La petite pièce à laquelle j'ai assisté, d'après ce que j'ai cru comprendre, tirait son argument, comme c'est souvent le cas, de quelques-uns des épisodes les plus spectaculaires de La Perégrination vers l'Ouest, the old novel by Wu Cheng'en. The name of the Grands Classiques de la Litérature Chinoise et certainement il est le plus plaisant de tous pour un profane. I don't have the opportunity to take advantage of the trait as it frustrates me that is inflicted by the puppets of Qibao in the car, which is precise in the training of the book in my room in the hotel. Ou, peut-être, ai-je pensé à tort qu'il s'agissait de lui car j'étais alors plongé dans sa lecture. Il faut dire que all ces histoires se ressemblent un peu. Elles mettent en scène les mêmes combats fantastiques que, sous l'œil de divinités bienveillantes, livrent, pour la bonne cause, des créatures surnaturelles afin que triomphent, défaisant les monstres dépêchés contre eux, les sages et les saints auxquels incombe The mission of the fair triompher on the ground of the vérité and the justice.
Xuanzang is the hero of your recit. Ce my bouddhiste est chargé d'aller quérir en Inde les textes sacrés - les soutras - indispensables à la defense et à la propagation de sa foi. Mais the main protagonist of the novel – in the role of the second role in the appearance of the child – is called Sun Wukong. The s'agit d'un singe philosophe doté d'une force phénoménale et armé d'un formidable bâton magique. Il entend libérer les siens et prendre la tête de leur légitime révolte ; If he rebels against the city, he will not proclame the issue. Vaincu, en guise de punition, il est condamné à être enfermé dans le be d'une énorme montagne dont, cinq siècles plus tard, on le sort afin qu'il se rachète et serve, aux côtés d'un monstre, d'un cochon et d'un dragon, d'escorte au I'll protect you in the same time. D'où tous les combats extraordinaires qu'il livre, qui constituent la matière de la plupart des épisodes du roman et dont le theater chinois s'inspire volontiers.
I don't have any access to the brochure in English and distributed to visitors at the entrance to the museum. Elle affirme que Qibao fut l'un des hauts lieux de cet art ancestral dont beaucoup d'autres cités chinoises doivent également revendiquer de l'avoir porté à son plus haut degré d'excellence. Car on the practice a part out in the pays and not a precise expression of the view - it is part of the Inde or the Central Asia.
Les hypothèses les plus savantes ont cours à ce subject. Bien sur, je ne sais pas ce qu'elles valent et je serais incapable de dire laquelle est la bonne. Mais comme toujours, à sa manière, c'est la légende qui dit vrai. You're welcome, it's my preference. Elle prétend que le spectacle auquel nous donnons le nom d'« ombres chinoises » fut inventé il ya plus deux mille ans par un certain Shaowong, mage taoïste de son état. Il se fit fort de faire revenir du royaume des morts la splendide concubine dont le décès brutal avait livré the grand empereur Wudi aux affres d'un interminable deuil. It is designed to project the silhouette of the young woman on a paper screen, producing a console for the souverain that aims to create the illusion of presence.
Without accréditer forcément la fable, les historiens qui se sont penchés sur la question avancent parfois la thèse, en tout cas, que le théâtre d'ombres aurait été originalement lié aux rites funéraires en vigueur dans l'ancienne Chine et que perpétuent à leur manière moderne les books de Qingming. Autrefois, lorsque mourait le sovereign, on immolait, afin de lui tenir compagnie dans la tombe, ses femmes, ses esclaves, ses chevaux. Puis la coutume a permis cessent ces sacrifices sanglants et que, en lieu et place des victims vivantes, on use de figurines à leur effigie, des sortes de pantins auxquels, au moment de la cérémonie, on faisait exécuter des danses imitées de celles que, autour des feux sacrés qu'ils available allumés, pratiquaient les shamans afin de divertir les dieux, leur donnant en spectacle les silhouettes des simulacres qu'ils avaient substitués à leurs offrandes. And this is the story of the ceremonies that are based on the origin of the art of Pi Ying Xi. Des ombres prenent la place des vivants dont elles évoquent les forms afin que reviennent à l'existence les fantômes de ceux qui sont partis. Si j'ai bien compris.
This hypothèse étrange, ainsi serait né the child child and sacré auquel on assiste dans l'obscurité avec pour personnages des spectres, soules créatures à occuper a place véritable sur la scène de la vie. Là où, ombre parmi les ombres, chacun d'entre nous s'en vient faire obscurément son petit numéro passager jusqu'à ce que la lumière s'éteigne et que tout returnne à la nuit: rejouant dans le vacarme des cordes et des cuivres des histoires also vieilles que The humanity that invents and creates a content that creates a drama doesn't cause any sentiment to arise from the sien mais auquel, tant il sun faux, personne ne parvient jamais à croire pour de bon.
L'ombre venant avant la réalité comme si la seconde naissait de la première et que les choses, elles-mêmes, n'étaient jamais que l'ombre de l'ombre dont elles copient la forme sous laquelle elles se present à nos yeux. Plus it's important that the person doesn't have the light projecting the silhouette on the surface of the paper, it's reflected in nature, it's also visible in the vérité watch. Expliquant without the dire que la réalité, elle-même, n'est rien d'autre qu'une ombre qui passe et dont nous ne connaissons jamais que la forme qu'elle fait, l'apparence qu'elle prend. Sans qu'il y ait lieu de se demander ce qui peut bien se passer de l'autre côté du grand panneau de paper, là où se démènent comme ils le peuvent de pauvres artistes que le public ne voit pas, dont il ne sait jamais rien – et c'est très bien ainsi.
Philippe Forest, Pi Ying Xi: Theater d'ombres. novel (Gallimard, 2022).
As far as I understood, the small play I attended drew its plot, as so often happens, from some of the most spectacular episodes from The Journey to the West, the old novel by Wu Cheng'en. It is one of the great classics of Chinese literature and certainly the most appealing of them all to a layperson. It's no great feat that I recognized it despite the rather rough treatment by the puppeteers of Qibao, as I was reading it every morning in my hotel room. Perhaps I mistakenly thought it was this one, because I was so engrossed in my reading. I must admit that all these stories are somewhat similar. They deal with the same fantastic battles fought by supernatural beings under the watchful eyes of benevolent deities for the greater good, so that the sages and saints, whose task it is to establish truth and justice on Earth, may triumph and defeat the monsters unleashed against them.
Xuanzang is the hero of the story. This Buddhist monk is tasked with acquiring the sacred scriptures—the sutras—in India, essential for defending and spreading his faith. However, the novel's main protagonist—despite his seemingly minor role—is Sun Wukong. He is a philosophical monkey of immense strength, armed with a magical staff. He seeks to liberate his people and lead their rightful revolt; he rebels against Heaven, whom he considers his equal. As punishment for his defeat, he is imprisoned inside a gigantic mountain, from which he is freed five centuries later. To redeem himself, he joins a monster, a pig, and a dragon in escorting and protecting the monk on his quest. This leads to the extraordinary battles he fights, which form the basis of most of the novel's episodes and have long served as inspiration for Chinese theater.
I'm not sure whether to believe the short English brochure handed out to visitors at the museum entrance. It states that Qibao was one of the strongholds of this ancient art, which many other Chinese cities also claim to have perfected. The art is practiced all over the country, and no one knows exactly where it originated—perhaps India or Central Asia.
There are many scholarly hypotheses about it. Of course, I don't know their worth, and I couldn't say which one is correct. But as always, it's legend that tells the truth in its own way. At least, it's my preferred version. It says that the spectacle we call "Chinese shadow puppetry," or shadow theater, was invented over two thousand years ago by a certain Shaowong, a Taoist magician. He set out to bring back from the realm of the dead the magnificent concubine whose sudden death had plunged the great Emperor Wudi into endless grief. He succeeded by projecting the young woman's silhouette onto a paper canvas, thus creating the perfect illusion of her presence and comforting the ruler who had loved her.
Historians who have studied the subject don't necessarily consider it a fable, but they do posit that shadow puppetry was originally linked to burial rites in ancient China, rites that are continued in a modern form at the Qingming funeral pyres. In the past, upon the death of a ruler, his wives, slaves, and horses were sacrificed to keep him company in the grave. Then, the practice of ending these bloody sacrifices and using figures—a kind of marionette—in place of living people became common. These figures performed dances during the ceremony, dances modeled on those performed by shamans around the sacred fires they lit to entertain the gods by presenting them with the silhouettes of the simulacra they offered in lieu of their sacrifices. Such ceremonies are believed to be the origin of the art of shadow puppetry. Pi Ying Xi They must have been. Shadows take the place of the living, whose forms they summon so that the spirits of those who have passed may return to life. If I understood that correctly.
This peculiar hypothesis states that the childlike and sacred game played in the dark originated with ghosts, the only creatures that occupy a true place on the stage of life. There, where each of us, like a shadow among shadows in the darkness, plays our own game until the lights go out and everything becomes night again, reenacting stories to the sound of strings and brass instruments—stories as old as humanity itself, which tell a drama that everyone always feels is their own, but because it sounds so false, no one can ever truly believe it.
The shadow precedes reality, as if the latter arose from it, and things themselves are always merely shadows of the shadow, whose form they replicate when they appear before our eyes. More important than the theatrical character, whose silhouette the light projects onto the paper's surface, is the shadow that reveals its nature and shows its truth. Silently clarifying that reality itself is nothing more than a passing shadow, of which we only ever know the form it creates, the appearance it assumes. Without us having to ask what is happening on the other side of the great paper wall, where poor artists, unseen by the public and of whom it never learns anything, toil away as best they can—and that is as it should be. 1
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- "Legend tells how a magician once managed to somewhat console the emperor for the deep sorrow caused by the death of the woman he loved. In the darkness, he made the silhouette of the vanished, beautiful courtesan appear before his eyes. Thus, the art of the 'Pi Ying Xi"In the West, we call this art 'shadow theater,' and its tradition has survived to this day. For each of us, in the night we live in, searches for the shadow of what we have lost. Sometimes a mysterious message unintentionally puts us on the right track. The world then transforms into a labyrinth where the signs multiply and everything takes on a strange air of déjà vu."
One day, a man living in the Chinese quarter of the European capital receives a mysterious cry for help that, without his knowledge, transports him to the other side of the planet, to Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing. In this China he discovers, a China he doesn't know and doesn't understand, everything he once experienced himself unfolds before him, and in this way, it begins to exist a second time in a unique way.
In the form of a fable, similar to his recent novels Schrödinger's cat or L'oubli, Philippe Forest builds on the inspiration of his first books – L'enfant éternel and Sarinagara —for which he was celebrated some twenty years ago as one of the most important contemporary French writers. He transports the reader to a dreamlike China where the present blends with the past, lets the prey fall for the shadow—as a poet would have it—and gives a sequel to the long novel of longing and grief that comprises his work.” (Translation of the publisher's announcement.)>>>
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