Chinese Craft Stories NATIONAL HERITAGE INVENTORY
Home / Inventory / Ⅳ-92

Puppetry

Ⅳ-92Traditional OperaYanyijituan, JiangsuBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Drawing on materials on Jiangsu puppetry, the puppet troupe of the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group descends from the former Jiangsu Provincial Puppet Troupe; since the 1950s, based in Nanjing, it has inherited the lifting and twisting traditions of northern Jiangsu rod puppetry while widely absorbing the expressive means of Kun opera, Peking opera, song-and-dance and acrobatics, gradually forming the artistic style of “unity of form and spirit, free and elegant”.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The puppet troupe of the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group has transplanted, adapted and created a body of fine works led by puppet feats of consummate skill, forming an artistic style of “unity of form and spirit, free and elegant”. On the basis of traditional lifting, twisting, walking and head skills it has also innovated the feat of puppet painting; through long performance at home and abroad it has won unanimous praise and high acclaim from all quarters in China and abroad, making outstanding contributions to transmitting, protecting and developing traditional culture. In recent years, under the impact of fashion culture and diversified entertainment, young audiences have grown indifferent to tradition, the puppet market is depressed and funds gravely short, leaving it in the predicament of lacking successors and struggling on, urgently needing rescue and protection.

Chang'e Dances with Sleeves

The inheritor used a silk streamer more than ten metres long to create such techniques as “double rings dancing”, “the painted figure hiding its charm”, “red waves rolling” and “the fairy scattering flowers”.

Face-Changing and Fire-Blowing

Changing the former “single-hand straight-line face pull” into “two-handed alternating face-change”, an innovative work of rod-puppet feats.

The Wisdom Duel

Created the techniques of a puppet lighting a cigarette, smoking and blowing smoke, showing the finesse of puppets imitating everyday action.

Banqiao Paints

It created the feat of puppet painting and obtained a patent, by which the inheritor won the Ministry of Culture's Wenhua Performance Award and other prizes.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The project takes the puppet troupe of the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group as its safeguarding and transmission body, its performances centred on Nanjing and radiating through the province and repeatedly going overseas; in performance form it belongs to the rod-puppet system and shares an origin with Yangzhou rod puppetry yet diverges from it, each representing a different aspect of Jiangsu rod puppetry.

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

On the basis of inheriting and developing the traditional skills of rod puppetry and drawing on and absorbing the essence of other arts it has enriched the puppet dance vocabulary and performance forms, forming a distinctive rod-puppet performance system and style: in Chang'e Dances with Sleeves it created with a silk streamer more than ten metres long such techniques as “double rings dancing”, “the painted figure hiding its charm”, “red waves rolling” and “the fairy scattering flowers”; in Face-Changing and Fire-Blowing it changed the former “single-hand straight-line face pull” into “two-handed alternating face-change”; in The Wisdom Duel it created the techniques of a puppet lighting a cigarette, smoking and blowing smoke; it has taken part in such major events as the China Art Festival and the Macao return celebration gala; and The Banqiao Paints created the feat of puppet painting and obtained a patent, winning the Ministry of Culture's Wenhua Performance Award, the “Golden Lion Award” of the China Puppet and Shadow Art Society and a silver award and Golden Lion performance award in the national puppet and shadow competition.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Puppetry (Yanyijituan, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Xu Hong · 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。