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Puppetry

Ⅳ-92Traditional OperaJinzhou, LiaoningBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Chinese puppetry arose in the Han dynasty; by the Tang it had made new progress and could perform song-and-dance drama with puppets. With social and economic development, by the Ming puppetry was already popular across the country, flourishing especially in the economically developed southern provinces, hence the saying “the south is good at puppetry”. After the Qing it entered its heyday, not only spreading widely but with ever more vocal styles, producing such branches as Liaoxi puppetry, Zhangzhou bag puppetry, Quanzhou marionette puppetry, Jinjiang bag puppetry, Shaoyang bag puppetry, Gaozhou puppetry, Chaozhou iron-rod puppetry, northern Sichuan grandes marionnettes, Shiqian puppetry, Yang marionette puppetry, Taishun fireworks puppetry and Lin'gao human-puppet opera. Guan Jianqing, the principal inheritor of Liaoxi puppet performance, was born in 1926; he was an artist of the suspended-string (xuansi) puppetry of a folk troupe, and his representative work was Pingding Mountain (that is, Thrice Beating the White-Bone Demon). In January 1953 a party of twenty-three members of the Liaoxi puppet drama troupe went to Beijing at the direction of the Central Ministry of Culture, and the China Puppet Art Theatre of today was founded as a result.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Puppetry was anciently called “kuilei opera” and “kuileizi” and is an operatic form in which artists manipulate puppets to tell stories. The Song was an important period in its development, its puppet-making craft and manipulation technique maturing further. In terms of performance form it may be summarised as five kinds: marionette (string), rod, bag, iron-rod and fireworks puppetry. Puppet art is exquisite and breathtaking. Besides the artists' fine performance, the perfect modelling art of the puppets and the operating equipment are also an important attraction for audiences. The modelling art lies in the carving and design of the puppets: generally marionettes are taller, mostly about 2.2 chi. Strings are attached to the key parts, at most more than thirty and at least a dozen, extra auxiliary strings being added as needed for special feats. The level of the puppets' dance poses and martial feats depends entirely on the artist's operating skill, which is the key to the standard of marionette performance. Rod puppets are taller than marionettes, generally about 3 chi tall, fitted with three operating rods, two working the hands and one controlling the head and body. Bag puppets are the smallest, only about seven inches, held up by the artist's two hands, their manipulation special and unlike marionettes and rod puppets. After the founding of the People's Republic of China puppetry performance became ever richer. Besides traditional operatic items it stages spoken drama, song-and-dance drama, serial plays and even advertisements. At the same time puppetry also faces fierce competition from other art forms. The Liaoxi Corridor is like a colourful ribbon beyond time and space, linking the Han culture of the Central Plains with the northern ethnic cultures of Liaoxi. Cai Datian (Cai Wanrong) was the founder of the design and making of Liaoxi puppets; the large-scale mythological suspended-string puppet play Chang'e Flies to the Moon, designed and made by him, was finely wrought and could be called a unique marvel, arousing enormous response within and beyond the province. The figures in Su San Under Escort and Ge Ma, carved by Cai Datian himself, are true to life and vivid. Wangniang Tan (also known as Wunie Long) and Black Wind Cave, designed by Zhang Ding of Heishan in Liaoxi (once president of the Central Academy of Craft Art) and carved by Cai Datian himself, won Zhang Ding's high praise. Zhu Bajie Carries His Wife and The Little Cowherd, designed by Zhang Guangyu, artist of the former “Qingyi” (China Youth Art Theatre), and carved by Cai Datian, have long been popular. Regrettably, all these precious masterworks were consumed by fire during the “Cultural Revolution”. Liaoxi puppetry has been handed down through six generations to the present day. The restless Liaoxi puppets, in the several periods that followed, braved difficulties and underwent many hardships, rising six times and falling five. Their works have cultivated the sentiments of generation after generation of children and young people; the genre is a rare one in the three north-eastern provinces and has also filled a gap in the puppet art of Liaoning Province.

Pingding Shan (Pingding Mountain)

Guan Jianqing, the principal inheritor of Liaoxi puppet performance, was born in 1926; he was an artist of the suspended-string puppetry of a folk troupe, and his representative work was Pingding Mountain (that is, Thrice Beating the White-Bone Demon).

San Da Baigujing (Thrice Beating the White-Bone Demon)

Guan Jianqing, the principal inheritor of Liaoxi puppet performance, was born in 1926; he was an artist of the suspended-string puppetry of a folk troupe, and his representative work was Pingding Mountain (that is, Thrice Beating the White-Bone Demon).

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Its distinctive land and composite corridor culture have bred Liaoxi's own puppet artistic style.

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

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Traditional puppetry embodies the thought, morality and aesthetic consciousness of the people of all regions and ethnic groups, and should be supported and protected. At present Liaoxi puppet art faces a crisis once more: the older generation of artists are all past seventy or eighty years of age, and transmission is on the verge of being cut off. Wang Na (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): female, Han, born in 1956, a native of Panshi, Jilin. Wang Na worked in the Jinzhou City Puppet Troupe from 1975 to 1992; she has many-sided performing talent and accurate powers of imitation, with a solid, excellent grounding in the three basic skills of lifting (jugong), walking (zougong) and twisting (niangong); she manipulates puppets steadily, accurately and finely, and also has deep attainments in puppet-making, stage design and lighting. Since becoming head of the Jinzhou City Puppet Troupe she has organised the creation and staging of classic puppet plays such as Flying Apsaras, The Little Match Girl, Love and Man and Puppet, making an important contribution to the promotion of Liaoxi puppetry. A representative inheritor of the puppetry (Liaoxi puppetry) national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the second national-level batch, and a national second-grade actor.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Puppetry (Jinzhou, Liaoning) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Wang Na · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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