Celebration of 2002 Chinese New Year
St.
Louis Worldways Children's Museum and Oregon's Dragon Arts Studio Presents
Puppetry Shows and Face Painting
On January 25 and 26, 2002
By Jennifer Chang
Scanews staff writer
On January 25 and 26, 2002, Worldways Children's Museum will host a Chinese New Year Celebration. The festivities will include different puppetry shows, a puppetry workshop, and a Peking Opera face painting workshop, all presented by Oregon's Dragon Arts Studio.
Titled "Images of China", the puppetry show mixes puppetry with music, humor, elegance, and special effects to create an engaging show while giving the audience an insight into Chinese folklore and culture. Each 45-minute performance features five independent stories: The Crane and the Tortoise, Old Man and the Monkeys, A Donkey's Best Friend, The Super Duper Ping Pong Match, and The Dancer.
The 45-minute puppetry workshops, led by Mr. Zhengli Xu, will teach participants how to make puppets. The Peking Opera workshop, led by Yuqin Wang, teaches audience members about the Classic Chinese Opera, and about the face painting involved. Ms. Wang will show how to do paint faces, and explain the different meanings associated with the colors and characters.
Chinese puppetry has more than one thousand years of history. It started decades ago as cultural ritual, and later became a form of entertainment to the royal family and common public. Since then, Chinese puppetry has developed tremendously over the years. It has combined artistic expression with detailed hand craft, traditional Chinese Opera movements and music, well-engineered mechanical puppet parts and western technology to tell the story. Images of China mixes puppetry with music, elegance, humor and special effects to create a beautiful event. Chinese rod puppetry, seldom seen here in America, is an ancient art form revered throughout China. 
Dragon Art Studio is the one of the finest of Chinese rod puppetry group within the United States. Dragon Art Studio has performed in various theaters, schools, libraries and museums since 1996 and the response has been great.
Yuqin Wang is an outstanding artist and her stage career started early. By the time she was nineteen she had already sung and acted in scores of classical Beijing operas. Beginning in 1964, she directed her artistic energy toward puppetry. Through years of research and experimentation she brought new excitement to puppetry by weaving into it traditional opera techniques. She has played the lead role in more than thirty puppet shows, numerous movies and television programs, perfecting the portrayal of countless personalities and images. She has performed extensively overseas, receiving critical praise everywhere. Awards she has received include: Excellence in Performance Award (Association of Art and Culture, Beijing), Best Artistic Expression, and Children's Favorite Award (both at the 11th international Festival of Puppetry, Yugoslavia).
Zhengli Xu has performed in Chinese Rod Puppetry for thirty five years. Graduating from Beijing Puppetry Art school, with a major in show production and direction, he spent many years studying under old puppet masters in China. Like Mrs. Wang, he has traveled to many foreign countries to perform. With many years of experience in puppetmaking, directing, performing and stage designing, Xu has produced and performed a big puppet production at The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in September of 1999 and has achieved remarkable success in this art work. 
The puppetry show and puppetry workshops are $5.00 per person each, and the opera workshop is $10.00 per person.
The schedule is as follows:
Friday, Jan 25
Puppetry Shows: 9:30am, 1pm, 7pm
Puppetry Wksp: 10:45am, 8pm
Opera Wksp: 2pm, 8pm
Saturday, Jan 26
Puppetry Shows: 10am
Puppetry Wksp: 11:15am
Call Worldway's at 636-207-7405 to reserve your tickets. Space is limited for each performance/workshop.
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