Shanghai Puppetry Troupe's "Nine Colored Deer" has won consecutive awards, with over 30 performances competing in the national exhibition of Nine Colored Deer | Shadow Puppetry | Shanghai
At the beginning of June, the Shanghai Puppetry Troupe's Shanghai style shadow puppetry "Nine Colored Deer" received good news frequently. On June 7th, it won the honor of "Excellent Play" at the 9th National Excellent Children's Drama Exhibition, and on June 6th, it won multiple awards such as the Best Play Award at the 6th Puppetry Shadow puppetry Excellent Play Exhibition.
The quadrennial exhibition of excellent puppet and shadow puppetry performances is the highest standard exhibition activity in the Chinese puppet and shadow puppetry industry. The 6th Excellent Puppet and Shadow Play Exhibition will be held in Yangzhou, Jiangsu from May 30th to June 6th. During the 8-day exhibition, 31 puppet and shadow puppetry troupes across the country met as friends, showcasing the innovative achievements of China's puppet and shadow puppetry industry through 31 plays and 24 performances. On May 31st, the Shanghai Puppetry Troupe's Shanghai style shadow puppetry "Nine Colored Deer" was highly sought after by the audience on the day of its performance at the Shuiyun Theater of the Yangzhou Grand Canal Museum, with no empty seats. In the end, "Nine Colored Deer" won multiple awards, including Best Drama Award, Excellent Text Creation, Director, Composer, Manipulation Performance, and Stage Design.
On June 7th, "Nine Colored Deer" made its debut in Nanchong, Sichuan, and participated in the 9th National Excellent Children's Drama Exhibition hosted by the Art Department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and the Nanchong Municipal People's Government. It exchanged ideas and showcased its charm with 35 different styles and genres of performance programs from across the country, and was awarded the honor of "Excellent Drama".
![Shanghai Puppetry Troupe's "Nine Colored Deer" has won consecutive awards, with over 30 performances competing in the national exhibition of Nine Colored Deer | Shadow Puppetry | Shanghai](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/9cb4d3be0a5e8d31e07b3685f7675f62.jpg)
"The Nine Colored Deer" was first released in 2020 and premiered in 2021. It is adapted from the story of the Dunhuang mural "The Deer King's Birth", with more than 40 shadow puppetry designs and dozens of revisions. Shadow puppetry focuses more on how "Nine Colored Deer" gradually grows from a young deer to a true divine deer. In the story, Jiu Se Lu saved a drowning man who promised to keep it a secret, but betrayed Jiu Se Lu for financial gain and was ultimately punished. The adapted shadow puppetry not only tells the story of Chinese folk mythology, but also reflects thoughts on human nature through dramatic conflicts.
The shadow puppetry stage focuses on the growth of the "Nine Colored Deer", using multimedia technology to restore the magnificent and ancient colors of Dunhuang murals. 30 sets of multimedia lenses are superimposed and used, innovatively combining Dunhuang color scheme, fluorescent shadow puppetry, and traditional shadow puppetry, breaking the traditional performance mode of shadow puppetry window manipulation, and creating a new impression of Shanghai style shadow puppetry that integrates "shadow, reflection, and screen".