Gudong Liu-jia-zhai Shadow Puppetry Centre

Kulturerbe

Gudong town, in north-western Tengchong, was named a "Home of Chinese Folk Art (Shadow Puppetry)" by the Ministry of Culture in 2000, and its Liu jia zhai is the core home of Tengchong shadow puppetry. The Liu family troupe is the only folk shadow group in Tengchong to have performed without interruption across six generations, with the national-level bearer Liu Yongzhou as its fourth-generation master. Its ox-hide figures are carved and painted by hand, the plays drawn from romances and legends, above all Three-Kingdoms and Investiture-of-the-Gods pieces, an outstanding representative of south-western shadow theatre.

Besuch: At Liu jia zhai one can watch craftsmen carve figures in the shadow-puppet study centre and take in a performance behind the lit screen, the figures flying in lamplight as Three-Kingdoms and Investiture tales come alive; a word with the old masters shows how this six-hundred-year western-Yunnan art carries on in younger hands.