There's a LOT of stuff, and I'm really putting it up for reference, if you want to dig deeper, and, well, because I'm an obsessive freak. It's absolutely not necessary for the course. If you're interested in the specific puppet templates we used, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
The session consisted of 3 distinct sections : a short "history" of shadow theatre; a practical session playing with the shadow screen and the OHP, working out the possibilities; and making a shadow puppet.
We started with the Chinese legend of Wu Ti, which I learned from Alessandra Esseveri of Asombras. The version on the Wikipedia reads like this :
Shadow puppetry originated in China two thousand years ago. The legend of its creation tells of the Emperor WuTi and his favorite courtesan, Lady Li. Lady Li died an untimely death which sent the Emperor into a depression so deep that he would not govern, eat or sleep. His court magician was summoned to him and asked to bring LadyLi back to life. The magician had an idea: by cutting out the figure of Lady Li and casting its shadow on a candle lit screen, he retold the courtship of the lovers. Emperor WuTi was lifted from his depression as he saw his love come to life. The Chinese believe that the spirit is manifested in the shadow and brought to Earth through the art of the shadow puppetteer. Emperor WuTi declared Shadow Puppet Theater a High Art form to be brought to all corners of his empire. And so it was.
By far the best place on the web I've found to research Chinese shadow theatre are the blogs of Annie Katsura Rollins, a Montreal postgrad researching shadow theatre. Her blog http://www.chineseshadowpuppetry.com/ includes a great DIY section, including three of the templates we used on Wednesday; but her blog about her fieldwork in rural China is truly amazing. For an idea of what a Chinese show feels like, have a look at this film from rural China in 2007.
I think I briefly mentioned Indonesian shadow theatre, and I'll try to bring a Javanese puppet I have next week. Wayang Kulit, the name in Javanese, means apparently "shadow skin" or "imagination skin", referring to the buffalo skin the puppets are made from; plays are very long, lasting six hours or longer, and accompanied by gamelan music. This is a short documentary piece ( which also shows how one puppeteer works a three-stick puppet ! )
For the Karagoz and Karagounis, the Turkish and Greek versions, the best website I can find is ( appropriately enough) http://www.karagoz.net . This 2-minute clip gives an idea of what it looks and sounds like - a lot more singing than I'd imagined !
Finally, Here's a link to the Lotte Reiniger film I showed a brief clip from my tablet. It will bring up links to lots of her other films.
The templates we used for puppet-making :
Chinese puppets for a man, a woman, a warrior
More Chinese puppets : a dragon, a rat, an emperor and our oxen !
Another dragon, a man, a woman
Various Indian characters - don't think we used these.
Thinking about teaching resources, if you google "shadow puppet templates" and then a topic or story, there's a lot of downloadable stuff out there. These Halloween puppets look like things Year 1 and 2 could probably cope with : a lot of templates might be a bit fiddly for younger children, but it's not that difficult to design things which they can trace and cut.
Homework : please bring in a couple of things which we can use to project out from the OHP : anything with a pattern, which lets light through, will produce an effect. And be thinking of possible stories you might like to use.
See you next Wednesday, same time, same place !
( Thanks to Merche for this amazing photo ! )
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