Shadow theater in Xiantao has been passed down from generation to generation, and the number of singers increased after the establishment of New China. The beautifully carved, high-pitched Shinyang shadow theater has brought a lot of laughter and glory to the people of Xiantao. 1951, Xiantao also set up the first shadow art troupe in Hubei Province, and was invited to be included in the motherland condolence mission, four shadow artists went to the North Korean Chinese People's Volunteers, encouraging the generals to kill the enemy bravely, to protect the country. Beautifully carved, high pitched singing Shinyang shadow had brought a lot of laughter and glory to Xiantao people. 1953, shadow artist Gong Benhuai created, performed "Wu Sung fights the tiger" in the province and the Central and South Bureau won the first prize. 1955, March, went to the provincial performance, Shinyang shadow puppet show "Wu Sung fights the tiger" won the first prize in the meeting performance; 1957 shadow puppet show "car building", there is a recording of the Hubei radio station, the China Record Society to the national distribution, in 1988, the Western Shadow Theater "Wu Sung fights the tiger" was released. In 1988, West Germany's national shadow delegation watched the shadow play in Shinyang, asked for two images to bring back to the country, and displayed in the country's museums; in May 1981, the Central Ministry of Culture and the National Puppet and Shadow Association of leading comrades to Shinyang, watched the shadow play "Flaming Mountain" after the opera's singing is extremely appreciated. The provincial TV station also went to shoot a documentary introducing Shinyang shadow play. In a short time, the city's shadow team grew to more than 40, more than 300 artists, creating a "village village shadow" landscape.
Shinyang shadow in the early years of Xiantao city "bear" ah, the people love shadow show. When there is a shadow show, ten miles of villagers shaking goose feather fan old morning to the field surrounded by full. The children drank plum soup and played with the shadows while learning the movements of the shadows. In the past, the stage of the performance was paved with wooden boards, and when it came to playing the sand field and martial arts, the actors competed with each other in footwork, and whoever acted with dedication, stomped his feet with great strength, and fought with a loud sound. The two actors stomped their feet to indicate the intensity of the battle. And the old Shinyang people also especially appreciate the performance team that can break and fall through the board of the stage, which has become a kind of test of strength for the performance team's performance. The louder the team's performance, the more the people would be willing to take them to perform again.
And in recent years, due to a large number of influential shadow artists or old, quit the stage, or successive deaths, resulting in many skills, schools lost, coupled with the audience fault, shadow performance groups sharply reduced, the city only shadow artists nearly 100 people, of which only nearly 20 people insisted on year-round performances in the countryside, nearly 30 people in the amateur performances.
The endangered condition of the shadow theater caused the attention of the Xiantao municipal government. Xiantao Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government held several meetings to study the revitalization of the shadow play. Xiantao City, the cultural sector to guide the establishment of the city's folk shadow artists association and the people have private, self-financing Shinyang shadow art troupe. Municipal finance to "money to support things" way, the shadow artists to give appropriate support, focusing on the training of Li Ruizhi, Gong Jinting, Zhang Jingping more than 10 shadow play cultural center households.
Especially in the past two years, the city set up a task force to actively declare provincial and national intangible cultural heritage protection projects, and through various effective ways to promote and protect the Shinyang shadow play. It has organized the "Good Neighbor" shadow play cool party, the "Cultural Heritage Day" shadow play exhibition in Sports Square and the "Civilized City Creation Inspection" shadow play report performance in Municipal Square. The performance activities.
During the national "Eight Arts Festival", the city's cultural department also specially organized shadow works in the provincial museum to participate in the physical exhibition of intangible cultural heritage, which increased the popularity and reputation of Shinyang shadow. Last year, the city's three professional teams performed more than 1,050 shadow plays for an audience of more than 300,000 people.
In the view of shadow artists, the survival of shadow theater has improved, but the road to inheritance and innovation is still long. Zhengchang town shadow artist Gong Jinting said, only in the heritage of innovation, innovation in the heritage, shadow art can be promoted, can develop. In recent years, Gong Jinting finishing, adapted a number of traditional shadow play, created a number of modern themes shadow play, acting traditional shadow play repertoire is not repeated throughout the year, acting the new shadow play to make people laugh and benefit from it.
In the long-term artistic practice, Xiantao City Shadow Art Troupe has created a number of excellent traditional and modern repertoire, and went to South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and other places to perform, by domestic and foreign audiences and artists of high praise.
On May 20, 2006, the Jianghan Plain Shadow Play was approved by the State Council to be listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
On June 13, 2009, Fishing Drum Shadow Play of Xiantao City was selected as one of the second batch of intangible cultural heritage list of Hubei Province.
In 2012, Xiantao City **** there are 15 shadow art troupes, shadow artists nearly 300 people, year-round active in the streets, townships, the old "five miles and three platforms singing flower drums, villages and villages perform shadow shadow" scene, and then reappeared in the land of Xiantao.