24 March 2014
21 March every year is the World Puppet Day designated by the International Puppet Association of UNESCO. On this day, puppet artists around the world will provide public-interest puppet shows. Today, as a member of the International Puppet Association, the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) provided the puppet show and puppet art introductory workshop at the Gumei Community Culture Centre for the benefit of the local residents.
The speaker for the puppet art introductory workshop was Qin Feng, a teacher of puppet major of STA, who provided a detailed introduction of the history, development and distribution of puppet show, allowing the audience to have a better understanding of the evolution of puppet show. Following on from that, the audience watched the performance given by the students of Year 2011 class of STA's puppet major. Adapted from Fighting Hatoyama at His Banquet, an a selected episode of Red Lantern, one of the so called model operas, the show immediately brought the older audience back to that time of the past, and they started to hum with the music. The movements of the puppets and the characters of the original opera had a soul talk in the heart of the audience, giving rise to their sigh of emotion and exclamation from time to time during the show.
Then, another student, Hu Liwei presented the show "Little Novice Monk". He was the winner of Gold Lion Award for Excellent Performer Award at the 4th All China Puppet and Shadow Play Young and Mid-aged Performers Competition. The puppet in his hands had nimble and flexible body movements and funny and lovely modeling, and attracted lots of laughter from the audience. "Lively Puppets, the New Look of Ancient Art" was a small performance featuring the cream of the Quanzhou marionette performance. The uniform movements by the students enabled the audience to have a better appreciation of the techniques to manipulate marionette.
The event reached the climax when Fu Ruifeng, the famous puppet artist, gave the performance "Youth Dream". A puppet was used to describe the youth dream of an old woman. Before the audience was able to react to it, the puppet changed the appearance instantly and became a middle-aged woman. It was not until a short while later, the audience responded with loud cheers and applause. When the audience was still immersed in the magic change last time, the puppet changed once again to a beautiful girl. The whole theatre quieted down instantly and was then refilled with exclamation of surprise and admiration from the audience.
Finally, Qin Feng introduced the artistic characteristics of innovative puppet show. The 2nd year students of the puppet major performed an innovative puppet show called "The Magic Scarf", displaying the new concept and new way of puppet show production right in front of the audience, who were highly impressed by what they saw.
From traditional form to contemporary form and from basic manipulation to sophisticated program, the teachers and students of STA's puppet major brought a complete and amazing performance to the residents of the Gumei Community. Walking out of the theatre, the residents of the local community were still warmly discussing about the performance they just watched. Many people went onto the stage and asked when STA would come to perform again. They all looked forward very much to seeing the puppet show next time.
Photo: The puppet show
Photo: Teacher Qin Feng introduces the mechanism of marionette
