Pulling the strings for cultural treats

Shadow puppetry play is over 2,000 years old. It originated in the Shaanxi region of ancient China during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24), making it one of the oldest traditional theatrical forms in China.

It is composed of five main stages: making the puppet parts, carving, dyeing and mounting them, and then performing, using the interplay of light and shadow to tell stories. The Museum of the Cinema in Paris has referred to Chinese shadow plays as the "ancestors" of film and animation.

"Shadow puppetry varies with regions, such as the performing dialects," Wang explains.

The Jingxi style stands out for its use of Peking Opera facial makeup and distinct personas, portraying both good and evil roles, while its vocal style integrates elements from both Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera, she says.

When the puppeteers infuse emotion into their performance, the shadow puppets seem to have a life of their own. Shadow puppetry integrates multiple folk traditions, ranging from paper-cutting and carving, to oral skills and drama, and was listed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011.

Wang was born into a shadow puppetry family in Shandong province.

"I grew up watching my grandfather perform, and my parents designing and making puppets," she says, adding that her grandfather's grandfather used to perform in Beijing.

It was Wang's childhood interest in the art that led her to tie the knot with her husband Lin Zhonghua, who also shares a love of puppet shows, albeit for the one from his hometown in Chifeng city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The couple were both working in Beijing when they met, Wang at a multinational company and Lin at a media organization.

In 2006, Lin decided to launch his own career. "We figured it should be something to do with our shared passion, and so the idea of promoting Jingxi puppet shows came up," Wang says.

Initial research revealed that the number of experienced performers was on the wane and very few young people were interested in the art form. So, the couple decided it was time to take action.

Lin resigned and rented a 1,000-square-meter space in Qianmen and then spent nearly 200,000 yuan ($27,780) turning it into a shadow puppet museum, which opened to the public in 2007.

After this, they began looking around for experienced artists, who were mostly in their 50s and from Inner Mongolia, and the provinces of Hebei and Heilongjiang. However, problems soon ensued.

"Young visitors barely understood what the performers were saying, and those performers wanted to leave after just a short while to rejoin their families," Wang says.

The audience for the shows was also disappearing. At their lowest moment, Wang had to use her salary to fill in the financial holes but they still fell short of the rent. So, the museum shut a year later, as the couple looked for answers to the problems that had led to the failure of their first attempt.

"We were not going to give up," she says. That was when her husband Lin came up with the idea of training people with pituitary stalk interruption syndrome in the traditional art.

"He had interviewed a girl of short stature with the syndrome, and had been impressed by her positive attitude and singing talent," Wang says.