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Shadow Puppetry

Ⅳ-91Traditional OperaTangshan, HebeiBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

The exact time of the formation of shadow puppetry has not been conclusively established; but according to the 'Dongjing Menghua Lu' (A Record of Dreams of the Eastern Capital) written by Meng Yuanlao of the Southern Song, it had already matured and flourished by the Song dynasty at the latest, and the shadow-play artists in the washi (entertainment quarters) of Dongjing, Bianliang already included nine men such as Dong Shiwu, Zhao Qi and Cao Baoyi. After development through the four historical periods of the Song, Jin, Yuan and Ming, shadow puppetry, which was current all over the country, showed a flourishing scene in the Qing dynasty. Luanzhou shadow puppetry is generally thought to have been founded in the late Ming dynasty and to have flourished in the late Qing and the early years of the Republic of China; it has a history of more than 400 years to the present.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Shadow puppetry is a form of Chinese drama in which figures are cut from animal hide or cardboard and stories are performed by projecting light through the cut figures. Its range of diffusion is extremely wide, reaching almost every province and region of the country; and because the vocal styles performed differ from place to place, a great variety of shadow-puppet forms have arisen, such as Huaxian shadow puppetry, Huayin laoqiang shadow puppetry, Agongqiang shadow puppetry and Xianbanqiang shadow puppetry in Shaanxi; Huanxian daoqing shadow puppetry in Gansu; Xiaoyi wanwanqiang shadow puppetry in Shanxi; Tangshan shadow puppetry and southern Hebei 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 Jin-dynasty murals of the Wenshu Hall of Yanshan Temple at Fanshi in Shanxi there is a painting called 'Yingxi Tu' (Picture of Shadow Play), which vividly and concretely depicts the actual conditions of a shadow-puppet performance in Shanxi at that time. Although shadow puppetry has many varieties, the differences lie mainly in vocal style and repertoire; the making of the shadow figures and the performing technique differ only in small ways. A shadow figure is generally made by first scraping the hair and blood from cowhide, donkey hide or goatskin and processing it to a semi-translucent state, and then carving and painting it; its carving and painting stress fine knife work and lifelike modelling. A shadow figure is generally divided into several parts, the head, the body and the limbs, and all are in profile; the head carries a helmet or headdress, and the body and limbs are all clothed; after oil colours have been applied it is baked with hot bricks and pressed flat, and the figure is finished. In performance the head of the figure is inserted into the body, the body is joined to the limbs, and at the same time three bamboo rods are fitted to the body and the two hands, so that the figure can be manipulated in the show. Besides the character figures, some stage properties, tables, chairs and scenic pieces are also carved to accompany the performance. The main apparatus is the shadow screen, commonly called the 'liangzi', generally 3 chi high and 5 chi wide, at most 4 chi high and 6 chi wide, with white paper used as the curtain so that a single performer can operate it. Second is a single oil lamp, used to project the shadow figures and their movements. Tangshan shadow puppetry, also called Luanzhou ying, Leting ying or donkey-hide shadow puppetry, is one of the most influential varieties of shadow puppetry in China. The two principal manipulators in a Tangshan shadow-puppet performance are the 'shangxian' and the 'xiaxian'. Three rods govern the movements of the figures; they are called the 'main rod' and the 'hand rods'. A Tangshan shadow-puppet performance is usually divided into five tasks, holding, attaching, striking, pulling and singing, and there is a saying that seven are busy and eight are idle. The scripts of Tangshan shadow puppetry are also called 'yingjuan' (shadow scrolls); at least 500 of them survive. Of these more than 130 are 'liantaiben' (linked multi-scene scripts), and there are many single-act plays as well. Its repertoire works include 'Wufeng Hui' (Meeting of the Five Blades), 'The Second Bloom of the Plum' and 'Qingyun Jian' (The Azure Cloud Sword). The literary structure of traditional shadow-puppet scripts is that a character has an entrance 'poem' and an exit 'couplet'. Its usual metrical patterns are the seven-character line, the crossed ten-character pattern, 'three chasing seven', the five-character fu, the 'hard san', the 'large golden edging' and the 'small golden edging'. These sung-text structures all take the paired upper and lower lines as their basic structural unit; each passage of singing is generally made up of several pairs of upper and lower lines with matching rhymes and tones. The basic metres are the great metre, the second-style metre, the third-style metre and the san metre, together with plain singing, coloured aria, the desolate tune, the sorrowful tune, the wandering-in-the-shade tune, the returning-to-life tune, and various other vocal styles such as 'three chasing seven', named for their special line patterns. The carving of shadow figures goes through several process steps: scraping and softening the hide, tracing the pattern and carving, colouring and oiling, and assembling, nailing and fitting the rods. The knife cuts and the colouring are where the level of the carving artist is most clearly expressed. The successive generations of Tangshan shadow-puppet artists have never ceased to improve and innovate their vocal performance and the materials and techniques of their stage properties; this experience is a precious inheritance for both the present and future generations. The vocal style, music, performance and figure design of Tangshan shadow puppetry have a style peculiar to the region, are praised by colleagues and audiences at home and abroad, and have high value for appreciation and study.

Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades)

Its repertoire works include 'Wufeng Hui' (Meeting of the Five Blades), 'The Second Bloom of the Plum' and 'Qingyun Jian' (The Azure Cloud Sword).

The Second Bloom of the Plum

Its repertoire works include 'Wufeng Hui' (Meeting of the Five Blades), 'The Second Bloom of the Plum' and 'Qingyun Jian' (The Azure Cloud Sword).

Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword)

Its repertoire works include 'Wufeng Hui' (Meeting of the Five Blades), 'The Second Bloom of the Plum' and 'Qingyun Jian' (The Azure Cloud Sword).

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Tangshan shadow puppetry is based on the Leting dialect, is distinguished by its singing, has a style of its own, and belongs to the banqiang (regulated-aria) system. Its character figures are divided into the role types sheng, xiao, da, bin and chou. The content of the repertoire of Tangshan shadow puppetry is important material for analysing in depth the local social customs, folk ways and religious psychology.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Shadow puppetry is an important traditional folk art of our country. In recent years, under the impact of modern film and television art, audiences and the performance market have steadily shrunk, many shadow-puppet forms face the danger of dying out, and urgent rescue and protection are needed. The transmission of Tangshan shadow puppetry continues by the method of oral teaching from heart to mind, providing important reference value for the ways and means of cultural transmission. At present fewer than ten people are able to write scripts for shadow puppetry; shadow-puppet artists are on the older side and cannot find apprentices to carry the art on; and fewer and fewer people appreciate shadow-puppet art. Tangshan shadow puppetry faces the predicament of being lost. Ding Zhenyao (official file record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in 1938, native of Leting, Hebei Province. Over many years of performance he has thoroughly mastered the singing styles of the various role types as practised by the artists of the older generation, has taken part many times in the vocal design of newly created shadow plays, and has made a considerable contribution to the transmission and development of Tangshan shadow puppetry; he won the vocal design award at the seventh Hebei Provincial Drama Festival. Representative inheritor of shadow puppetry (Tangshan shadow puppetry) of the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects; national second-class actor. Ding Zhenyao entered the Tangshan Prefecture Experimental Shadow-Puppet Society in 1956, studied under Li Jingyang, and specialised in the black-head role in the shadow-puppet accompaniment singing; in 1973 he became deputy head and then head of the Tangshan Municipal Shadow Puppet Troupe, and he trained a new generation of performers such as Ding Li and Li Feiqin. Qi Yongheng (official file record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in 1933, native of Changli, Hebei Province. Representative inheritor of shadow puppetry (Tangshan shadow puppetry) of the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects; honorary chairman of the China Puppetry and Shadow Puppetry Art Society; first-class actor. He won first prize for performance and a special honorary award at national puppet and shadow-puppet gatherings, took part in international artistic performance events such as the Seventh World Theatre Festival, the Eighth International Puppet Festival and the 1998 International Cartoon Festival, and visited foreign countries many times, making an active contribution to the promotion of Chinese shadow puppetry; he is honoured as the 'King of the Flying Threads', the 'King of the Arrow Shafts' and 'Qi, the Living Shadow Figure'.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Shadow Puppetry (Tangshan, Hebei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Ding Zhenyao · National Representative Bearer Archive
  3. Qi Yongheng · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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