Chinese Craft Stories NATIONAL HERITAGE INVENTORY
Home / Inventory / Ⅳ-91

Shadow Puppetry

Ⅳ-91Traditional OperaLaoting, HebeiBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The exact time of its formation has not been conclusively established; by the Song dynasty at the latest it had already matured and flourished, and in the Qing dynasty it showed a scene of prosperity. Leting shadow puppetry, commonly called 'Leting ying', originated in Leting County, Hebei Province, took shape during the Jin dynasty and was in vogue in the middle and late Qing dynasty; it is the foundation of the development of Luanzhou shadow puppetry and Tangshan shadow puppetry.

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. It is spread extremely widely, reaching almost every province and region of the country, and because the vocal styles performed differ from place to place, a variety of types has formed. The shadow figures are divided into head, body, limbs and several other parts, all shown in profile. Generally cowhide, donkey hide or goatskin is scraped of hair and blood, processed to a semi-translucent state, then carved and painted; after the colouring is applied with oil paints it is baked with hot bricks and pressed flat. In performance, three bamboo rods are fitted to the body and the two hands of the figure, and the figure can then be manipulated for the show. The main apparatus is the shadow screen, which uses white paper as a curtain together with a single oil lamp to project the figures and their movements. Leting shadow puppetry presents its story and delineates the characters' natures through performers manipulating the figures behind the screen, supported by singers who provide the singing and the spoken declamation. At a performance there is one shadow stage, and all the performers are behind the shadow screen: 3 to 5 singers, 2 to 3 manipulators and 3 to 5 accompanists, while the audience watches in front of the stage. The figures and scenery used are carved on a base of donkey hide, and the facial designs of the various role types are derived from Leting paper-cuts and the deity images of temples; they are finely and intricately carved with unusual shapes, and among them the female figures have rather prominent cheekbones, with the upper forehead curving slightly forward compared with the sheng role. The manipulation technique of Leting shadow puppetry is vivid and lifelike. Its vocal style is beautiful and its metrical patterns are flexible. Its vocal music belongs to the regulated-aria (banqiang) system and derives from the local sung vernacular of the district - folk songs, ballads, rustic tunes, pedlars' cries and mourning laments. Both the lyrics and the spoken declamation are in the Leting pronunciation, and the terminal tones of the 'rising, then falling' type make the melodic line indirect and delicate, full of lingering flavour, fresh and elegant; the pinched-throat vocal technique gives the sheng and xiao role types a bright colouring and the da and ran role types a bold and uninhibited manner. Leting shadow puppetry has the complete set of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou role types. Its shadow scrolls are divided into single pieces and linked multi-scene scripts, and its main repertoire works include Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword), Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades), Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting) and Liu Hulan.

Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword)

Leting shadow puppetry has the complete set of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou role types. Its shadow scrolls are divided into single pieces and linked multi-scene scripts, and its main repertoire works include Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword), Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades), Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting) and Liu Hulan.

Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades)

Leting shadow puppetry has the complete set of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou role types. Its shadow scrolls are divided into single pieces and linked multi-scene scripts, and its main repertoire works include Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword), Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades), Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting) and Liu Hulan.

Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting)

Leting shadow puppetry has the complete set of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou role types. Its shadow scrolls are divided into single pieces and linked multi-scene scripts, and its main repertoire works include Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword), Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades), Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting) and Liu Hulan.

Liu Hulan

Leting shadow puppetry has the complete set of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou role types. Its shadow scrolls are divided into single pieces and linked multi-scene scripts, and its main repertoire works include Qingyun Jian (The Azure Cloud Sword), Wufeng Hui (Meeting of the Five Blades), Dongting Hu (Lake Dongting) and Liu Hulan.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Leting shadow puppetry, commonly called 'Leting ying', originated in Leting County, Hebei Province, took shape during the Jin dynasty and was in vogue in the middle and late Qing dynasty; it is the foundation of the development of Luanzhou shadow puppetry and Tangshan shadow puppetry. It is sung in the Leting pronunciation, and its vocal music belongs to the regulated-aria (banqiang) system, deriving from the local sung vernacular of the district - folk songs, ballads, rustic tunes, pedlars' cries and mourning laments. Its figures are carved on a base of donkey hide, and the facial designs of the various role types derive from Leting paper-cuts and the deity images of temples; the female figures have rather prominent cheekbones and an upper forehead curving slightly forward compared with the sheng role, which together give the art a strikingly local appearance.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry · Shadow Puppetry.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Leting shadow puppetry has had a fairly deep influence on the formation of shadow puppetry in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Inner Mongolia areas and in the three northeastern provinces, and it is of some value for understanding eastern Hebei culture, farmers' aesthetic ideas and the relationship between folk opera and social development. It is close to everyday life, reaches a broad audience and has played a positive part in building a harmonious society. Liang Suzhi (official file record of the associated inheritor): Female, Han nationality, born in July 1964, native of Leting County, Hebei Province. In 1982 she studied under the famous Leting shadow-puppet artist Sun Pinqing, training herself in a warm and appealing 'young boy' (xiao'er) role vocal style, fully mastering the traditional vocal skills of the dan role in shadow puppetry and composing new arias for many new shadow plays; her timbre is bright, crisp and gentle and rich in flavour, and she is today the principal transmitter of the performing art of the dan role in Leting shadow puppetry. She has long been active on the front line of shadow-puppet performance, keeping to the performance of traditional plays year round, and she has considerable influence in Leting and the surrounding areas. Representative inheritor of shadow puppetry (Leting shadow puppetry) of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects. She has performed abroad many times and has won a good number of awards. In recent years she has been active in teaching new pupils, has formed a systematic set of teaching methods, and has trained a large number of outstanding new practitioners of shadow puppetry.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Shadow Puppetry (Laoting, Hebei) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Liang Suzhi · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。