Shadow puppetry: Revitalising ancient arts (3)

This puppet is the famous Monkey King. It weighs about 3.5 kilograms. And it’s the lightest one among the puppets here. There is a control lever inside it. So when I pull it, it’ll be like this.

The heaviest puppet in the troupe weighs about 10 kilograms. Holding up such a heavy puppet during a show is not as easy as it looks. And in order to make the body movements look good, these young puppeteers train every day early in the morning.

Zhang Rong, performer of Shanxi Xiaoxing Troupe, said, "The performance of a puppet depends on the one who operates it. If you can’t do it, neither can the puppet. So we must have solid skills, or the puppets won’t look vivid."

The troupe put on more than one hundred shows nationwide in 2012. Half of them were by invitation from local governments. Nevertheless, the head of the troupe says they still face financial pressure, as more sophisticated equipment is needed to improve their performances.

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