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Shadow Puppetry

Ⅳ-91Traditional OperaBalinzuoqi, Inner MongoliaBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry originated in Luanzhou, Hebei, and has a history of more than two hundred years. In the 1950s and 1960s it reached its peak, the whole banner having more than forty shadow trunks and more than two hundred artists, performing more than fifty traditional plays such as Wu Feng Hui, Shishe Nongye Tu Bian Jin and Qizhe Maolü Ben Xiaokang. By the early 1990s, for various reasons, Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry was in an endangered state.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Left Banner shadow puppetry is a product of the fusion of central-plains farming culture and steppe nomadic culture, and also a process of mutual emotional exchange and of mutual cultural learning and understanding among ethnic groups. Its figures are carved from donkey hide in bright colours with fluent lines; one man at the front operates and sings while the musicians behind accompany on sihu and sanxian, its singing blending eastern-Hebei shadow tunes with the flavour of local folk song, and besides traditional romance it stages new plays reflecting farming and herding life.

Wu Feng Hui (The Five-Peak Assembly)

One of the more than fifty traditional plays performed by Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry at its peak.

Shishe Nongye Tu Bian Jin (Protected Agriculture Turns Soil to Gold)

One of the traditional plays performed by Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry at its peak.

Qizhe Maolü Ben Xiaokang (Riding a Donkey Towards Prosperity)

One of the traditional plays performed by Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry at its peak.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In the practice of shadow singing the artists, to suit the aesthetic needs of a mixed population, took the initiative to blend local ethnic folk art into it, and Mongol artists also joined the ranks of shadow artists.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Veteran comrades in education and culture led by Shen Fengshan organised a shadow association, carried out the “four ones” project and conducted a series of rescue protection and excavation work, much recognised and praised by the people. Li Guohua (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): female, Han, born in December 1970 in Balin Left Banner, Inner Mongolia. She is skilled in the sheng, xiao and chou roles of shadow puppetry and especially in figure operation. Besides traditional plays she performs the newly written long historical shadow plays Daliao Shuangxing and The Legend of Emperor Taizu of Liao, the farmer-serving shadow sketch Speaking Our Farmers' Minds and such campus textbook plays as Lu Tixia Beats the Bully of Zhen Guanxi and Winning the Championship. She takes an active part in building village cultural rooms, integrating shadow puppetry into the spare-time cultural life of farmers and herdsmen. She is a representative inheritor of shadow puppetry (Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry) in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. In 2015 she took part in the national shadow puppetry showcase held in Kaifeng, Henan, winning a gold award, and in 2014 she was appointed shadow-puppetry instructor at Huaxia Vocational School, taking more than twenty students as disciples and carefully teaching them figure operation and singing and recitation, several times leading them in showcases and special performances. Balin Left Banner shadow puppetry is a product of the blending of central-plains farming culture and steppe nomadic culture, preserving precious memories of artistic exchange in a mixed ethnic area; the locality carries out rescue protection and excavation through the shadow association, the “four ones” project and opera-in-schools.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Shadow Puppetry (Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Li Guohua · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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