China cool- puppet dance

Shadow Puppets were once one of the most popular entertainment forms in China. Combining fine art, opera, music and drama, some consider it a rudimentary form of the motion picture. Today, shadow puppet plays are much less popular, but the artistic and historical values are undeniable. In China Cool, we meet a team of dancers inspired by this ancient folk art.

At the Tangshan City Cultural Center, a team of grandmas rehearse a highly stylized dance. It's inspired by the shadow puppet play, a local tradition going back centuries.

Group leader Wang Jinxia has been practicing shadow puppet dances for over a decade. Her interest began at roughly the same time as revival of the shadow puppet play began.

Shadow puppets first appeared in the western Han Dynasty in the first century BC. For over two  thousand year it was a big part of popular entertainment in China. However, interest in it began to decline several decades ago when movies and TV became dominant.

It was by accident that Fan Jincai, a local  choreographer, was first inspired by the shadow  puppet dance.

Fan Jincai said, "There is a shadow puppet play troupe next to my dance  company. One day I entered their compound. There  were over thirty performers on and off their tiny stage. Among them were both manipulators and  instrumentalists. But there were only two spectators. I found the art very infectious. So it instantly came to me that the performance could be moved onto the stage. "

However, inspiration was far from enough to capture  the fascinatingly exaggerated puppet moves through the gestures of human dancers.

Fan also said, "Well, it's both simple and difficult. The point is to  dissemble the puppet moves one by one and adapt them to the stage. There must be a kind of exaggeration, but it should be moderate. That's what's hard about it. "

Once a workable choreography was developed, Fan Jincai found it hard to recruit dancers.

Compared with regular dancing, shadow puppet  choreography requires considerable strength and  rigorous discipline. That initially proved a major obstacle for the older performers.

To capture the spirit of their movies, the dancers would spend hours watching puppet shows.

Their success was realized at the Spring Festival Gala in 2006, when a national audience was mesmerized by their original interpretation of an ageless tradition.

But the dancers also discovered the difficult job of reproducing the puppet like moves on stage turned out to be a boost for their health.

Dancer Wang Jinxia said, "First of all, the dance has become a craze among old  people in our community. Also, it has given the dancers a lot of fun. It's a very effective kind of exercise. It is how we work out and relax. My problems in the legs, neck, and shoulders all disappeared after I became a dancer. "

"The puppet dance has gone beyond their neighborhood.  Even children in kindergarten began to learn it. My  granddaughter is only two years old. But she's already a terrific dancer. " Fan Jincai said.

Now, the dancers are trying to combine the puppet dance with the traditional Yangge dance.