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Shadow Puppetry

Ⅳ-91Traditional OperaTongbai, HenanBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Drawing on local materials, Tongbai shadow puppetry formed after central-plains shadow puppetry was introduced into the southern Henan mountains and fused with local folk song, mountain song and dideng xi, flourishing in Tongbai and the neighbouring counties between the late Qing and early Republic, troupes mostly travelling to perform with temple fairs and festivals. Drawing on local materials, Tongbai shadow puppetry formed after central-plains shadow puppetry was introduced into the southern Henan mountains and fused with local folk song, mountain song and dideng xi, flourishing in Tongbai and the neighbouring counties between the late Qing and early Republic, troupes mostly travelling to perform with temple fairs and festivals and exchanging with shadow artists of the adjoining Hubei and Anhui areas.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Tongbai shadow puppetry belongs to the western-road school of southern Henan shadow puppetry and is a comprehensive folk art combining painting, carving, classical literature, folk music, singing and folk custom. Compared with other shadow puppetry, Tongbai shadow making is particular with bold and rough carved lines and stocky, plain figures, strongly in the southern Henan folk-art style. The plays handed down through the generations number more than a hundred, the preserved items including The Yang Family Generals, Romance of the Sui and Tang and The Male-and-Female Sword. Affected by many factors, Tongbai shadow puppetry, once so flourishing, now has only three troupes left, its audience shrinking day by day with worrying prospects. Its figures are carved from donkey hide with bold, rough lines and stocky, plain modelling; in performance one man at the front operates and sings while the musicians behind accompany with gong, drum and cymbals, the singing absorbing southern Henan folk song and dideng xi tunes and the recitation mostly in the southern Henan dialect. Its figures are made through choosing the hide, soaking, scraping thin, tracing, carving, colouring and joining, in colours mainly red, yellow and green, with a clear southern Henan folk-art character. Tongbai shadow puppetry belongs to the western-road school of southern Henan shadow puppetry and is a comprehensive folk art combining painting, carving, classical literature, folk music, singing and folk custom. Compared with other shadow puppetry, Tongbai shadow making is particular with bold and rough carved lines and stocky, plain figures, strongly in the southern Henan folk-art style. The plays handed down through the generations number more than a hundred, the preserved items including The Yang Family Generals, Romance of the Sui and Tang and The Male-and-Female Sword. Affected by many factors, Tongbai shadow puppetry, once so flourishing, now has only three troupes left, its audience shrinking day by day with worrying prospects. Its figures are carved from donkey hide with bold, rough lines and stocky, plain modelling; in performance one man at the front operates and sings while the musicians behind accompany with gong, drum and cymbals, the singing absorbing southern Henan folk song and dideng xi tunes and the recitation mostly in the southern Henan dialect. Its figures are made through choosing the hide, soaking, scraping thin, tracing, carving, colouring and joining, in colours mainly red, yellow and green, with a clear southern Henan folk-art character. Its troupes perform mostly at temple fairs, New Year festivals and vow fulfilments, keeping scripts and figures in the same trunk and forming a fairly stable orally transmitted repertory.

The Yang Family Generals

A preserved item among Tongbai shadow puppetry's more than one hundred transmitted plays.

Romance of the Sui and Tang

A preserved item among Tongbai shadow puppetry's transmitted plays.

Cixiong Jian (The Male-and-Female Sword)

A preserved item among Tongbai shadow puppetry's transmitted plays.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Tongbai shadow puppetry belongs to the western-road school of southern Henan shadow puppetry and is popular in Tongbai county and the southern Henan mountains, exchanging with the shadow puppetry of the adjoining Hubei and Anhui areas; the Tongbai county cultural centre is responsible for the project's protection and transmission.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Folk proverbs, jokes, slang and riddles are common in its lyrics and recitation, humorous and catchy and showing the precious value of folk oral literature. Tongbai shadow products have been studied and collected by friends from Japan, South Korea and Singapore; in recent years the locality has sustained this folk art by recording and collating traditional plays, supporting surviving troupes, collecting figure specimens and running intangible-heritage-in-schools activities, so that the scripts and singing of the western-road southern Henan shadow puppetry have been preserved to some degree.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Shadow Puppetry (Tongbai, Henan) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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