*Wuhua Marionette Show

*Wuhua Marionette Show

Nominating Unit: Wuhua County, City of Meizhou

Marionette Show, known as “Xuansi Play” in Wuhua County of City of Meizhou, has a history of more than six hundred years dating back to the beginning of the Ming Dynasty from Fujian Province. It becomes very popular at the end of the Qing period with more than twenty troupes performing across East Guangdong Province. The Show was even performed abroad to countries in Southeast Asia and impressed overseas Chinese with its highly skillful art and techniques. Now it can be found in Anliu, Zhuanshui, Meilin, Mianyang, Zhoujiang, about ten towns in Wuhua County.

The Show’s repertoire composes biographical play and variety show. The former has a canon of traditional plays (about 40) depicting folklores while the latter has a closer connection with daily life satirizing common folks in the world. Performed in the Han Tune, the speech also includes Hakka songs of the mountains or ditties about tea leaves plucking while the dialogue is conducted in Hakka dialects.

Wuhua Marionette Show has six roles in total, namely sheng (male), dan (young female), chou (clown, male), gong (old male), po (old female) and jing (painted face, male). Each puppet is exquisitely and vividly decorated with an average height of 90 centimeters. Each puppet is fixed with three hard lines (called the fixed lines): one on the back to fix the whole body that makes it possible to bend and square its shoulders; the other two are fastened on the ears to control the head so that it can maneuver round and nod. Soft lines (performing lines) are fixed on the joints of hands and legs and can be added up to twenty lines according to performance requirements. The string-puller, by employing his/her fingers, wrists and palms, maneuvers the puppet skillfully so that it can perform highly-technical actions such as flying, falling, diving, horse-riding, shooting, overcoming powerful adversaries, as well as daily gestures like holding a pen, drawing a sword, whisking hair, combing, shedding tears, pouring wine, spinning, driving, piping, pulling strings, fanning and puffing. The puller can even manipulate the puppet to do various acrobatic feats, turn gourd upside down, swing the sticks back and forth or have two “snakes” creeping down and up the poles. Others include double swords waving, beheading trick and split-body technique. All these impress the audience with the charm of magic.(https://www.daowen.com)

Wuhua Marionette Show has its own system of performing with various unique feats, making it a treasure of fold arts in Lingnan Area as well as an exemplification of Chinese Nation’s cultural and intellectual refinement and creativity. Its influence has extended to other art arena and its repertoire is adapted to TV sitcoms in China’s mainland, stage shows in Hong Kong, or even made into documentaries in France. Its fame is well known in Hong Kong, Macau, Southeast Asia and Europe.

Located in the less developed area, stricken by impacts from diversified cultures, the Marionette Show is now facing the lack of talents to carry on its tradition. Moreover, the great difficulty in mastering the art makes the situation worse. Unless immediate action is taken, the Show will risk extinction.

In 2008, it was added to the list of the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage.