Of course, it's hard to believe modern man, but there were times when there was no cinema, no TV. But even at this stage of human history (and it is 99% of the story) in world culture existed prototype of the current film and television, the spectacle based on the bizarre visual images. One of the most original and distinctive such spectacles is an ancient Asian art, known as shadow theater.

Shadow Theatre, appeared, according to experts, about two thousand years ago, is a kind of theatrical puppetry, the essence of which is that the viewer does not see the actual characters played out the history, variety of dolls, but only their silhouettes behind a translucent screen, the screen. Dolls, their silhouettes were visible even through the fabric, dressed in brightly colored costumes and puppets themselves to put on long sticks. You can often hear the objection to the traditional name, they say, it's not silhouettes shadows, but in the majority of the content of this corresponds to the title and appear before the audience is really no more than a shadow of the dolls, each of which has a characteristic recognizable appearance.

According to the experts, the shadow theater, which had the largest scale and the most ancient tradition in China, was born as a true national spectacle that grew out of street performances in the market square during the gatherings of large numbers of people who come for shopping and entertainment. However, the official legend of the origin of shadow theater credits his birth rather aristocratic roots. According to ancient legends, in ancient times, the legendary Chinese Emperor Han Wudi beloved wife died, why the emperor fell into a deep sadness. But soon one of his officials to see how the children in the street playing with dolls, shadow theater and invented as the first doll, whose shadow appeared on the screen, was a picture of the late Empress. Han Wudi this spectacle had in mind and had fun new start in life.

Whatever it was, but in medieval Asia, especially in China, shadow theater enjoyed nationwide popularity and love .  Almost every Chinese province had its own characteristics of this art is expressed in the material from which manufactured dolls and their appearance, in the stories that make up the representation .  By the XII-XIII centuries shadow theater became very common in India, and then, together with the aggressive campaigns of the Tatar-Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, which is China has been the cultural foundation of the new empire, entrenched in the central regions of Asia .  By the XVI century, he began to enjoy considerable success in the Ottoman Empire .  Already in the XVII century with the help of European missionaries and diplomats (a pioneer in this respect is considered a French missionary Jules ALOD) shadow theater became known and the European audience .  In 1767, this show first appeared in France in 1776 and got to the UK .  It is known that a great admirer of shadow theater was the great German writer and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who in 1774 made a similar presentation of the key point of entertainment in honor of his birthday .

Aboriginal way of making puppets for shadow play is the following .  First of paper or paperboard are manufactured blank dolls, flat figure, which was then compacted thin skin (mostly donkey) to create a framework, a sort of skeleton of the future dolls .  The average height of the dolls was about 30-35 centimeters, but some dolls have reached more than half the growth of up to 70 centimeters .  Further building dolls depended on what character they were portraying, static or active .  Depending on the circumstances, these dolls continue to do a solid, stiff, with a rigid frame, or a hinge that connects parts of the "trunk", whereby foot and hand puppets could bend at the joints .  The bars through which ran a puppeteer puppets were mostly metal .  Particular attention was paid to the contour of the dolls and the color of her apparel - for the parts that made up the contour, the viewer could guess the nature of the character and his membership in a particular social group, sex, family .  Different colors in the clothes, in turn, had its symbolic significance and may help viewers to determine their attitude to this or that hero: so mostly dressed in white or colorless robes were evil, insidious and nasty characters .  Also in the presentation of the importance it played sound accompaniment composed mostly of violin and percussion instruments - the music was an integral part of the narrative, and helped set a particular mood in certain scenes .

Today, shadow theater, like most ancient art forms, is in a difficult situation, hopelessly losing their "descendants" film and television, the struggle for the viewer. Shadow Theatre in ever increasingly becoming an exotic art show tourists and a few aesthetes. Currently, the main focus of this kind of theatrical spectacle moved from China to Indonesia.

Alexander Babitsky