Wang Xi/Courtesy photo
"The Winter Olympics have begun, the cute 'ice pier' is loved by everyone, I am the inheritor of the Jingxi shadow puppet, I want to make a shadow 'ice pier' to cheer for the Winter Olympics!" On February 7, Wang Xi, the inheritor of the "Haidian Intangible Cultural Heritage" Jingxi Shadow Puppet Theater and the director of the Beijing Dragon Shadow Puppet Theater, released a small video of making a shadow puppet "Ice Pier" in the WeChat circle of friends.
Shadow puppet "ice piers" cheer for the Winter Olympics
In the video, with the cute "ice pier" theme music, a cowhide in Wang Xi's skillful technique, in a short while it will become a cute shadow version of the "ice pier", the shadow version of the "ice pier" has flexible limbs, crystal clear under the sunlight, netizens exclaimed that the "ice pier" is alive!
Although the video is only 2 minutes after post-editing and rapid processing, the actual production time is as long as 6 hours. Before making this shadow puppet, you need to draw a draft, and then cut the skin of each part of the "ice pier". After infiltration, carving, dyeing, sewing and other processes, a playful and cute, vivid shadow puppet version of the "ice pier" is ready. Many netizens left a message after reading: Confirmed the eyes, is the "ice pier" pier!
"When making shadow puppets 'ice piers', there are two parts that are more cumbersome, one is the shell of the 'ice piers', there is a circle of ice ribbons in the head, and the production needs to be particularly careful, drawing the feeling of the ice ribbon, and dyeing the three-dimensional feeling. There is also the Olympic logo on the 'ice pier', pictures, pinyin, five rings, because it is relatively small, when carving and dyeing, it is particularly important to make it more like. Wang Xi recalled.
Wang Xi told reporters that after watching the news, he learned that the "ice pier" was loved by everyone, and even the queue could not buy it, so he came up with the idea of making it himself, so that everyone could better understand the "ice pier". "I started preparing the afternoon before, first by designing the manuscript and polishing the skin, and then carving, dyeing and binding at about 7 p.m., and it was done at about 1 a.m." She also carefully edited the video of the production process and posted it online, which received widespread attention and likes from everyone.
Jingxi shadow puppets settled in the Winter Olympic Village
In fact, this is not the first time that Wang Xi has made shadow puppets related to the Beijing Winter Olympics. In the athletes' apartments of Beijing Winter Olympic Village and Yanqing Winter Olympic Village, the "Winter Olympics-themed Shadow Puppet" cultural and creative products produced by Wang Xi's team are placed on the bed.
These Winter Olympic shadow puppet people, with flowers on their buns, wearing embroidered traditional costumes, a variety of traditional patterns are extremely exquisite, the dragon in the Sky Shadow Theater according to the Winter Olympics ski jumping, jumping ice skating, figure skating, ice hockey, curling and other 15 sports production of "ice and snow" shadow puppet carving works.
Originally, during the Winter Olympic Games, the Beijing Municipal Women's Federation selected the Intangible Cultural Heritage works of Qiao Niang, which represent Chinese culture and Beijing characteristics, such as Beijing West shadow puppets, Tang dolls, kites, and paper-cutting, as "Winter Olympic gifts" and sent them to the athletes' apartments in the Winter Olympic Village, so that athletes around the world can understand Chinese folk art.
Earlier, in September 2021, Wang Xi led the team to create the Winter Olympics-themed shadow puppet drama "Ice and Snow Games" for nearly three months, vividly reproducing the 15 sports of the Winter Olympics.
"The creative process is not easy, ice hockey and curling are better, but sports like figure skating are not so simple. Shadow puppetry is a 'thin piece', which is difficult to perform such difficult actions as lifting, landing, rotating, etc., and the concept of 'skating' has not yet appeared in the 15-year inheritance process of Jingxi shadow puppetry. But we are confident and hope to make a breakthrough. We downloaded a figure skating video and compared it repeatedly, and then four or five actors continued to run in, train, and put a lot of effort into some action design, and finally made these Winter Olympic events more realistic. Recalling the creative process, Wang Xi was quite emotional, she said that on the one hand, the team members strived for excellence, overcame many difficulties, and realized the innovation of shadow puppet art, on the other hand, everyone also deeply felt the hardships and difficulties of athlete training.
In anticipation of the Winter Olympics, Dragon's shadow puppet theme works in the sky have been developed since 2020. In addition to the ice and snow sports shadow people, they also designed snowflake-shaped shadow earrings, car accessories and so on. In 2020, it was awarded the "Best Winter Olympics Praise Award" by the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation, and in 2021, it won the gold medal in the "Love Cube" Cultural and Creative Competition of the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation, and was selected as the "Beijing Gift" of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism. This time stationed in the Winter Olympics, it is more affirmed that the dragon in the sky will skillfully integrate the millennium intangible cultural heritage with ice and snow sports, and use the form of folk art to express the spirit of the Winter Olympics from a folk perspective.
"My team and I are very proud! Shadow puppetry pins our wishes, hoping that athletes can achieve good results, and also hope that athletes from all over the world can bring our Chinese folk art back to their countries, so that the people of the world can better appreciate the charm of China's traditional intangible cultural heritage. Wang Xi said. (Reporter Liu Chang)