Art in the palm
By Su Wei & Vivian Zhang
Photos by Zheng Xiaodong

上月,漳州木偶剧团在布拉格国际木偶艺术节上夺得最佳表演奖,被称为"中国一绝"的掌上艺术再放光芒.目前,获奖木偶剧<大名府>每天晚上在人民剧场<舞动厦门>中上演.想见识布袋木偶绝活的读者,可以大饱眼福了.

Puppets can walk, sit and greet people. No wonder about that. But what about shooting arrows, spinning plates or even flying through the air like acrobats(杂技演员)? And all these breath-taking stunts are manipulated by one's fingers! Such an incredible show brought down the house in Prague's International Puppet Arts Festival this June, and won the best acting award for the puppeteer(木偶表演员)-Zhangzhou Puppet Troupe. As the chairman of the festival committee said, the show is "very, very good. We want you to be here to give the show again next year."

How "good" is the puppet show? What is it that makes the audience so excited and overwhelmed by those small figures? With those questions we made an exploration to the Renmin Theater on Zhongshan Road, where Zhangzhou Puppet Troupe is presenting their show every night.

Stunning acting skills
The show was on.
Throughout the 10-minute play, the audience was sitting up tight and drawn to the performance. They might well have forgotten that it was just a puppet show because the puppets seemed so "real" on the stage, capable of doing anything real people can. With the accompaniment of rhythmic Chinese opera music, the puppets showed stunning skills like pouring tea, wrestling, acrobatics, lion dancing and martial arts. Without a word spoken, the audience could well understand the plot and were greatly amused by the vivid characters of the play.

Later we were told that this show, named Daming Prefecture, is the same one that won the award in Czech. As the manager of Renmin Theater, Zhang Yulu explained: "Nearly all the best arts of the puppet show can be found in Daming Prefecture."

The puppet show is so spectacular that in many cases viewers, especially foreigners, have wanted to discover the "trick" for themselves. Once a foreigner even stooped at the backstage watching with the presumption(猜想) that there must be some mechanism installation hidden somewhere. When the show was over, he leaped forward and clutched(紧握) both the wrists of one puppeteer and fumbled around with the puppet. Surely, he found nothing.

Finger secret
So what is the magic? Also eager to learn how it works, we asked Wu Shusong, a puppeteer veteran, to unveil the secret of finger skills.

"Fit your hands into a puppet, manipulate the puppet's head with your index finger, one of its hands with your thumb, and its other hand with your other three fingers. Make sure that the index finger is stretched far apart from the other three, nearly 90 degrees, so as to fully use the puppet and perform more activities." Seeing that we could only painfully stretch our index finger at most 30 degrees apart, Wu explained: "It's not an easy job. We have a special puppet school where our students have to practice for six years before acquiring such skills."

"The above-mentioned is just a basic skill." Wu added, "Usually we have to operate two puppets at the same time, and that's the most challenging part." It sounds inconceivable(难以想像的) that two puppets, each having its own character and movement, could be manipulated by one person. Still many in Wu's troupe have accomplished the stunt and are successful "split-minded" puppeteers. When in Czech's Prague this June, a foreign expert made his comment after viewing their show: "Their duet-puppet manipulation has reached the acme(顶点) of perfection of puppeteering."

More than a puppeteer
The Zhangzhou Puppet Troupe was set up over 40 years ago whilst puppet art has a history of over 2,000 years. The troupe has been to more than 10 countries and in 1960, it won the first performance prize at the second International Puppet Arts Festival in Bucharest.

Today most members of the Zhangzhou Puppet Troupe, all having graduated from the Zhangzhou Puppet School, are in their twenties. This has injected great momentum into the development of the troupe. Lin Aibing is one of them and she is more than a puppeteer.

"In the puppet school I received a wide range of courses like vocal, instrumental, puppet-making, puppet manipulation and also academics." She added, "I love being a puppeteer, and I am proud of this unique Minnan (South Fujian) folk art."

She has every reason to feel so. Puppet show performance has seen its growing popularity among all people, young or old, home or abroad. If you have not yet seen one, don't hesitate to go to the Renmin Theater. You are bound to have an enjoyable night there!

 

 

Bridge the Straits with music

On the evening of July 23, under the baton of renowned conductor Zheng Xiaoying, the Jinmen youth musicians played colorful symphony pieces as a round-up performance to the Jinmen music summer camp. The local audience broke into thunderous applause in the end and didn't leave until after 9 encores.

The brilliant execution owed much to the 20-member group from the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra. At the invitation of the Jinmen Music Association, they arrived in Jinmen on July 18 to give instructions to the attendees of the music summer camp.

The students are of different levels with some starting to learn instrument playing just a few weeks ago, however, Zheng and her colleagues still tutored with great patience. Within a few days, the students made rapid progress in comprehension of music and instrument playing, which was shocking to their parents, teachers and the Jinmen authority alike.

 

 

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