Li Tianming, born in 1940, is a native of Yangxian County, Shaanxi. He is a famous puppeteer and a representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1956, he began to study art, and studied under the famous old artist Li Deshan (stage name Li Yicai), etc., and played the flower face, Xiaosheng, and harlequin. In 1985, he served as a coach in the training class of Yangxian Cultural Center, and in 1994, he established the Puppet Troupe to perform and train the successors of the Han Tune. His representative works mainly include "Two Phases Selling Water", "Bamboo Mountain", "Yanta Temple", "Xinghan Map", "Three Immortals", "White Dingben", "Three Orders", "Night Hit Dengzhou" and so on.
"The movements that a living person can do, the Han tune cane head puppet can do very well. As soon as he talked about puppets and Han tunes, Li Tianming immediately entered the state, with vigorous skills, strong singing voice, superb skills, and full of pride in his conversation. The puppet show is a local drama in Hanzhong, Shaanxi, because it is named after the sound of "桄桄" made by hitting the knots with bangzi in the process of performance, germinating in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, and has developed very mature during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. There are many unique skills in the puppet performance, such as carrying water and changing shoulders, blowing beards, shining boots, undressing, etc., which ordinary puppets can't do.
As early as 1956, Yangxian County established a puppet troupe of Han tunes, and Li Tianming began to learn puppets from his master Li Deshan. 11 years later, the troupe was disbanded, and the personnel were scattered everywhere, and now only Li Tianming and his younger brother Yang Chouwa can skillfully perform puppet plays. In 1994, the re-established Drama Society, although it has performed four or five hundred performances, in fact the income is very small, "If you go to the temple fair, more than a dozen people perform, and earn a total of 300 yuan a day; If you don't make money, you just want to have fun", you can't make ends meet, the original actors are seriously lost, few newcomers join, and the puppets are in danger of being lost. "I don't have a formal apprentice now, and some people only learn a little bit, and it's okay to perform a simple performance, and those unique skills can't be played. Most of today's young people look at 'money', and no one touches anything that doesn't make money. The basic skills of puppets need to be practiced for two or three years, and no one has this time. After a pause, the old man Li Tianming sighed, "I really don't know who to pass on the unique job." But no matter what, Li Tianming always adheres to his own point of view: "As long as there is one person who likes to watch it, I will continue to act." ”
Editor/Liu Jun