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Puppetry

Ⅳ-92Traditional OperaShanghaimuoujutuanBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

In the early twentieth century marionette and bag puppetry entered Shanghai's entertainment venues. In the 1950s three rod-puppet troupes and five marionette troupes from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region enlivened the Shanghai puppet stage. In 1960 the Shanghai Puppet and Shadow Theatre was formed on the basis of the Red Star Puppet Peking Opera Troupe and in 1962 renamed the Shanghai Puppet Theatre.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Red Star Puppet Peking Opera Troupe of Taixing, Jiangsu, established itself in Shanghai with fine art. The Shanghai Puppet Theatre draws on the strengths of Chinese and foreign stage art, inheriting and developing the features of China's various traditional puppets and the Shanghai-style puppet art. Not confined to traditional opera, it draws more on other dramatic performance modes, and on the basis of rod puppetry creates new kinds of puppets, with a stage style all its own, having created a body of plays much welcomed by audiences, among which The Tall Ivan for the first time placed human and puppet together on the puppet stage, while Nezha God and the Titanians and The Toad and the Goose won the Ministry of Culture's “Wenhua New Repertory Award”.

The Tall Ivan

A Shanghai Puppet Theatre work that for the first time placed human and puppet together on the puppet stage.

Nezha God and the Titanians

A Shanghai Puppet Theatre work winning the Ministry of Culture's “Wenhua New Repertory Award”.

The Toad and the Goose

A Shanghai Puppet Theatre work winning the Ministry of Culture's “Wenhua New Repertory Award”.

Taibai Writes Drunk

A play in which the inheritor created the stage technique of a puppet wielding the brush and writing swiftly, enriching puppet art's expressive power.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Shanghai-style puppetry centres on the city of Shanghai and formed in the middle of the twentieth century, its forerunner traceable to the Red Star Puppet Peking Opera Troupe of Taixing, Jiangsu; because Shanghai was a modern operatic wharf where rod and marionette puppets of Jiangsu and Zhejiang gathered and blended with spoken drama, song-and-dance and film, it formed a Shanghai-style aspect taking the strengths of every school yet with a character of its own.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

On the basis of inheriting traditional rod puppetry the Shanghai Puppet Theatre continually creates new kinds of puppets and new stage vocabulary; its The Tall Ivan for the first time placed human and puppet on one stage, embodying the open, syncretic and boldly innovative artistic pursuit of Shanghai-style puppetry.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Puppetry (Shanghaimuoujutuan) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Zheng Guofang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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