The glove puppet theatre is performed with puppets placed on the hands. The name in mainland China is similar or called "hand puppet theatre". The glove puppet theatre is similar to the French Guignol or the Italian Burattini .. It was said that more than three hundred years ago there was the student Liang Bing-lin who lived in the city of Quanzhou, but failed many times for the imperial exams. On his way to the magical Chiu-li mountains, the fairy lord appeared in Liang's dream and wrote in his hand: "Success lies in the palm of your hand." When later the results of the imperial exams were posted, Liang had again failed and he felt desperate. One day he saw a marionette theatre performance and was deeply touched by its beauty. He started to make puppets himself and used his hands to perform instead of strings. He also started to make plays to perform and forget his own misery. Unexpectedly everybody was really interested in his performance and he became popular and rich; that's why the fairy lord wrote: "Success lies in the palm of your hand." [The literal translation of glove puppet theatre is "in-the-palm-of-the-hand-theater." ]

 

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 Allusions to the Chinese term for glove puppet theatre: "cloth-bag-theater" (budaixi) Glove puppet theater performer is an itinerant profession, moving from one place to the other. The puppets were often placed in a bag during transport and that's also where the name came from. There is another explanation for the name is the fact that the bodies of the puppets are made like cloth bags. Another widely accepted explanation of the name comes from the bag that is suspended behind the traditional stage and in which the puppets are placed.

 

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 In the 19th century, during the Ching dynasty, glove puppet theatre came to Taiwan from the province of Fujian. Glove puppet theatre as a representative of the traditional performing arts thus found a new breeding ground on the island of Taiwan. Although the glove puppet theatre is often performed as a part of religious ceremony, it does have an important entertainment function. The puppeteer is hidden from side inside the puppet booth and brings the puppet to life with the movement of his fingers, palm and wrist, as well as with is voice. The incredible performance relies completely on the individual skills of the performer, who is accompanied by an orchestra of musicians who perform the traditional opera music. The libretto of the performance is a mere outline and the contents of the play is orally transmitted from generation to generation, with every performance the puppeteer must rely on his own skills to recreate the whole drama. If we look back on more than 100 years of puppet theatre history in Taiwan, we find that on the one hand the puppet theatre has found a place in the hearts of the audience, yet on the other hand find that sometimes it was also prohibited. There are different phases in the glove puppet theatre development:

Periods of struggle: Phases of struggle: In 1937, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945), all expressions of Chinese culture were banned on Taiwan. This included religious expression, but also the performance of puppet theatre
Periods of struggle: In 1937, there was also a movement intended to turn the Taiwanese population into Japanese. In the course of this process the glove puppet theatre performance had to be performed in Japanese, with Japanese puppets and music.
The 228 incident On February 28, 1947, an incident sparked of riots between Nationalist government from China and the Taiwanese. Glove puppet theatre as a form of local Taiwanese art was forbidden for a period of one year.
In 1953 it was forbidden to perform theatre in the streets (which is a Taiwanese tradition) and puppet theatre was forced to perform only in theatres.

 

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1. A Chinese opera performance is often presented as a sacrifice to the deities and to obtain the blessing of these deities. The glove puppet theatre is a branch of the Chinese opera tradition and is an inherent element of the open-air temple performance as part of local religious celebrations.

2. It is a Chinese custom that when there is a wedding, a birth or a birthday etc., the people will thank the deities for protecting them, they also offer theatre to the deities as a way of expressing their gratitude.

3. When a performance is performed for the deities, the actual performance of a play is preceded by a so-called "performance for the Gods" (ban xian), in which deities are blessed and invited to the performances, but also the audience and the person or family who hired the company to perform. This is a holy performance that underlines the deep links between glove puppet theatre and religion.