Chinese Opera Movement
In Chinese opera, all motion is a form of dance. Movement patterns are fluid, circular and bigger than life. This workshop introduces the basic vocabulary of gestures and postures used on …
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Shadow Theater Workshop
Chinese shadow performance (“Pi Ying Xi”) has a history going back 2000 years. This theater tradition uses beautifully carved and colored animal-hide figures, manipulated behind cloth screens in order to …
Cross-Cultural Pioneers: American Artists’ Experiences with Peking Opera
Cross-Cultural Pioneers: American Artists’ Experiences with Peking Opera was Chinese Theatre Works fourth forum in our series focusing on Chinese Opera. This forum focused on the experience of American artists …
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Asian-American Puppet Impact Forum
Preserving traditional culture practices in a changing World is an ongoing process. In 2022, Chinese Theatre Works collaborated with CHINOPERL, the Rewen Society at China Institute, and Center for Theater …
International Spy Museum
In 2019, International Spy Museum (Washington DC) invited CTW to use classic shadow puppets, alongside modern light and shadow theater techniques, in order to retell the story “Goujian and the …
Chicago Field Museum
In the winter of 2015, CTW partnered with the Chicago Field Museum to film a traditional shadow theater production using some of the antique shadow figures from the Pauline Benton Collection. …
The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry (UConn)
CTW possesses one of the largest private collections of traditional shadow figures in North America. The Pauline Benton Collection (with over 400 antique Chinese shadow figures, plus archival material, historical …
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Pauline Benton Collection
Pauline Benton revolutionized American puppetry in the 1930’s with performances of the Red Gate Players: the first professional company to perform Chinese shadow theater in North America. Benton collected traditional …
Four Seasons
Four Seasons is a fusion of classical and traditional Chinese aesthetic genres (poetry, music, dance, opera and puppetry) with contemporary shadow theater technique. It is a vivid, living animation that …
Mulan: Holding Up Half the Sky
Mulan: Holding Up Half the Sky presents episodes from 2500 years of Chinese history, as seen through the lives of four outstanding women warriors: Hua Mulan (5th Century), Hongxian (9th …
