Shadow play or shadow puppetry is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment using opaque, often articulated figures in front of an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images. Shadow play is a popular folk drama in ancient China, and it is the ancestor of world films. At that time, it brought people pleasure as modern movies and TVs do. In modern society, it’s very difficult to find the mysterious drama again.
What is shadow play then? Shadow play is one of the oldest operas in China. It rooted in ancient Chang’an over2000 years ago, and prevailed in Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty. Shadow play is also called light shadow play, it’s a kind of national drama in China which performs stories by lighting silhouettes of dramatis personae made of beast hides or chipboards. Actors sing attended by music, and control shadow tools at the same time. The contents of those plays are more about traditional historical drama and fable stories. It combines some characters of drama, music and paintings, and is an integration of literators’ writing, handicraftsmen’s carving and painting, and folk singing. It’s delightful, abundant, suiting both refined and popular tastes, and contains rich culture and art resources. Shadow play is the treasure in the world culture and art family Working procedure of shadow images making A shadow image made with beast hide of high quality by 24 working procedures such as scraping, grinding, milling, washing, craving, coloring up and so on, and more than 3000 handcrafted sculpts.
The main procedures to make a shadow image: Selecting materials: select well-qualified hide and make a translucent hide through dunking, scraping, and polishing. Engraving: draw and sculpt various characters, properties, landscapes, birds and beasts. Painting: after engraving, painting is begun. Paint is usually made by craftsmen themselves. They make bright red, green and apricot with local materials from local mine and vegetable. The painting is very flowery. Dehydration: dry planished hide though scalding and baking. The paint is impressed into the hide with high-temperature. Sewing: an integrated shadow image character is often made of 11 parts which are head, chest, abdomen, two legs, two elbow, and two hands. The handicraftsmen sculpt the link like turntable and they call it “bone eye”. This is a key step because the determination of “bone eye” is very related to the aesthetic feeling of shadow persona sculpts. The proper determination will make them very mettlesome. Otherwise, they will look like deadly persons. (After all these procedures, the shadow images will be furnished with 3 bamboo sticks which are called prod. One stick is on the chest and the other two are located on the two hands. Then, the shadow images can be operated to various poses such as running, standing, sitting, lying, reclining, rolling, creeping and fighting by the handicraftsmen.)
