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Story telling in ancient way is by performing a shadow puppet made from a simple material.
Shadow puppet has a long history in Asian countries like Indonesia, China, India and Turkey. It is also popular entertainment for kids and adults in many countries all over the world. The puppets made from various material in every country.
In Indonesia the name is “Wayang Kulit “ where kulit means leather or skin. The puppet made from a thin leather made from buffalo's skin.
The story is from the Indian Epic, Mahabharata and Ramayana in Javanese or Balinese version.
Malaysia also similar to the Indonesian Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet)
Thailand use rattan as the material of their shadow puppet.
Shadow puppet in China has a story when invented. It started during the Han Dynasty, when one of the Emperor's concubine got sick and died. The emperor wanted to bring back her to life, by making the shape of the concubine from a donkey leather. With 11 pieces of the leather her joints animated, wrapped with painted clothes. Using an oil lamp as all Asian shadow puppets use, they move the concubine's shadow , bringing her back to life.
Turkish shadow puppet started since the Ottoman Empire. It has much influenced by Javanese shadow puppet. The puppets made from thick paper with design and color of each character in the story. They particularly use Olive oil lamp, to create better light and shadow on the cotton screen
The shadow puppets in these Asian countries always accompanied with the traditional music/orchestra and a very skillful puppeteer, that can act and change voices for every characters performed.
Shadow puppets then travel to Europe from the Far East and South East Asia by the trade routes of Asia, The Mediterranean, West Africa to West Europe, although it is also discovered that a wooden doll show already existed in Greece at the 1st or 2nd century.
Anyway the flat 2 dimension puppet from ancient Asia, changed its form to a puppet doll in Europe and mostly became children entertainment, where in Italy the main character is Pinocchio where the string puppet performances are more common than shadow. Flat form of puppet used for getting the shadow, while string puppet's show needs doll puppet.
When television introduced on the 1950, the puppet took the commercial route. The children TV Show characterized by puppets. The shadow puppets made several evolutions until it reached its present state in Western World. Somehow it lost its original spirit that conceptualized in the Asian World back then.
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