Eleven years after the First National Puppet Show Contest in 1992, the second contest concluded in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province at the end of September. Out of 12 shadow plays participating in the contest, Fight in Heaven by the Tangshan Shadow Play Troupe was given the exclusive "golden-lion" award for shadowgraph.

The contest opened between September 22 to 28. Thirty-one puppet show companies from all over China attended the competition. Thirty-nine shadow plays were staged. By using modern lighting effects and special operation skills, the shadow play Fight in the Heaven won praise from both spectators and experts. Besides the "golden-lion" award, it also won two single-term prizes in stage direction and performance skills.

The shadow play is a kind of drama in which silhouettes made of hard paper and hide are projected onto a white screen. The performer manipulates the characters behind the screen while singing a libretto to tell the story. The story-telling is accompanied by music.

The shadow play is an ancient art that has gradually fallen from popularity due to the impact of modern audio-visual media like TV and movies. Many shadow play groups have subsequently disbanded. In some areas, certain types of plays and its art of performance are actually near extinction.

However, for many years, the Tangshan Shadow Play Theater has kept busy staging an average of 400 shows each year. For over six months, the artists gave performances in Europe, Oceania and America with over 300 shows, of which earnings occupied about 85 percent of the troupe’s total revenue.

Since 1998, every newly produced play has been subtitled in both Chinese and English for showing abroad. 

This March, the theater dispatched a small group to Japan for eight-months. Since 1996, the theater has established long-term cooperation with a puppeteer association in Tokyo. Every year, the theater is invited to Japan to perform.

Talking about its future development, Wang Junjie, chief of the troupe, has many plans in mind. "The latest action is making our play into a TV play or movie," he said.

A TV play 18 volumes long, entitled Assemble of Five Apexes (Wufenghui) which was produced in 2001 by the troupe, was award the third-grade prize in the 16th National TV Literature Traditional Opera "Star-light" Contest concluded recently.

In addition, the first shadowgraph movie entitled On the Way to a Well-off Life was finished this August.

South Korea had bought the movie's distribution rights in South Korea for 900,000 yuan (US$108,738) payment. Some companies from Japan and Canada also showed their willingness to buy the copy. It's estimated that the income for transferring the distribution rights would be no less than 3 million yuan (US$362,459), which is three times more than the shoot cost, sources from a culture exchange corporation from Beijing said.

However, the movie is not likely to sell well in domestic market. The only possible customers would be the movie channel of CCTV. Also, they couldn't expect the box office from the domestic urban or countryside customers.

The embarrassment faced by many folk arts is the lack of a successor, while the Tangshan Shadow Play Theater has no such trouble. Many students have been enrolled by the Tangshan opera school in the last three years. There they can be trained by professional shadow play artists. After graduation, they will be recruited by the troupe directly, resulting in many youngsters filing out applications.

The troupe is also equipped with new musical instrument like the lute and sheng (a reed pipe wind instrument). They widened their original screen to six meters from the original 2.5 meters. More modern lighting appliances and special effect techniques have been used in the new plays' scenes and operations. "Many performances staged abroad belong to pure music drama, so we absorb all the movements from acrobatics, dance, opera, and even gymnastics to enrich our operating skills in our new plays. We utilize every thing that is usable," Wang said. The performances have sparked strong interest among Western audiences.  

The troupe also makes an effort to explore new performance markets. Shadow play cartoons are introduced as mini series drama by the troupe. Wang Junjie said that this move popularizes basic shadow play knowledge among children. The troupe also offers performances in the countryside, schools and kindergarten.

According to sources from the National Folk Artists Association, during the 1950s and 1960s, the number of formal shadow play troupes in Hebei Province was over 30, with now only three or four remaining. The total number of shadow play troupes from all the country has decreased from some 200 to 32 at present in the past 50 years.

Chinese shadow plays, which came into being during the Han Dynasty (206 BC- AD 220) in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, spread to South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and North Africa in the 13th century. The ancient Chinese art spread to Europe in the 17th century. The famous German poet Goethe staged European opera in the form of a Chinese shadow play, and modern movies have been derived, in part, from the ancient art.