantonese Opera Troupe in 1964. Over a performing career of more than forty years his manipulation of puppet heads has reached the level of the miraculous: he can present such feats as rolling eyeballs and breathing fire, and in the huadan (young female) role type his performances give full expression to a woman's joy, anger, sorrow and happiness, graceful and charming. After years of experiment and reflection he built on the left-hand school of puppet theatre and absorbed the techniques of various schools, gradually forming a style of his own. The plays he starred in, such as The Little Eighth Route Army Soldier, Driven to Join the Liangshan Rebels, Sparkling Red Star and Nezha Conquers the Sea, and those he directed, such as Liu Yi Delivers a Letter, Chang'e Flies to the Moon, The Hibiscus Fairy and Sun Wukong Thrice Borrows the Plantain Fan, were deeply loved by audiences, and he is known as the Tiger of Western Guangdong.
Honors & Recognition
National representative bearer of Puppetry (Gaozhou puppetry), a second-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
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