Year 7 Home Learning Task Drama SHADOW PUPPETS

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1 Year 7 Home Learning Task Drama SHADOW PUPPETS Name Tutor Group Teacher Given out: Monday 30 April Hand in: Tuesday 8 May Parent/ Carer Comment Staff Comment Target

2 Your Drama Home Learning Booklet. You will need to read the information in this booklet carefully in order to answer all the questions. The questions and tasks are set out in bold lettering and they are numbered. Remember; if you get stuck you can ask a number of different people for help: 1. Adults at home 2. Your tutor 3. Homework club 4. Your friends 5. Mr Grant. DAY ONE Task One- Research For today s task I want you to read the following information and then answer the questions in The Quiz. Shadow puppetry is an Asian art form (most common in China), that puts puppets (made out of leather) behind a screen. A strong light will also be behind the screen and the puppets shadows will be projected onto the screen. This screen is known as the stage. Nicknamed the business of the five, a shadow puppet troupe is made up of five people. One operates the puppets, one plays a horn; a suo-na horn and a yu-kin, one plays banhu fiddle, one is in charge of percussion instruments and one sings. This singer is the narrator of the story and plays all the roles in the puppet show, which of course is very difficult. That is not all; the singer also plays several of the over 20 kinds of musical instruments in a puppet show. These ancient musical instruments enhance this ancient folk art. More than 2000 years ago, a favourite wife of Wu Emperor of the Han Dynasty died of illness; the emperor missed her so much that he lost his desire to reign. One day, a minister happened to see children playing with dolls where the shadows on the floor were vivid. Inspired by this scene, the smart minister hit upon an idea. He made a cotton puppet of the wife and painted it. As night fell, he invited the emperor to watch a rear-illuminated puppet show behind a curtain. The emperor was delighted

3 and took to it from then on. This story recorded in the official history book is believed to be the origin of shadow puppetry. Shadow puppets were first made of paper sculpture, later from the hides of donkeys or oxen. Shadow puppetry was related to politics. This was because the people who wrote the performances could tell the audience their views. Governments saw this as dangerous, as the audience of a play might turn against them. From 1796 to 1800, the government forbade the public showing of puppet shows to prevent the spreading of peasant uprising at the time. It was not until 1821 that shadow puppet shows became popular again. Shadow puppets are always presented in profile (the face of the puppet is side on to the audience). To make it interesting the faces will have very exaggerated facial expressions. Look at this angry looking fellow. A shadow puppet takes as many as 3000 individual cuts to create the final product. Each cut allows light to shine through and gives definition to the character. The figures all have a large head and a small body, which tapers down. A man has a big head and a square face, broad forehead and a tall strong body. A woman has a thin face, a small mouth and slim body without being too plump. The audience can tell a figure's character by seeing his mask. A red mask represents a good person, a black mask, fidelity, and a white one, treachery and evil. The good characters have long narrow eyes, a small mouth and a straight bridge of nose, while the evil characters have small eyes, a protruding forehead and sagging mouth. The clown has a circle around his eyes, which tells the audience he is the funny character even before he performs any act.

4 Lavish background pieces including architecture, furniture, vessels and fancy patterns are featured in shadow puppet shows. Shadow puppet shows use the stories of famous Chinese fairy tales. The Quiz - Having read through the information, answer the following 10 questions. 1. How many cuts might a puppet maker have to make to create a single puppet? 2. What does a black mask represent? 3. How does the audience know that a character is a clown, even before they have started to act? 4. When did the politicians ban shadow puppets from being performed? 5. What is the screen known as in shadow puppetry? 6. What type of stories are used in Shadow Puppetry? 7. What are shadow puppets made out of? 8. Who was it that put on the first shadow puppet play? 9. How are shadow puppets presented (face on to the audience or in profile)? 10. What does the singer do? (Hint they don t just sing)

5 DAY TWO Task Two- Reading Task The rest of the booklet will be focused on the following story so make sure you read it carefully. Shadow puppet plays are based on famous Chinese fairy tales. These fairy tales concentrate on how the world began. In the following story you will learn how the Chinese Zodiac (The year of the horse, monkey etc) came into being. There are several legends about how the animals were chosen for the Chinese zodiac. This is one of them. The Jade Emperor is the name of the Emperor of Heaven. Long ago, in China, the Jade Emperor decided there should be a way of measuring time. On his birthday he told the animals that there was to be a swimming race. The first twelve animals across the fast flowing river would be the winners and they would each have a year of the zodiac named after them. All the animals lined up along the river bank. The rat and the cat, who were good friends, were worried because they were poor swimmers. Being clever they asked the strong ox if he would carry them across the river. 'Of course' said the kind ox. 'Just climb on my back and I will take you across.' The rat and the cat quickly jumped up and were very excited when the ox soon took the lead in the race. They had almost reached the other bank when the rat pushed the cat into the river leaving him to struggle in the water. Then just before the ox was about to win the race the rat leapt on his head and on to the bank to finish first. 'Well done,' said the Jade Emperor to the proud rat. 'The first year of the zodiac will be named after you.' The poor ox had been tricked into second place and the second year of the zodiac was named after him.

6 Shortly after the exhausted tiger clawed his way to the river bank to claim third place. Swimming across the river had been an enormous struggle for him against the strong currents. The Emperor was so delighted with his efforts that he named the third year after him. Next to arrive was the rabbit, who hadn't swum across at all. He hopped across on some stepping stones and then found a floating log which carried him to the shore. 'I shall be very happy to call the fourth year after you' the surprised Jade Emperor explained. Just then a kind dragon swooped down to take fifth place. 'Why didn t you win the race, as you can fly as well as swim?' the Jade Emperor asked. 'I was held up because some people and animals needed water to drink. I needed to make some rain,' the dragon explained. 'Then when I was nearly here I saw a poor little rabbit on a log in the water and I blew a puff of wind so that the log would float to the river bank.' 'Well that was very kind of you and now you are here you will have the fifth year of the zodiac named after you.' The next thing the Jade Emperor heard was the sound of the horse s hooves. Just as he was thinking the horse would be the next animal to arrive, a sneaky snake wriggled out from around one of the horse s hooves. The horse was so surprised that he jumped backwards giving the snake a chance to take the sixth place in the race. The poor horse had to be satisfied with seventh place. Not long afterwards a raft arrived carrying the goat, the monkey and the rooster. They explained to the Emperor how they had shared the raft that the rooster had found. The goat and monkey had cleared weeds and pushed the raft to the shore. The Emperor was very pleased that the animals had

7 worked together. He said the goat would be the eighth zodiac animal, the monkey the ninth and the rooster the tenth. The next animal to finish was the dog. 'Why are you so late when you are one of the best swimmers?' asked the Jade Emperor. 'The water in the river was so clean that I had to have a bath on the way,' explained the dog. His reward was to have the eleventh year named after him. Now there was one place left in the zodiac and the Emperor wondered when the last winner would come. He had nearly given up when he heard a grunt from the boar. 'You took a long time to cross the river,' said the Emperor to the boar. 'I was hungry and stopped to eat,' explained the boar. 'After the meal I felt so tired that I fell asleep.' 'You have still done well,' said the Jade Emperor. 'The last year of the zodiac will be named after you.' As for the cat who had been pushed into the water by the rat, he finally crawled out of the water but was too late to have a year named after him. He felt very cross with the rat and since then cats have never been friends with rats. From that day to this the Chinese Zodiac has followed this cycle of years named after these twelve animals. DAY THREE/ FOUR/ FIVE Task Three- Design Puppets Read all of these instructions carefully. Look at the next page to help you come up with your designs. The following pages have been left for you to design puppets for each of the characters in the story from yesterday. You must design puppets for all of the animals- this is your task for the rest of the week and therefore your pictures are expected to be done to the best of your ability. Remember that you are creating a shadow puppet and therefore you are looking for a bold silhouette rather than a lot of fine detail in the facial expressions. The size of the puppets is important as small animals can t be to scale as they would not be seen if you did. A rat would be SO small compared to the large ox and

8 therefore you need to make sure that although they are drawn in the right size order (rat, snake, rooster, rabbit, cat, dog, monkey, goat, boar, tiger, Jade Emperor, horse, ox, dragon) they all need to big enough for the audience to see what they are.

9 You will see over the next few pages that space has been given to design your puppets; some will ask you to design multiple puppets per page whilst others will only ask for one design. This is due to the size of the puppet; please use the whole space that has been provided for you. DAY THREE PUPPET 1: The Jade Emperor (remember he should be in profile) PUPPET 2: The Rat PUPPET 3: The Cat

10 Puppet 4: The Ox (He s a big animal so use the WHOLE page)

11 DAY FOUR PUPPET 5: The Tiger PUPPET 6: The Rabbit

12 PUPPET 7: The Dragon (Another big animal so make sure you use the WHOLE page for this design.)

13 PUPPET 8: The Snake PUPPET 9: The Goat PUPPET 10: The Monkey

14 DAY FIVE PUPPET 11: The Horse

15 PUPPET 12: The Rooster PUPPET 13: The Dog PUPPET 14: The Boar

16 Self Evaluation of my Homework I am a R learner. I know this because: I believe that my effort and attitude to learning for this booklet is a: I know this because: