Shadow Puppet Theatre from the Ancient Orient (OUAN405)

Chinese shadow puppet theatre.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

The fact that every set and character is a black silhouette gives the art form a sense of detachment, intrigue and sometimes a sinister flavour. The principles of shadow puppet theatre are carried on today in certain places. It can be a nice way of hearkening back to traditional storytelling styles or symbolising the distant past with an interesting visual thing.

They emulated the shadow puppet style in the movie "Harry Potter 7", a very good film about a boy who goes to wizard school.

They also used it in "A Monster Calls", a very good film about a boy who goes to regular school

In both the examples above, this visual style is used when a character is telling a story, which is super cool.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

This technique was allegedly invented in China over 2000 years ago, roughly the last time a good Ice Age film was made LOL. Emperor Han Wudi was saddened at the death of his favourite concubine. To lift the emperor’s spirits, his wisest advisor put on a shadow puppet show where he conjured a shadow likeness of the deceased concubine, which the emperor found incredibly impressive.

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

The process is so simple, only a hessian potato sack wearing village moron would be incapable of comprehending it.  A stage is laid out with a screen stretched across it. The puppets are made and then the projection person will shine their Samsung Galaxy S4 phone torch from behind the stage, casting the shadow onto the translucent screen

But what IS Chinese shadow puppet theatre?

Shadow puppet theatre took China by storm. It became a means of entertainment for the everyman to tell stories, which I really like! The simplicity of it made stories accessible to everyone.

I read this blog on the topic that told me that in the 21^st century, shadow puppet practitioners are “evaporating at an alarming rate”. I wouldn’t call it “alarming” exactly. If you haven’t hopped off the shadow puppet bandwagon by the 21^st century then you deserve to perish in the art world, you cultural dodo. You can do the same effect digitally now anyway.

Shadow puppet theatre started its decline in popularity in the late 1800s as China fell into a long series of battles about who would have political control of the country. And in 1949 when the Communist Party took power, the art form was majorly suppressed. Being such a media of the common man to tell stories, it had an unpopular reputation amongst politicians as being too radical. 

The common man shouldn’t be able to get their message across, was essentially the government's ethos, and shadow puppet theatre was a good way of doing that as it was affordable, easy and unifying. Better scrap it.

Then, in 1950, walkmans were invented and that totally buggered Chinese shadow puppet theatre’s popularity.