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The National Folk Festival held Friday through Sunday, September 11-13, 2015, in Greensboro, NC.
The National Folk Festival held Friday through Sunday, September 11-13, 2015, in Greensboro, NC.
Zhengli “Rocky” Xu, left, during a fable with the turtle and the crane puppets.
For more than 2,500 years, master puppeteers in China have entertained and instructed audiences young and old with their strikingly lifelike rod puppets that star in dramatic, acrobatic stagings of folktales, legends, and opera. Much like Aesop’s fables, the traditional puppet stories, featuring both animals and humans, often include social or moral lessons about kindness, hard work, bravery and patience. Other tales, for instance the popular “clever monkey” stories, have similarities to trickster tales found in diverse cultures worldwide.
Yuqin Wang and her husband and fellow performer, Zhengli “Rocky” Xu, were both leading puppeteers with the famous China Puppet Art Troupe, the first national puppetry school in China, for more than 30 years. They founded their own puppetry troupe called Dragon Art Studio when they came to Oregon from China in 1996. In the past two decades, together with their daughter Brenda, to whom they taught the rod puppetry tradition, they have shared the beauty, wonder, and excitement of Chinese rod puppetry with audiences throughout the United States.
SCOTT MUTHERSBAUGH and JERRY WOLFORD/Perfecta Visuals
The National Folk Festival held Friday through Sunday, September 11-13, 2015, in Greensboro, NC.
Zhengli “Rocky” Xu, left, during a fable with the turtle and the crane puppets.
For more than 2,500 years, master puppeteers in China have entertained and instructed audiences young and old with their strikingly lifelike rod puppets that star in dramatic, acrobatic stagings of folktales, legends, and opera. Much like Aesop’s fables, the traditional puppet stories, featuring both animals and humans, often include social or moral lessons about kindness, hard work, bravery and patience. Other tales, for instance the popular “clever monkey” stories, have similarities to trickster tales found in diverse cultures worldwide.
Yuqin Wang and her husband and fellow performer, Zhengli “Rocky” Xu, were both leading puppeteers with the famous China Puppet Art Troupe, the first national puppetry school in China, for more than 30 years. They founded their own puppetry troupe called Dragon Art Studio when they came to Oregon from China in 1996. In the past two decades, together with their daughter Brenda, to whom they taught the rod puppetry tradition, they have shared the beauty, wonder, and excitement of Chinese rod puppetry with audiences throughout the United States.
SCOTT MUTHERSBAUGH and JERRY WOLFORD/Perfecta Visuals
