Chinese Shadow Puppetry s Changing Apprentice System: Questions of Continuance and a Survey of Remaining Shadow Puppet Practitioners in Mainland China, 2008-2013

Chinese shadow puppetry s fading master-apprentice system poses urgent questions of how best to ensure the inherited practice is passed to the next generation. With profiles of current Chinese shadow puppet practitioners, this article surveys the spectrum of survival scenarios. Questions of continuance will depend on increased awareness of the form s tenuous future and increased efficacy of cultural heritage preservation programs, such as UNESCO s Intangible Cultural Heritage project.Annie Katsura Rollins is a researcher and practitioner of traditional Chinese shadow puppetry. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to canvass mainland China for the remaining artists in 2011 and began a PhD on the art form at Montreal s Concordia University in 2013. Rollins recently launched the first comprehensive Chinese shadow puppetry informational site in English at www.chineseshadowpuppetry.com.