On a lantern-lit stage before a temple at night, two puppeteers above a painted backdrop work the strings of a painted-face warrior and a lady in flowing robes. Musicians beat a drum and gong at right as villagers watch from below.
Carved wood on silk strings, a life on every line
Introduction
Puppet plays in which performers work wooden figures on ten to more than thirty strings
String marionettes, known in older texts as xuansi kuilei ('puppets hung on silk'), are wooden figures about two chi tall worked from above on ten to more than thirty strings, performed to local vocal styles with gongs and drums. The national items are the marionettes of Quanzhou and Heyang and western Liaoning puppetry (IV-92, 2006), with the puppet theatre of Pingyang, Wuhua, Taishun, Ershiba Du and the Hakka of western Fujian; Quanzhou keeps more than 700 traditional plays and more than 300 kuilei tunes. A Tang poem, 'On a Wooden Old Man', speaks of 'carving wood and pulling silk to make an old man', and the Northern Song capital had a string-puppet master named Zhang Jinxian. In 2012 Fujian's strategy for training new puppetry practitioners was selected for UNESCO's Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.
Timeline
- 760OriginThe Tang poet Liang Huang's 'On a Wooden Old Man' reads: 'Carve wood, pull silk, and make an old man, chicken-skin and crane-white hair just like the real; in a moment the play is done and all is still, like a human life inside a dream.' The Tangshi jishi says Emperor Minghuang recited it after he was moved to the Western Palace; it is the earliest reliable text on string puppets.
- 1120EvolutionKaifeng's entertainment quarters had 'string puppets: Zhang Jinxian' (Dongjing menghua lu, juan 5); in Southern Song Hangzhou the Ducheng jisheng (1235) put string puppets first among the puppet kinds, and the Wulin jiushi, juan 6, lists puppeteers such as Lu Jinxian.
- 1640EvolutionIn the late Ming and early Qing, Li Guan (Xiangruo), a provincial graduate of Heyang, reformed the singing, music, repertoire and puppet-making of the local string-puppet theatre; under Qianlong, Jiaqing and Tongzhi Heyang troupes travelled to Suzhou, Yangzhou and Beijing.
- 2006ImpactIn 2006 the marionettes of Quanzhou and Heyang and western Liaoning puppetry entered the first national ICH list (IV-92), with Pingyang, Wuhua, Taishun, Ershiba Du and the western Fujian Hakka added from 2008 to 2021; in 2012 the Strategy for training coming generations of Fujian puppetry practitioners was selected for UNESCO's Register of Good Safeguarding Practices.
Heritage Listings
- 2006National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage1st batch · IV-92 Puppet theatre [no. 236: Quanzhou marionettes · Heyang marionettes · western Liaoning puppetry · Quanzhou · Fujian · Shaanxi · Jinzhou · Liaoning]
- 2008National ICH extension itemsIV-92 Puppet theatre: Pingyang puppetry · Wuhua marionettes · Pingyang · Zhejiang · Meizhou · Guangdong
- 2011National ICH extension itemsIV-92 Puppet theatre: Taishun marionettes · Ershiba Du puppetry · Taishun and Jiangshan · Zhejiang
- 2012UNESCO Register of Good Safeguarding PracticesStrategy for training coming generations of Fujian puppetry practitioners · 7.COM
- 2021National ICH extension itemIV-92 Puppet theatre: Hakka puppetry of western Fujian · Longyan · Fujian