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Iconographic Meaning

Puppet represents an old lady of high social status.

Description

Rod puppet (zhàng tóu mù ǒu), representing the character Lao Dan (old lady), with separate headband and headdress. Head and hands of puppet (part a) are carved from wood. Components painted pink beige. Character has a long nose and large ears. The mouth is painted bright red, eyes are black-rimmed and eyebrows are white. There is white paint around the back of her head and along the sides of her face, imitating hair. She has long grey-blonde hair in a low ponytail. The character is wearing a black robe, with extended sleeves that drape down. The robe has a front opening, secured with ties, and two small side slits. Neckline, cuffs and front opening of robe are bordered with a gold wavy band. Robe has floral motifs throughout, done in pink and silver sequins and green paint. Curvilinear motifs, done in gold and red wavy bands, around neck opening. Character has a plain white undergarment underneath the robe. Puppet is operated by three bamboo rods- one large rod attached to her head, and two more are attached to each hand. Hole cut out in back of puppet’s head. Headband (part b) is brown with white floral embroidery across it. Band secured at the back with long, neon orange-pink ties. Headdress (part c) is made of cardboard, with a metal frame, covered in yellow fabric. There are two tiers of curved triangular protrusions all along the headdress and curvilinear attachments on either side. Two tassels hang from the curvilinear attachments, coloured red and yellow. The entire surface of the headdress is covered in sequins and beads. Sequins are silver, blue, pink and red, and beads are silver and green. Each triangular protrusion, in both tiers, has a curled wire with a large bead on top. The top tier has silver beads, the lower tier has white beads. Back of headdress is painted silver. There two plain ties on the back of the headdress.

History Of Use

The celebrated rod puppets of the Guangdong Province on the south coast of China have a long history. They became popular during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Generally referred to as ‘ghost opera’ (qui-a-xi), this form of rod puppetry shares many characteristics with Cantonese Opera. There are the four standard categories of performer: male (sang/sheng), female (daan/dan), clown (cau/chou) and painted faces (zing/jing), often reserved for martial or fighting characters. They wear elaborately embroidered costumes and perform classical Chinese legends and histories, with dramatic and stylized acrobatics, movements, voices and gestures. The likeness of the rod puppets to their human counterparts is enhanced further by the clever mechanisms that move the eyes and mouth. Like all forms of Asian theatre and puppetry, music is also an essential part of the performance: the accompanying orchestra generally consists of gongs, drums, violins and reed instruments. Almost every performance of puppet theatre in Guangdong is part of religious festivities. The stage is built opposite a temple or shrine. A performance usually starts with ritual blessings to bring peace and prosperity to the local community.