Watch shadow puppets to relieve homesickness

In the early 1990s, Wang Qin'an, director of the Shanxi Xindi County Cultural Center and head of the Daizhou Drum Orchestra, gave me a shadow puppet, which I hung in the living room, and when I saw it during the Spring Festival, I saw it in front of me.

I saw shadow puppetry in the 1950s. It was in a wheat field, and at night, adults and children came to the wheat field with benches, and there was a white curtain hanging on the side of the wheat field. Before the performance, we children could not sit still, ran to the back of the curtain to see, only to see a few boxes behind the scenes, 6 artists preparing for the performance. Seeing that we were watching, the artist shouted, "Go to the front, it's time for the show to begin." "We rushed away, only to hear a few poles sounding, the huqin playing, the loud voice singing, the shadow figure appeared on the curtain, under the operation of the artist, the shadow puppet would go to the left, the other would go to the right, step on the legs, swing their hands, it was interesting; the play to the angry place, the shadow puppet with a large knife and spear in his hand, which caused a round of applause from the stage.

Shadow puppetry, like drama, has the saying that "the three-foot stage tells the story of the ages, and the characters fight and lead millions of soldiers". The difference is that shadow puppetry is "developed by light" and "shaped by shadow". The tricks and singing skills of the wire catchers, some masters can play seven or eight shadow puppets at the same time. On different stages in the shadow puppet play, cars, boats, horses, demons and ghosts can all play, and the cornices can be performed.

"Three feet of raw silk to make a stage, all by ten fingers to be witty", this is the unique work of shadow puppet artists. The most worthy of further investigation of shadow puppetry is to catch the thread. The person who catches the thread has a good grasp of the work, which is admirable. Ten fingers are useful during the performance: the top of the thumb, the right angle of the index finger, the middle finger lift, the ring finger pressure, a series of operations, the fingers are like waves, the small bamboo sticks fly like swallows in the clouds, and even the blowing beard and staring will be vivid.

When the shadow puppet play is performed, the careful person will see the person who catches the thread, stagger the small bamboo sticks against each other, and then catch the finger clips in order, and the rest will put the end of the bamboo stick on the nail cover, and the five fingers will use which nail cover is free. The shadow puppet seems to be given vitality by the person who catches the thread, only to see the shadow figure for a while to show off its might, to stand tall, and to be subtle and introverted for a while, quietly: in music and singing, sometimes excited, sometimes entangled, sometimes sad and happy, the voice is full of emotion, the sound is full of rhyme, and people will never forget it for a long time.

Shadow puppetry has a long history and is widely spread in the folk. The shadow puppets in Shanxi are divided into two factions, the north and the south. The southern faction is represented by Xindi, Quwo, Linfen, Yuncheng and other places, and the northern faction is represented by Guangling, Lingqiu, Daixian and Hunyuan. Southern school shadow puppetry, influenced by the Xi'an and Weinan shadow puppet schools in Shaanxi Province, the shadow puppet works are small and exquisite, the carving is fine, the decoration is strong, and the color is concise and bright; the northern school shadow puppet, influenced by the Beijing Western school shadow puppet, the shape of the work is slightly hypertrophied, the carving is meticulous and fine, and the color is bright and bright.

As a kind of folk traditional small drama, shadow puppetry, when performing, the characters, sets and props carved from donkey skin and cowhide are put on the stage to create images. The styling characteristics of this image are: the characters in the drama are both front and side. Since shadow puppetry is only suitable for high and long spaces, it is similar to the expression method of paper-cutting. The various characters of the characters, such as life, death, purity, end, and ugliness, are related to the drama's facial features and costumes.

Shadow puppet in the production, the material is mainly donkey, cowhide, due to the donkey, cowhide toughness, transparency is very strong, coloring pigments are very exquisite, so the artistic effect is quite good, there is a good preservation and collection value.

Author: Liang Dong

Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition