Cai Chuntian's home is a marionette.
The ancient puppet show of the thread is called "hanging silk puppet", commonly known as "Jiali" in southern Fujian, referred to as the line play, which is a puppet performance story performed by people behind the scenes. The marionette originated from the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, flourished in the Song Dynasty, and after the Song and Yuan Dynasties, it was spread in the Zhangzhou area. After hundreds of years of inheritance, it has gradually formed a complete set of complete and mature performance regulations, performance "wire rules", idol production processes and rich performance repertoire and unique kinds of music - "puppet tune". As a comprehensive art that integrates opera music, operation performance, craft modeling, etc., in the Gulei Development Zone, when mentioning the marionette performance, everyone will invariably talk about Cai Chuntian in Baishi Village, Xiamei Town. Although the level of education is not high, but for fifty years of obsessive puppet performance and research, he has accumulated popularity and reputation step by step with wonderful skills.
Cai Chuntian and his apprentice manipulate the puppet by lifting the thread, so that the puppet makes various looks and movements.
When he saw Cai Chuntian, he was singing the tune with his apprentice in his backyard, while holding a three-foot suspension wire in both hands, ten fingers moved slightly, and the dull puppets twisted flexibly. After knowing our intentions, Cai Chuntian put down his work and told us slowly about his puppet love affair for more than fifty years.
Since the age of 13, Cai Chuntian began to associate with the marionette, with a love for the art of marionettes, Cai Chuntian learned to sing and act, learned to play various folk music, from the art of nearly fifty years, Cai Chuntian's love for marionettes has been consistent, repeated practice, serious study of skills, blowing and playing and singing proficiently, and create and adapt "Silver Phoenix", "Prodigal Son Worship Guanyin", "Lu Yaozhi Horsepower", "Who is the Murderer", "Climbing the Dragon and Attaching the Phoenix" and more than ten marionette drama books.
"The marionette show is sung in the Southern Fujian dialect, and the singing voice and accompaniment music are derived from the folk." Cai Chuntian said, "The first script I created was "Silver Phoenix Grievance", when I really felt the stones across the river, while thinking and writing it, I wanted to write a sentence, I wanted to write a word. Most of the puppet dramas he created are based on folklore and folk tales, promoting positive themes such as loyalty and patriotism, punishing evil and promoting good, and yearning for beautiful love.
Cai Chuntian's puppet drama script created in different periods.
"The script creation mainly follows the stories and legends of the previous generation, and the writing is mainly based on four themes, and is divided into four parts: promoting good, punishing evil, anti-corruption, and cracking down on blackness according to the meaning of the theme. Each story has a considerable meaning, and after determining this meaning, I create along the ideological center of this story, write out the characters, and perform the characters and art of the characters by the cooperation of people and puppets. Talking about the creative path of that year, Cai Chuntian had a lot of feelings.
Cai Chuntian told reporters about the heart of the creation of a marionette show.
"Shengdan Wenwu has a box, crossing the sea through the state to the countryside and the countryside." Sorrow, joy and anger are all dramas, and singing and doing climbing has its own cavity. Loyalty and adultery are not beautiful, ugly, and extravagant. Pull and pull at will, and perform a painful performance. "Cai Chuntian skillfully recited the poem to reporters in Hokkien, and he said that this is a vivid portrayal of the art form and performance characteristics of the marionette show." The biggest feature of puppet art is the sense of manipulation, puppets have no expression, slowly attract the audience in the performance, let people forget that it is a puppet manipulated by people, which is called into the play. ”
Good drama is word of mouth, is running field out. Cai Chuntian rooted his creation in the folk, the stage set in the folk, he founded the "authentic puppet" drama class to create a puppet show boutique program, the theater footprint throughout Guangdong, Fujian and Zhangzhou all over the place, nearly 100 performances per year, won wide acclaim and honor. The apprentices brought out by Cai Chuntian can basically play and sing, and over time, there are not a few who have set up another banner. Cai Chuntian not only did not get angry, but felt a sense of accomplishment. He said: "At present, there are more than ten puppet troupes active in the Zhangpu and Gulei areas, and they are more or less inseparable from the 'authentic puppet' drama class. ”
"The perfect cooperation of wiring in the hands, words in the mouth, scenes in the mind, and numbers in the heart, can make the puppet performance achieve the effect of imitation and immersion." Cai Chuntian talked about the puppet show with a twinkle in his eye, "Marionettes are art, art can never be eliminated, as long as you study and operate hard, it must be eternal." It's not an ordinary industry, it's art, it's entertainment. People need spiritual life, need entertainment, hope that through their own and the strength of their peers to pass it on and carry forward, I am satisfied. ”
In Cai Chuntian's long life path, puppets are the protagonists on the stage of his life. And he hides behind the puppets, and has been working hard and silently dedicating himself to the performance and inheritance of the puppets. He is almost old, whenever he picks up the puppet, he will be full of energy and confidence, and the classic character singing section can always blurt out. For more than fifty years, the marionette has accompanied his growth process, mixed with his joys and sorrows and bittersweet and bittersweet. The puppet itself has no life, through his dexterous hands, at the same time, the performance, modeling, music, language and other arts into the marionette show, supplemented by the rendering of the overall performance environment, so that the puppet has a "living" charm, with "life" and "soul". Through a vivid, witty and funny, lifelike puppet, he truly interpreted the roles of different personalities, different identities, and different temperaments, and there was a joy on the stage, and his feelings with the puppets for more than fifty years were also sublimated...
Source: New Fujian