Chinese shadow play is an art form integrating light and shadow, art, sculpture, music, singing and performance. Shadow puppetry performers perform behind a white screen illuminated by lights, using figures or animals carved out of animal skins, cardboard and plastic boards, and accompanied by music, singing and storylines. The repertoire and singing of shadow play are often influenced by local operas, and are performed by the artists while they are manipulating, which is very wonderful.

In the long history of more than one thousand years, shadow play has gradually spread over more than half of China, forming dozens of categories of different regions and different characteristics. With the exchanges between land and sea along the Silk Road, Chinese shadow puppetry successively spread to Japan, Arabia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other countries and regions. Legend has it that in the 18th century, German poet Goethe used Chinese shadow puppetry to celebrate his birthday.

Chinese shadow play has a long history. Its light source was oil lamp and gas lamp at first, and then electric lamp was used. Since then, with the changes of The Times, the props and performance forms of shadow puppetry have also produced many changes and development, such as imitating fire cooking fireworks rise, vivid mirror and so on, especially close to life. The shadow window curtain has developed from a small six feet in the past to ten meters now; From one or two men to a dozen; And the lights have grown from a handful of lights to rows of lights.

The French artist Rodin once said: "The source of art, lies in the inner truth, your form, your color, to convey emotion." As a photographer born in a family of dramatic arts, it is my duty to protect and promote Chinese shadow puppetry, which has been included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. For more than 20 years, I have been paying attention to and photographing Chinese shadow play, going to theaters, mines, and rural areas to find sculptors and veteran shadow play artists and collectors all over China, and have taken tens of thousands of photos.

From generation to generation, shadow play has become a form of artistic performance with national characteristics and full of local flavor in China. Because it conforms to the common people's aesthetic taste, it is deeply loved by the public. Chinese shadow play often expresses cultural history, folk customs and other contents, tells Chinese stories, displays Chinese wisdom, carries forward the Chinese spirit, and highlights China's strength, making important contributions to the promotion and dissemination of Chinese culture and international cultural exchanges.

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