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Shadow Puppetry

Ⅳ-91Traditional OperaJinan, ShandongBatch 2 (2008)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Shandong shadow puppetry has a history of at least five hundred years; in the late Qing the artist Zhang Shengwang made his living solely from shadow performance, then called “Lanzhou shadow puppetry”. After his disciple Li Ke'ao inherited the craft he brought shadow puppetry from Zou county to Jinan in 1915, and through the inheritance and development of Li Fuzeng, Li Xingtang, Li Xingshi and others Jinan shadow puppetry with a clear regional character gradually took shape.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Jinan shadow puppetry is a branch of Shandong shadow puppetry, distributed mainly within Shandong and also circulating in Hebei, Henan and Anhui. Its performance is full of both voice and feeling, one man operating and singing while another accompanies. Its early singing used the chant of monks exhorting virtue, on which basis it later absorbed the operatic music of Wuyin xi, Xihe dagu and Shandong qinshu, forming a fresh and fluent melody. Its figures are carved from donkey hide, moderate in size and bright in colour; its performance is full of both voice and feeling, one man at the front handling both figure operation and singing while the accompanist plays several instruments, an arrangement both compact and flexible.

Journey to the West

A classic Jinan shadow puppetry play and one of the representative works of the inheritor Li Xingshi.

Investiture of the Gods

A classic Jinan shadow puppetry play and one of Li Xingshi's representative works.

Kang Jin Bing and Zhang Haidi (Newly Created Plays)

Newly created plays written and performed by Li Xingshi, showing the genre's extension of subject matter.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Jinan shadow puppetry centres on Jinan city and is distributed within Shandong, also influencing Hebei, Henan and Anhui; the Jinan city cultural centre is responsible for the project's protection and transmission.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Although Jinan shadow puppetry has only eighty-odd years of history, its performance form and artistic style have had wide influence and it has a distinctive value for the study of art history and regional culture. Li Xingshi (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): the direct grandson of the founder of Jinan shadow puppetry, Li Ke'ao, he followed his father in learning shadow puppetry from the age of six, and within two or three years had basically mastered figure operation, singing and drum-and-gong accompaniment, formally performing under his own name at ten. In 1955 he joined the Jinan Marionette and Shadow Puppet Troupe as a leading performer. With deep grounding in the traditional craft and a bold, uncomplacent spirit of innovation, he reformed shadow puppetry: he invited artists to design the shadow figures and playwrights to write scripts, and innovated the accompaniment so that one man plucked the sanxian with his hands while beating the bangzi, gong, wooden fish and five other instruments with his feet, at the same time singing and reciting for the figures. His representative works include such classics as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods, and his own new plays Kang Jin Bing and Zhang Haidi. Male, Han, born in August 1939, died in November 2007, a native of Zou county, Shandong; a representative inheritor of shadow puppetry (Jinan shadow puppetry) in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. In recent years Jinan shadow puppetry has sustained its transmission through troupe performances, intangible-heritage-in-schools and special showcases, extending its influence through figure carving and cultural-creative development and becoming part of Jinan's urban cultural memory.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Shadow Puppetry (Jinan, Shandong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Li Xingshi · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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