Carving is one of traditional arts. It is widely used and often applied in furniture, Buddhism monument, temple decoration, etc. Except for some toy puppets that are made of plastics, main puppets are all carved from wood. The process includes chopping the wood, making the mode, carving the primitive shape, grinding, pestering cotton paper, coating the mud and flour, coating the paint, draw the face, polishing, wearing hair and decorations.
To carve a block of wood into a puppet | knives are needed |
Besides puppets, the traditional stages of hand puppetry in early times were carved from camphorwood. Foiled with gold, the magnificent stages are called decorated stages. As the puppets get larger later and the decorated stages were expensive to build and difficult to move around, stages become what they are today. Although there are still a few troupes that use decorated stages and perform in very traditional ways, most outdoor performances in temple fairs now mainly uses colorfully-painted theatrical shacks of billboards. Traditional decorated stages are rarely seen now.
Yunlin Hand Puppet Museum still stores traditional wood-made theatrical stages and delicately carved decorated stages. Carved stage in itself is a piece of art. | With the passing of time, there are not so many decorated stages as before. They are replaced by brightly-colored modern stages. |