Speaking of shadow puppetry, people think of the traditional theme with a long history, and the international parent-child light and shadow drama "Penguin!" that is currently being staged at the Tianqiao Art Center. In "Penguin", the shadow puppet is still the shadow puppet, but it meets the audience with a new look and tells an international warm story.
Created by Chinese and Colombian artists, Penguins! "Penguin" is a joint production of Beijing Shadow Puppet Theater Company and Budian Culture. There are many focuses of attention in the epidemic, and this story is from the perspective of animals, telling how small animals spend these lonely moments when humans are overwhelmed by the epidemic and the animals in the zoo are almost forgotten. Beijing Shadow Puppet Theatre's shadow puppet artist, Colombian artist Daniel and Chinese installation artist Shen Xintong jointly adopt the "traditional shadow puppet + slide projection" and "shadow play + live-action performance" these multiple performance methods to present a vivid and colorful world of light and shadow to the audience, so that everyone can feel like they are in a real zoo, and experience a warm journey with penguins and breeders.
Penguin! The protagonist of the story of "Penguin" is dana, the penguin, whose shape is very different from traditional shadow puppetry, with less fine details, but it looks more rustic and cute. Its shape was designed and produced by the Beijing Shadow Puppet Theatre Company and installation artist Shen Xintong. During the performance, Dana the penguin will walk in front of everyone, and the actors will also interact with the shadow puppet in the form of shadows, and the light and shadow will change, as if traveling in different dimensions. Different shadow puppets also have different music, the actor of the music breeder in the play, Colombian artist Daniel, a series of cheerful, enthusiastic South American style music is refreshing.
Traditional shadow puppetry has a long history, and as a cross-cultural, cross-field creative light and shadow parent-child drama, "Penguin! The challenges of Penguin are numerous, and the creators have made a lot of efforts to make this play successfully on the stage. In order to better perform the effect, the height and weight of the penguin shape in the play are three times that of the traditional shadow puppet characters, reducing the links of various parts, and in order to better match the presentation of the lighting effect, the shadow puppet operation rod is increased to 1.2 meters, which greatly increases the difficulty of the performance. In order to improve the performance effect, the actors also made innovative adjustments and practices for the traditional shadow puppet stand performance method, which was finally very different from the traditional shadow puppet performance method, and could show the dexterity of Dana and the animals on the screen.
The script will be performed until April 23, and will also start a 100-performance tour in six cities in China after its premiere in Beijing.