Earticle

초록

영어

This paper examines the phenomenon of visible puppeteers in Chinese puppetry and asks how the shift from “hidden” manipulation to on-stage “presence” reorganizes spectatorship and reconfigures stage power relations (and their attendant power metaphors). Focusing on string and rod puppetry, it argues that making puppeteers visible does not necessarily function as a Brechtian exposure that interrupts illusion; instead, visibility often aestheticizes control by turning manipulation itself into an object of pleasure and evaluation. For this reason, visible manipulation on stage is no longer merely a technical arrangement of performance, but becomes an important mechanism in the production of meaning. The paper identifies two dominant modes: (1) a virtuosity-centered mode that highlights technical mastery and spectacular skills, and (2) a role-integrated mode in which puppeteers partially “enter” the character through a hybrid puppet?human body. Although these modes emphasize different viewing logics, both construct an individualized figure of authority?a recognizable, embodied controller?thereby concentrating agency and responsibility in a single person and normalizing domination as performative excellence. A close reading of the Quanzhou string puppet mini-play Destiny Puppet shows how this structure can be pushed to an extreme and turned reflexive: the awakened puppet confronts the puppeteer and demands to be released, only to “die” once the strings are cut. The play simultaneously maximizes and interrogates the control metaphor, staging the paradox that dependence on control enables “life,” while liberation entails destruction. Therefore, puppeteer visibility is not only a formal strategy but also continually invites audiences, at the level of meaning, to reflect on the tensions and costs embedded in the relation between “control?dependence?liberation.”

저자

• 왕일단

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  동북아 문화연구 [Journal of North-east Asian Cultures]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1598-3692

• 수록기간

  2001~2026

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 910 DDC 950