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Chinese Shadow Theatre
In her study of Chinese shadow theatre Fan-Pen Li Chen documents and corrects misconceptions about this once-popular art form. She argues how a traditional folk theatre reflected and subverted Chinese popular culture.
Marionette Plays from Northern China
English-language translations of traditional plays from the marionette puppet theater of northern China. Marionette puppet theater has a rich and ancient history in China, extending back to the Han dynasty and reaching its heyday in the Qing dynasty. While this art form is nearly extinct in northern China today, a handful of troupes in Heyang County in Shaanxi Province, which claims to be the birthplace of marionette theater, continue to perform skits and scenes from Heyangs earlier, broader marionette theater repertoire. In this book, Fan Pen Li Chen has collected and translated rare transcriptions of some of the most popular of these plays. Her insightful translations include a rich variety of genres and highlight memorable characters that range from manipulative aristocrats, poor Confucian scholars, and a woman warrior to Baldy Guo, the iconic clown of puppet theater. As the only work in English about the puppet theater of northern China, these translations provide valuable information about the history, religion, social roles, and popular culture of that region. Detailed introductions and annotations for each play, as well as an extensive bibliography, are also included.
Visions for the Masses
This collection of Chinese shadow plays contains seven selected traditional shadow plays from the Qing and early Republican periods from Shaanxi and Shanxi. A minor operatic genre, the Chinese shadow theatre provides one of the best avenues for examining the mentality and sense of humor of the silent masses. Although Shaanxi sports the largest number of shadow traditions in China and is where the art form is most vibrant, its shadow plays have never before been published in either Chinese or English. Translated from rare hand-copied play scripts, this volume includes the most literary and refined plays of the genre as well as coarser popular plays and farcical Post-midnight skits. It also features a survey of the state of the shadow theatre in contemporary China, extensive critical introductions and bibliography.
Marionette Plays from Northern China
Marionette puppet theater has a rich and ancient history in China, extending back to the Han dynasty and reaching its heyday in the Qing dynasty. While this art form is nearly extinct in northern China today, a handful of troupes in Heyang County in Shaanxi Province, which claims to be the birthplace of marionette theater, continue to perform skits and scenes from Heyang's earlier, broader marionette theater repertoire. In this book, Fan Pen Li Chen has collected and translated rare transcriptions of some of the most popular of these plays. Her insightful translations include a rich variety of genres and highlight memorable characters that range from manipulative aristocrats, poor Confucian scholars, and a woman warrior to Baldy Guo, the iconic clown of puppet theater. As the only work in English about the puppet theater of northern China, these translations provide valuable information about the history, religion, social roles, and popular culture of that region. Detailed introductions and annotations for each play, as well as an extensive bibliography, are also included.
Journey of a Goddess
First English translation of both a novel and two play excerpts based on tales of the goddess Chen Jinggu, an eighth-century shaman and present-day cult deity. This book offers the first translation into English of the Chinese novel Haiyouji, as well as excerpts of a marionette play based on the cult lore of the goddess Chen Jinggu (766790), a historical shaman priestess who became one of Fujians most important goddesses and the Lüshan Sects chief deity. The novel, a 1753 reprint of what is possibly a Ming dynasty novel, was both a popular fiction and a religious tract. It offers a lively mythological tale depicting combat between the shaman goddess and a snake demon goddess. Replete with the beliefs and practices of the cult of this warrior goddess, the novel asserts the importance of Shamanism (i.e., local religious beliefs) as one of the four religions of China, along with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. To further develop the links between literature and local religion, Fan Pen Li Chen includes translations of two acts from a Fujian marionette play, Biography of the Lady, featuring the goddess.
Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia
Xue Mo's novel Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia presents a rich tapestry of the history, religion, lore, and customs of a region in present-day northwestern China. During its heyday, the Sino-Tibetan kingdom of Xixia (pronounced see-sia; 1038–1227), also known as the Tanguts, rivaled the Song dynasty (960–1279) of China and boasted a cavalry so formidable that the Chinese paid tribute to it to maintain peace. Using the discovery of "lost" manuscripts as a frame, the novel presents historical events and tales of semifictional characters, including the avatar of a local Tantric Buddhist goddess, a Dakini/Vajrayogini named Snow Feather. Taking the readers through different historical times and the various geographical and cultural spaces of the region, Xue Mo reveals truths by blurring the distinction between good and evil, beauty and hideousness, reality and fiction, permanence and impermanence. Magical realism and mimesis coexist. Reality merges with illusion, the mundane with the supernatural.
Journey of a Goddess
This book offers the first translation into English of the Chinese novel Haiyouji, as well as excerpts of a marionette play based on the cult lore of the goddess Chen Jinggu (766–790), a historical shaman priestess who became one of Fujian's most important goddesses and the Lüshan Sect's chief deity. The novel, a 1753 reprint of what is possibly a Ming dynasty novel, was both a popular fiction and a religious tract. It offers a lively mythological tale depicting combat between the shaman goddess and a snake demon goddess. Replete with the beliefs and practices of the cult of this warrior goddess, the novel asserts the importance of Shamanism (i.e., local religious beliefs) as one of the four religions of China, along with Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. To further develop the links between literature and local religion, Fan Pen Li Chen includes translations of two acts from a Fujian marionette play, Biography of the Lady, featuring the goddess.
Revolutionary Stagecraft
Revolutionary Stagecraft draws on a rich corpus of literary, historical, and technical materials to reveal a deep entanglement among technological modernization, political agendas, and the performing arts in modern China. This unique approach to Chinese theater history combines a close look at plays themselves, performance practices, technical theater details, and behind-the-scenes debates over “how to” make theater amid the political upheavals of China’s 20th century. The book begins at a pivotal moment in the 1920s—when Chinese theater artists began to import, use, and write about modern stage equipment—and ends in the 1980s when China's scientific and technological boom began. B...
Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China
In Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture Timothy M. Davis presents a history of early muzhiming—the most versatile and persistent commemorative form employed in the elite burials of pre-modern China. While previous scholars have largely overlooked the contemporary religious, social, and cultural functions of these epigraphic objects, this study directly addresses these areas of concern, answering such basic questions as: Why were muzhiming buried in tombs? What distinguishes commemorative biography from dynastic history biography? And why did muzhiming develop into an essential commemorative genre esteemed by the upper classes? Furthermore, this study reveals how aspiring families used muzhiming to satisfy their obligations to deceased ancestors, establish a multi-generational sense of corporate identity, and strengthen their claims to elite status.
