Shadow And Dialogue

This paper,based on practical research and comprising three parts,discusses the transformation,representation and reactivation of the traditional art of shadow play.Part 1 acknowledges the artistic and cultural value of traditional shadow play before analyzing why the development of the art is impeded at present.Two factors,internal and external,are found.At the same time,new development opportunities provided by this age for the shadow play are found.Part 2 points out how the stereotypes impact adversely on traditional shadow play and exemplifies the achievements in its reactivation in the present context in three dimensions — folk artist exploration,design versatility and artistic research.The author concludes that the research on transformation,representation and reactivation of shadow play is an effective avenue of breaking through the traditional stereotypes.Part 3 makes a study of the theme,space and target audience of a shadow play show called Beauty of Shadows:Perspective,which the author created as a graduation project.Inspired by a "mini-stage" concept,the work exhibits the findings about the"transformation,representation and reactivation" theory.In so doing the author tries to prove the new model,i.e.the transformation,representation and reactivation model,to be effective in the development of modern shadow play.