In France, shadow play was advertised as ombres chinoises, while elsewhere they were called 'magic lantern'. Shadow theatre became popular in France, Italy, Britain and Germany by the 17th century. As European merchant ships sailed in the search of sea routes to India and China, they helped diffuse popular entertainment arts and cultural practices into Europe. While shadow play theatre is an Asian invention, hand puppets have a long history in Europe. Little mention of shadow play is found in Islamic literature of Iran, but much is found in Turkish and 19th-century Ottoman Empire-influenced territories. The shadow puppet play, states Banham, probably came into vogue in the Middle East after the Mongol invasions and thereafter it incorporated local innovations by the 16th century. Īccording to Martin Banham, there is little mention of indigenous theatrical activity in the Middle East between the 3rd century CE and the 13th century, including the centuries that followed the Islamic conquest of the region. The most significant historical centers of shadow play theatre have been China, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The evidence of shadow puppet theatre is found in both old Chinese and Indian texts. The puppets are held close to the screen and lit from behind, while hands and arms are manipulated with attached canes and lower legs swinging freely from the knee. These are performed behind a thin screen with flat, jointed puppets made of colorfully painted transparent leather. By at least around 200 BCE, the figures on cloth seem to have been replaced with puppetry in Indian tholu bommalata shows. Shadow puppet theatre likely originated in Central Asia-China or in India in the 1st millennium BCE. As the shows were mostly performed at night the par was illuminated with an oil lamp or candles. Shadow play probably developed from 'par' shows with narrative scenes painted on a large cloth and the story further related through song. It is also known in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Greece, Germany, France, and the United States. It has been an ancient art and a living folk tradition in China, India, Iran and Nepal. Shadow play is an old tradition and it has a long history in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia. More than 20 countries are known to have shadow show troupes. Shadow play is popular in various cultures, among both children and adults in many countries around the world. There are four different types of performances in shadow play: the actors using their bodies as shadows, puppets where the actors hold them as shadows in the daytime, spatial viewing, and viewing the shadows from both sides of the screen. A talented puppeteer can make the figures appear to walk, dance, fight, nod and laugh. Various effects can be achieved by moving both the puppets and the light source. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. A performance of wayang, an Indonesian shadow puppet form

For other uses, see Shadow puppets (disambiguation). It was selected into the World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011.'Shadow puppets' redirects here. The skills are passed down within families, in troupes, and from master to pupil.īeing a carrier of China's cultural history, social beliefs, oral traditions and local customs, the art form spreads knowledge, promotes cultural values and entertains the community. Puppetry was first created in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 24) and became popular in the Tang (618-907) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. With the addition of colloquial drums and string music, puppetry with different distinctive features was formed. The artists behind the screen also need to tell the stories in local popular tunes while manipulating the puppets. Ĭhinese shadow puppetry, also known as 'shadow play' and 'lamp shadow show', is a form of traditional Chinese folk drama in which colorful silhouette figures made of leather and paper are manipulated by artists. Shadow puppetry is performed to honor traditional Chinese culture.

Chinese shadow puppetry history