What is the historical origin of puppet show?

Fujian has enjoyed the reputation of "the land of puppets" since ancient times. It has a long history, a wide variety, rich repertoire, exquisite carving and wonderful performing arts, and enjoys a high reputation in the puppet art world at home and abroad.

I. Historical origin

China's puppet show appeared earlier than Renyi. Tracing back to its history, the academic circles have always advocated that it originated in the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Tang Dynasty, which lasted for more than two thousand years. "Searching for God" contains: "In the Han Dynasty, the guests in the capital were all puppets." There is a legend about puppets that has been shared by old artists for generations. Chen Ping, a counselor of the Han Dynasty, made a puppet and stood on the top of the city, cleverly escaping the siege of Xiongnu. The general code of the Tang Dynasty: "Be a puppet and be good at singing and dancing." "Feng Shiwen Ji Jian" also records that in the Tang Dynasty (766-779), artists "carved wood for Wei Chiyi Gong, Turks fought against generals, and the organs acted as if they were dead." "Notes on Notes" says: "Going south will help the country of Lou. He is fickle, or takes pleasure in holding various animals in his hands and bends between his fingers. They are people or several minutes long or plural inches, and gods and monsters are sudden mysteries. " These records fully show that the southern puppet art was quite common and superb in the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang Dynasty was the period when Fujian's economy and culture began to develop simultaneously. In the third year of Huichang (843), Lin Zi, a native of Fuzhou, wrote a poem named Mu Ren Fu in Minnan Tang Fu, from which we can see that Fujian puppets were quite prosperous in the Tang Dynasty.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, a large number of people from the Central Plains entered Fujian, bringing advanced production technology and introducing culture and art from the Central Plains and northern regions to Fujian. During Wang's reign in Fujian, he advocated Buddhism and built temples. Whenever a monk is invited to preside over a ceremony, he always prepares fragrant flowers and puppet shows to welcome him. There is a poem in the fifth volume of Xuefeng Mountain, which describes the puppet performance at that time: "Pope has nothing, why is the fragrance accumulated and precious?" The length of the sun and the moon is unknown, and Woodenhead dances the red furnace "; When Bao Lao laughed at Guo Lang, he danced in front of others. Even Bao Lao came out to dance, but Lang Dang still beat Guo Lang. "This shows that Fujian puppet show has a close relationship with religion as soon as it appears. Because the highest ceremony in Buddhist activities is to mourn the dead, muppets are regarded as "the joy of mourning the dead", which is consistent with the records in popular articles. There is a similar record in "The Rite of Continuing the Han Dynasty": "The funeral was postponed to the Han and Wei Dynasties, and the princes and nobles lost their good looks." "Puppet is the funeral home, that is, the base, and the party can drive out ghosts and drive out epidemics. "All these have put a mysterious coat on the puppet show, so that the music of Buddhism and Taoism is still preserved in the puppet show.

Puppets have many nicknames. In ancient books, they were called Muppets and Quelei, or Guo Lang and Guo Tu, or Bao Lao and Ku Lei Zi. The puppet show in Quanzhou, Fujian, from the old folk artists to the rural people, is still called "Kerry Opera". The name "Li Jia" comes from Tong Dian of Tang Dynasty: "The cave base is also a cloud base, and I am a puppet, and I can sing and dance well. Jiahui used it at the end of the Han Dynasty. " "Jiahui" here means "Jiahui". From this special name, we can also see that Quanzhou puppet show still retains its ancient name. People in southern Fujian always invite puppets to perform during weddings, funerals and celebrations. This ancient legacy has continued to this day. Even the clowns in Gaojia Opera learn puppet shows, which are also called "Li Jia Chou" and "Li Jia Bu". It is called "Jiali Line", even the splayed foot in people's life is also called "Jiali Foot", and the puppet emperor is called "Jialidi". The old and highly specialized terms have spread to the field of life. On the other hand, historical customs have always remained in people's lives. This phenomenon is rare in other places. Quanzhou, a famous historical and cultural city, not only preserves Millennium antiquities, but also retains the title of Millennium puppet and Millennium ancient city.

Fujian puppet entered a prosperous period in the Song Dynasty. By the Song Dynasty, Fujian had reached a golden age in history, whether in economy, culture or maritime transportation. 124 1 or so, when the Southern Song Dynasty was partial to Hangzhou, a grand national "cultural performance" was held. At that time, Fujian sent more than 300 puppet artists to join the team, ranking first in the country. Sichuan, known as the "land of abundance", only sent more than 100 people. In the Song Dynasty, Fan Shenglu, an old man from the West Lake, said: "There are more than 300 people in Fujian and more than 100 people in Sichuan." This shows that the puppet show in Fujian in the Southern Song Dynasty reached a peak in history and was famous all over the country.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Kezhuang of Putian returned to his hometown for the first time during the Duanping period (1234- 1236), and described the grand occasion of performing puppet shows in urban and rural areas with poems: "The wandering girls came back to look for autumn, and the neighbors felt nervous; Poverty is not a sin of drainage, and thin customs are now suppressed. " Guo Langhang took off his clothes and went back to bathe the monkey. What about Yanshi on the shed? How many people are worried about him under the shed? In Zhangzhou, southern Fujian, the puppet show "built a shed on the land where residents gathered", which attracted thousands of audiences in Qian Qian. This incident also attracted the attention of the Neo-Confucianism scholar Zhu, and proposed to "ban puppets". From this, we can find the influence of Fujian Mujie Opera among the people. At the same time, it has formed a magnificent situation with the human drama in Putian, Xianyou, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Fujian puppet show developed further, forming an all-round network centered on Putian and Xianyou, Xiapu and Fuan, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, Shanghang and Liancheng, Jian 'ou, Zhenghe and Fuzhou. Puppet shows are widely circulated in Bamin.

Second, variety shows.

There are many kinds of puppet shows in Fujian, including muppets, puppets, iron puppets, bell puppets, Meat Puppets, water puppets, medicine puppets, paper shadow plays and so on. Among them, Meat Puppets is a performance of children's nude makeup imitating puppet movements; Water puppet is a performance performed by puppet artists on the boat or in the water; The medicine puppet is equipped with a gunpowder fuse, which can spray flame and make a sound; A bell puppet is a puppet with a small bell on its foot. These puppets can still be seen among people in the 1920s, but they were lost in the 1930s and 40s. At present, there are four kinds of puppets in Fujian: marionette, bag puppet, iron puppet and hanging puppet.

Bag puppets, also known as finger puppets and palm puppets, are mainly popular in Zhangzhou and Jinjiang in southern Fujian. Its characteristic is that the puppet body gets rid of the control of clues, but it is completely controlled by five fingers; Its structure must have a bag-like inner sleeve, which is connected with the limbs of the puppet and covered with clothes. The actor put gloves in his bag and carried out activities in his sleeves. At the same time, all the costumes of this puppet are only packed in a cloth bag, and there is no need for a theater box. Unlike marionettes, they are not worried about the entanglement of threads, so they are also called "puppet shows". Bag puppets originated in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty. They originated in Quanzhou and later spread to Zhangzhou, Zhangpu and other places. As a result, it came from behind, and now Zhangzhou's puppet show is more famous than Jinjiang and Quanzhou. There are two schools of puppets: South Road and North Road. South Road refers to Jinjiang area and North Road refers to Zhangzhou area. South Road puppet show retains the ancient traditional form of "drum flute is the main form, and bag music is sung", and its tune is mainly Nanyin. At first, Lu Jing in Zhangzhou sang Nanqu. Later, due to the popularity of Han opera and Beijing opera in western Fujian in Zhangzhou, the musical singing of puppet shows was obviously influenced by the yellow voice. As a result, this evolution has found a new way, making it break through the geographical restrictions of dialects, thus being welcomed by foreign audiences.

Third, carving skills.

The image of the puppet is not made up, but carved. In the third year of Tang Huichang (843), a Fujian native, Lin Zi, vividly and truly described the superb Fujian puppet carving art at that time in "Fu of Woodcutter in Southern Fujian". For example, the sculpture of the puppet's external shape is "tall and straight" and "short and long", which pays great attention to the size and proportion of the body, limbs and even joints. Moreover, the head and abdomen of the puppet are still hollowed out, "the hidden device moves in the middle", and even the eyes and mouth are carved to the point where they can move freely, "staring through the joints by mistake, and it is suspected that the arm is struggling"; The head is also painted with oil paint, which makes the puppet's head more expressive and three-dimensional, showing off its beauty to peaches and plums and pointing to willows. Therefore, actors can "use their hands and feet" and "draw with their left hands and their right hands" when operating, so as to achieve the anthropomorphic and visual artistic effect of "crossing the five elements and surpassing hundreds of plays". This carving technique can be said to be superb.

Xu Zhuchu, a puppet sculptor in Zhangzhou, is also a family of puppet sculptors. His father Xu Niansong is as famous as Jiangjiazhou in Quanzhou. Xu Zhuchu/Kloc-started to make puppet heads at the age of 0/5. 1955, three of his puppet heads were exhibited in Beijing and won the special prize. Guo Moruo called his skills "lifelike and lifelike". He created 500 works in a realistic way, among which life and Dan are his specialties, with delicate lines and soft shapes. There are more than 20 images of Dan's role alone. He combines sculpture and design in one furnace, and the design starts from life and observation; Carving with a typical knife gives people a sense of reality. He also made bold reforms and innovations in puppet art, raising the puppet from eight inches high to one and a half feet to suit the performance of the Grand Theatre, and at the same time changing the cloth body into plastic foam to make the puppet body full of muscles. The face of traditional puppets is waxed with oil, which will reflect light under the irradiation of modern advanced lamps, affecting the performance effect. Xu Zhuchu combines design, sculpture, fine arts, oil painting and other disciplines, and changes it into oil painting, which greatly weakens the reflection of the puppet's face, thus enhancing the sense of reality. Guo Moruo praised him for "creating the puppet world". Xu Zhuchu's works are called "Oriental art treasures" in Hong Kong, and have become the collections of museums in Britain, France, Australia, Hungary, the former Soviet Union and other countries.

Nowadays, the Jiang family in Quanzhou and the Xu family in Zhangzhou have passed on the carving skills of puppets and cloth-bag puppets to the next generation, and trained a group of new talents, which has made Fujian puppet carving art successor and lasting style. At the same time, with the increasingly rich theme of stage play, the ways of carving art are also widening. For example, the images of immortals in the drama "Flame Mountain", "Water Man Mountain", "List of Gods" and "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", as well as various animal images in pantomime "Pulling Radish", "Race between the Tortoise and the Rabbit" and "Liu Er herding sheep" all belong to roles that are not in traditional lines.

Fourth, performing arts.

The puppet is dead, but as soon as it is put in the palm of your hand, it will immediately "live" and achieve the effect of "no life, no feelings".

The artistic language of puppets is action. The vocabulary of muppets is different from that of dancing and human drama characters. The former focuses on "body fragrance", while the latter focuses on "shape and taste" and "imitation and ecstasy". Compared with human play, the "taste" of puppet play lies in that human play can perform and it can rest, while puppet can do what human play can't, such as performing arts such as going to heaven, going to the ground, going to sea, descending dragons, crouching tiger, fighting demons and exorcising magical powers, which gives people room for imagination. Puppets are also fascinated by various difficult movements such as smoking and exhaling, undressing and wearing pants, and even playing with chopsticks and sticks. Every move, word and deed of the puppet depends on the manipulation of the performer. This is the unique artistry of puppet humanization.

The life of art lies in creation. Huang Yiqie is good at exploring new ways and making bold innovations, especially in puppet movements, winning by subtlety. He did a lot of hard work, among which "How to Train a Monkey" broke through the traditional performance techniques and allowed performers to perform on stage with puppets. The monkey's lines, extracted by his fingers, can open the box, take out the violin, play music and ride a bicycle in circles. All movements are seamless and uniform, which increases transparency, gives people a sense of intuition, and has a breakthrough innovation, reaching a new height.