Imagine having the ability to practice a craft that dates back almost 2,000 years.
That’s exactly what happened in a Muir Elementary School classroom recently as fifth-grade students of Yenchu Wang cast shadows upon a lighted stage and shared stories they didn’t know existed until a couple of months ago.
Yet, the stories were now real and being projected on a stage reminiscent of those that came generations before.
The performances, known as shadow plays, are very traditional puppet shows originating in China and Taiwan, explains Wang, a Chinese immersion teacher who has taught at the Bountiful school for the past two years.
“A long, long time ago, we don't have TV, right? But we wanted to see something,” Wang said. “So we create … animal schemes (and) draw other puppets and use the fabric, and use the light. So the people can play the show and the people can see.
“So they can create a story and they create a puppet and play the show for everyone,” she says.
As the students position themselves behind the stage and control their figures with long wooden sticks, a pre-recorded story, which the students have also produced, is communicated in Chinese with a music bed providing the mood of the play.
“I asked students to write the story first and then create a puppet,” Wang explains, “and I then use the recorded voice because during the show. I think sometimes students will get nervous, so I separate the work.
“So we record the voice and add some background music and then they're focusing on the play during the show.”
Parents of the students look on in amazement, trying to ascertain the plays while they follow an English translation printed in a small paper book provided by the students. The stories are their own, written by the students, as they work together in six separate groups.
“The stories are about heroes, monsters and adventures,” the book explains.
One of Wang’s students, Von, acknowledges that shadow plays are a bit challenging.
“We had to say it all in Chinese. That's hard,” Von says. “And there was a bunch of characters we didn't know, and we had to look in a Chinese dictionary, and we could ask Ms. Wang.”
Another student pipes in, “It’s so fun. You can design your own character and at the end, once you're done, it’s super nice. … Performing is just always fun.”
In another student group, Nora says, “It was cool to move the puppets around … and do all the background work. It's really fun to just, like, move them around and create the whole play. It's also fun to work with other people and create something.”
