Shadow play


Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Various effects can be achieved by moving both the puppets and the light source. A skilled puppeteer can make the figures appear to walk, dance, fight, nod and laugh.
There are four different types of performances in shadow play: the actors using their bodies as shadows, puppets where the actors hold them as shadows in the daytime, spatial viewing, and viewing the shadows from both sides of the screen.
Shadow play is popular in various cultures, among both children and adults in many countries around the world. More than 20 countries are known to have shadow show troupes. Shadow play is an old tradition and is listed as a Syrian intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. It also has a long history in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia. It has been an ancient art and a living folk tradition in China, India, Iran and Nepal. It is also known in Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Germany, France, and the United States.

History

Shadow play probably developed from "par" shows with narrative scenes painted on a large cloth and the story further related through song. As the shows were mostly performed at night the par was illuminated with an oil lamp or candles. Shadow puppet theatre likely originated in Central Asia-China or in India in the 1st millennium BCE. By at least around 200 BCE, the figures on cloth seem to have been replaced with puppetry in Indian tholu bommalata shows. These are performed behind a thin screen with flat, jointed puppets made of colorfully painted transparent leather. The puppets are held close to the screen and lit from behind, while hands and arms are manipulated with attached canes and lower legs swinging freely from the knee.
The evidence of shadow puppet theatre is found in both old Chinese and Indian texts. The most significant historical centers of shadow play theatre have been China, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
According to Martin Banham, there is little mention of indigenous theatrical activity in the Middle East between the 3rd century CE and the 13th century, including the centuries that followed the Islamic conquest of the region. The shadow puppet play, states Banham, probably came into vogue in the Middle East after the Mongol invasions and thereafter it incorporated local innovations by the 16th century. Little mention of shadow play is found in the Islamic literature of Iran, but much is found in Turkish and 19th-century Ottoman Empire-influenced territories.
While shadow play theatre is an Asian invention, hand puppets have a long history in Europe. As European merchant ships sailed in the search of sea routes to India and China, they helped diffuse popular entertainment arts and cultural practices into Europe. Shadow theatre became popular in France, Italy, Britain and Germany by the 17th century. In France, shadow play was advertised as ombres chinoises, while elsewhere they were called "magic lantern". Goethe helped build a shadow play theatre in Tiefurt in 1781.

Prelude to cinematography

According to Stephen Herbert, the popular shadow theatre evolved nonlinearly into projected slides and ultimately into cinematography. The common principle in these innovations were the creative use of light, images and a projection screen. According to Olive Cook, there are many parallels in the development of shadow play and modern cinema, such as their use of music, voice, attempts to introduce colors and mass popularity.

By country and region

Australia

is an Australian shadow puppeteer known for his characters like "Super Kangaroo". Bradshaw's puppetry has been featured in television programs made by Jim Henson as well as the long-running ABC children's TV series Play School.
The Shadow Theatre of Anaphoria combines a mixture of reconstructed and original puppets with multiple sources of lights. The company is under the direction of Kraig Grady.
Australian company Shadowplay Studios' debut game Projection: First Light was inspired by shadow puppetry and its art style replicates the traditional shadow play canvas using black props and sepia backgrounds. They visited Richard Bradshaw to gain more insight into shadow puppetry, to make their game more authentic and to get references for the game's shadow puppet characters.

Cambodia

In Cambodia, the shadow play is called Nang Sbek Thom, or simply as Sbek Thom, Sbek Touch and Sbek Por.
It is performed during sacred temple ceremonies, at private functions, and for the public in Cambodia's villages. The popular plays include the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, as well as other Hindu myth and legends. The performance is accompanied by a pinpeat orchestra.
The Sbek Thom is based on the Cambodian version of the Indian epic Ramayana, an epic story about good and evil involving Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Hanuman and Ravana. It is a sacred performance, embodying Khmer beliefs built on the foundations and mythologies of Brahmanism and Buddhism.
Cambodian shadow puppets are made of cowhide, and their size are usually quite large, depicting a whole scene, including its background. Unlike their Javanese counterparts, Cambodian shadow puppets are usually not articulated, rendering the figure's hands unmovable, and are left uncolored, retaining the original color of the leather. The main shadow puppet production center is Roluos near Siem Reap. Cambodian shadow puppetry is one of the cultural performances staged for tourists alongside Cambodian traditional dances.
The Sbek Thom figures are unlike puppets because they are large and heavy, with no moveable parts. The Sbek Touch, in contrast, are much smaller puppets with movable parts; their shows have been more popular. The Sbek Thom shadow play involves many puppeteers dancing on the screen, each puppeteer playing one character of the Ramayana, while separate narrators recite the story accompanied by an orchestra.

China

There are several myths and legends about the origins of shadow puppetry in China. The most famous one has it that Chinese shadow puppetry originated when the favorite concubine of Emperor Wu of Han died and magician Shao-weng promised to raise her spirit. The emperor could see a shadow that looked like her move behind the curtains that the magician had placed around some lit torches. It is often told that the magician used a shadow puppet, but the original text in Book of Han gives no reason to believe in a relation to shadow puppetry. Although there are many earlier records of all kinds of puppetry in China, clear mention of Chinese shadow play does not occur until the Northern Song dynasty. A 1235 book mentions that the puppets were initially cut out of paper, but later made of colored leather or parchment. The stories were mostly based on history and half fact half fiction, but comedies were also performed.
Shadow play in China is called p=píyǐngxì. There are two distinct styles of shadow play: Luanzhou and Sichuan. Within Sichuan, there are two styles: Chuanbei piyingxi and Chengdu piyingxi. Cities that are included in the Northern Sichuan are Bazhong, Nanchong, and Guangyuan.
Shadow theatre became quite popular as early as the Song dynasty, when holidays were marked by the presentation of many shadow plays. During the Ming dynasty there were 40 to 50 shadow show troupes in the city of Beijing alone. The earliest shadow theatre screens were made of Washi paper. The storytellers generally used the art to tell events between various war kingdoms or stories of Buddhist sources. Today, puppets made of leather and moved on sticks are used to tell dramatic versions of traditional fairy tales and myths. In regions such as Shaanxi, Shandong, Gansu, and Sichuan, young apprentices learn to carve shadow puppets from ox hide using traditional tools like half-moon knives and fine awls, preserving both craftsmanship and performance through hands-on practice. In Gansu province, it is accompanied by Daoqing music, while in Jilin, accompanying Huanglong music forms some of the basis of modern opera.
Chinese shadow puppetry is shown in the 1994 Zhang Yimou film To Live.

Taiwan, China

The origins of Taiwan's shadow puppetry can be traced to the Chaochow school of shadow puppet theatre. Commonly known as leather monkey shows or leather shows, the shadow plays were popular in Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung as early as the Qing dynasty. Older puppeteers estimate that there were at least seventy shadow puppet troupes in the Kaohsiung area alone in the closing years of the Qing. Traditionally, the eight to twelve-inch puppet figures, and the stage scenery and props such as furniture, natural scenery, pagodas, halls, and plants, are all cut from leather. As shadow puppetry is based on light penetrating through a translucent sheet of cloth, the "shadows" are actually silhouettes seen by the audience in profile or face on. Taiwan's shadow plays are accompanied by Chaochow melodies which are often called "priest's melodies" owing to their similarity with the music used by Taoist priests at funerals. A large repertoire of some 300 scripts of the southern school of drama used in shadow puppetry and dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has been preserved in Taiwan and is considered to be a priceless cultural asset.

Terminology

A number of terms are used to describe the different forms.
  • 皮影戏, píyĭngxì is a shadow theatre that uses leather puppets. The figures are usually moved behind a thin screen. It is not entirely a show of shadows, as the shadow is more of a silhouette. This gives the figures some color on the screen; they are not 100% black and white.
  • 纸影戏, zhĭyĭngxì is paper shadow theatre.
  • 中国影戏, Zhōngguó yĭngxì is Chinese shadow theatre.