![]() Professor Jacques Pimpaneau created one of the most unique collections of Chinese and Asian puppets. All these researchers and other individuals brought these puppets and stages to the West and these puppets are in most cases the most ancient and complete examples of early Chinese puppet theatre. Unique individuals like Pauline Benton actively performed shadow theatre, she also collected a substantial collection of shadow figures and brought this art to the U.S., as described in the recently published book by Grant Hayter-Menzies, "Shadow Woman: the extraordinary career of Pauline Benton". German collector Karl Eger (1879-1933) collected almost 1500 shadow figures from Sichuan, that found their way in the collection of the ethnographic museum in Munich. In the 20th century contacts with China and the West intensified and sinologists like Berthold Laufer (1874-1934) collected unique puppets for the Field Museum of Natural History. The puppets are now in the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in Leiden, the Netherlands. He also described some of the plays that were performed. Rhein was able to buy a set of puppets and a stage. Rhein, wrote one of the first articles on Chinese puppet theatre: "Mededeeling omtrent de Chineesche Poppenkast", which was published in 1889. In the 1880s, the interpreter at the Dutch embassy Peking, J. He collected complete sets of glove and string puppets from Fujian (including stages) that are now stored at the Ethnographic Museum in Leiden, The Netherlands. de Groot (1854-1921), who did fieldwork in the Amoy (Xiamen) region of Fujian province in the 1880s. The first to systematically collect puppets and stages was the Dutch sinologist J.J.M. The collection of Chinese theatre puppets by museums started in the 19th century in the West and now Chinese and Taiwanese museums are catching up rapidly.Ĭollecting Chinese puppets by western scholars and artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuryĪfter the Opium Wars in the 1840s, China was forced to open up to foreign trade and missionary zeal, but also to scholars of Chinese culture. ![]() Puppets never die and unlike opera actors remain with us in all their (battered) glory. The preservation of puppets and this performing art in general has generated substantial government support in China and Taiwan in the past decades. Nevertheless, there are still several thousand puppet theatre companies in China. As we mentioned above, the younger generation greatly prefers televised entertainment and for a non-local audience the action is difficult to follow. Yet, the era of mass communication has resulted in the disappearance of numerous puppet theatre companies and many companies only perform several times a year. Puppet theatre has always been a fascinating window on Chinese society, with its beautifully carved puppets, music, eloquent language and dramatic qualities and its role in numerous religious rituals that accompanied all the major life events of Chinese people. The mosquitoes really start to bite now and tomorrow we have to get up early and so we leave for our air-conditioned hotel room, yet with the feeling of having experienced something unique. Young children are mimicking the movements on stage, but do not follow the show. Pensioners continue to watch the puppet show. We find that the younger generation gathers in a shed nearby to watch Terminator or some other action video. What happens next? After some time we realize the less magical element of the performance: it becomes repetitive and we cannot follow the seemingly endless dialogue in the local dialect. Food and drinks are offered and we sit down to enjoy the spectacle. The music is loud and beautiful and we are amazed by the colorful spectacle. At dusk we arrive in a village, a stage is erected, there is live music, food, lights, incense burning, prayer and ritual, people gather and then it starts…on the stage the legends, history and gods come alive through the puppets with an elegance that goes right back to the roots of its civilization. In order to understand the magic of Chinese puppet theatre, I will have to take you on a trip, possibly on the back of a truck or on a motorcycle, over winding roads.
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