Gustavo Thomas recently had a great post on Chinese shadow puppet theatre. His site has a video showing behind-the-scenes how the shadow puppets are operated (at the end of long, skinny sticks). Here’s a view from the audience of the show Thomas vlogged featuring the Monkey King, a character who can change form (6 1/2 minutes, Wuzhen Dongzha, China).
Next is a clip from a documentary film A Life in Shadows.
This looks like a really interesting film! It’s still in production.
They also just recently posted a new trailer:
On to other shadow-puppety stuff. Jim Weiner put together an interesting version of the Hansel and Gretel story. In addition to the nice visual effect, there is a really fabulous use of music and sound.
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August 19, 2007 at 1:50 pm
ohamanda
I just watched the first one…kinda Crouching Tiger, isn’t it? I love shadow puppetry. It’s amazing.
So are you a puppeteers? Or you just dig puppets?
August 22, 2007 at 8:25 am
Ithacan
I just dig puppets (unless you count the finger puppet who dances for our cats). There’s something puppetry captures that you don’t get anywhere else. I think it has to do with the suspension of disbelief that they require of the audience. And they can be so ridiculous sometimes! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!