皮影戏

Chinese shadow puppetry, also called shadow play, is one of Chinese historic folk arts. It is a form of storytelling that used puppets against an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images.

Chinese shadow puppetry has a long history. According to the history, Chinese shadow puppetry began in Warring States and thrived in Han and Song Dynasty. While in Yuan Dynasty, owning to the westward conquest by the Mongolia troops, it was introduced into west Asia and Europe.

In early Spring and Autumn Period, Zixia, one of the students of Confucius gave a speech in Xiaoyi. In order to attract more people, he thought a good idea of taking advantage of “musical shadow” in the evening to make the speech. It was welcomed by most of the people. As time went by, this way of speaking developed into the earliest Xiaoyi shadow play.

However, the development of shadow play is not very optimistic. In modern society, the traditional art gradually falls because of more optional entertainment. It faces the risk of lost. Many shadow play groups have been disbanded, and lot of the talented artists have been already old even died, and many tracks have been lost.

As the people of new generation, we should help protect and promote the ancient traditional art forgot by a lot of people, making it become the invaluable treasure of the world.