W600xH600, China
This is a shadow puppet from the province of Luo Shan. The written history of shadow puppet in China dated back over 1000 years and spread all over the country, slowly each region has their own characteristic, in terms of the puppet, its control and of course the singing (as each area has a different dialect). 450 year ago in Ming dynasty shadow puppet theatre arrived Luo Shan from Luan Zhou. Unlike the other region that uses donkey skin, Luo Shan’s puppets are with buffalo skin. Each puppet are controlled by 3 bamboo rods and cast over a white cloth screen of 1.8x1m. The puppet theatre group would consist of 8 people (3 puppeteers), the puppet “cast” are huge (300 odd heads to match with 80 odd bodies), apart from characters there are also sets of mountain, forest, vehicles, animals, furniture, etc!
Mountain Folkcraft 