Thursday, February 24, 2011
Blog Question #3
In reading Chapter 4, I found that I was most intrigued by the Chinese shadow puppets. Although, I did find Margo and Rufus Rose's marionette puppets of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to be very interesting since I am a dancer; I felt that there wasn't enough valuable information to expand on their puppet characters. The Chinese shadow play really caught my eye because of the interesting and unique fact that shadows are being used in the puppetry. I really was drawn to the beautiful bright colors and intricate design and craftsmanship of these puppets.
Often times, these shows utilize loud music as accompaniment. I think this is neat element that I really like to see added to puppet theater rather than script/text. I think I relate to the music aspect of puppetry so closely because it feels like a choreographed dance. The particular shadow play that chapter 4 depicted and talked about was The Chaos Box. It utilizes animals as the characters; lizards, centipedes, and a handful of other supernatural, mythical characters.
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I really enjoy shadow puppets. The ability to do so much with only a two dimensional object.
ReplyDeleteAs a dancer I can see why shadow puppets would intrigue you. The motions of shadow puppets are a dance all into themselves. Any time you try and manipulate puppets with music in the background every movement turns into an intricate choreography.
Many of the more advanced shadow puppets have so much color in them making them a flashy kaleidoscope. This is another aspect that I could see being appealing to a dancer.
I have tried to design shadow puppets before and they are really rather difficult. I too greatly appreciate the intricacy in shadow puppet design.