One of Liu's favorite students is 20-year-old Zhang Liang, who has become the main puppeteer of the show after two years' practice. He came to school twice a week, conducting a two-hour class each time. Thrilled by the news, Liu dropped his farmwork and became a part-time teacher at the college. "We want to develop young students' long-term interest in intangible cultural heritage, so that some of them may choose to become practitioners of traditional art in the future," said Zhao.
Zhao told him that the school was going to introduce Daoqing shadow puppetry into college classrooms and invested in textbook compilation, talent training and repertoire innovation to promote the inheritance of the art. The turnaround came in 2020 when he received a phone call from Zhao Zhixue, head of the music school at Longdong University. "I missed those days when people didn't have smart phones, iPads or computers, and we were crowded with audiences during the whole show," Liu said.įaced with the choice between protecting this artistic heritage and making a decent living, he chose to stay on, continually improving his techniques to shoulder the entire troupe's work alone.
CHINESE PUPPETRY SERIES
However, with films and television series gradually becoming major sources of entertainment in the late 1980s, the art's popularity waned and many performers moved on to other jobs.Īs more young people left the villages, Liu faced the problem of finding people to whom he could pass the tradition, an issue faced by other guardians of heritage. Over the past decades, he has mastered special techniques such as folk singing and the ability to play various musical instruments.įor years, shadow plays were welcomed by audiences of all ages in rural China, and were staged for every major occasion. The farmer began learning the craft from his father when he was 14. Hailing from Huanxian County, the hometown of Daoqing shadow plays, Liu has been performing shadow puppetry for 57 years. Originating in the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), Daoqing shadow puppetry in Gansu is an important branch of Chinese shadow puppetry and has been included in the national intangible cultural heritage list since 2006. Aside from Liu, the 30-plus performers of the show are all college students with an average age of around 20. This is a Daoqing shadow puppetry class at Longdong University in northwest China's Gansu Province. Those sitting in front of the stage play music on gongs, drums, suona horns and other instruments. Encourage him to liven up his theater by using the crayons and markers to decorate the border of the window.LANZHOU, June 14 (Xinhua) - As the powerful singing voice of 71-year-old Liu Aibang echoes across the classroom, students manipulate shadow puppets with rods, making them step onto the "stage" - a translucent cloth screen illuminated from behind.
CHINESE PUPPETRY HOW TO
Once he’s done drawing, he can use crayons and markers to add color to the shapes.Remind your child to try to make his puppet look as much like the puppets he came across on the Internet as possible.
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