Learn More About Shadow Puppetry Before Seeing Song of the North!

Song of the North has arrived at the New Victory! This show combines the manual art of shadow puppetry with projected animation to tell an epic story pulled from the pages of the Shahnameh—the thousand-year-old Persian Book of Kings.

An image of shadow puppetry with the text "Learn More About Shadow Puppetry Before Seeing Song of the North"

Read on to learn more about the history of shadow puppetry, what you’ll see in Song of the North and how you can create your own shadow puppetry performances!

A colorful still of a Persian warrior shadow puppet approaching a lit up palace against a blue night sky — Photo: Richard Termine

What is shadow puppetry?

Shadow puppets are created using shapes and a light source. By placing figures, cutouts or even body parts in front of a bright light, you can create characters and tell stories using silhouettes! These silhouettes are typically projected onto a translucent screen and presented to audiences like a movie.

Behind the scenes photo of Song of the North featuring multiple shadow puppets of different sizes — Photo courtesy of Fictionville Studio

Where did shadow puppetry originate?

Some of the earliest accounts of shadow puppetry come from China, but it also has a long history in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia, as well as Turkey and Greece, dating back to the second century BCE.

In China, legend tells that the art form began as entertainment for Emperor Han Wudi over 2,000 years ago, but it soon became a people’s art form because it was approachable, portable and required very few materials. Plus, working-class citizens could perform at night when they had finished work for the day. It became one of the country’s most widespread styles of folk art!

Early chinese shadow puppetry depicting two people sitting for a meal at a table. — Chinese shadow puppetry depicted colorful figures against a backlit cloth screen.
Photo: 악준동

What makes the shadow puppetry in Song of the North unique?

In Song of the North, you will see 483 puppets expertly maneuvered by nine performers in front of 208 animated backgrounds! Hamid Rahmanian, who co-wrote the show and designed the puppets with Saba Niknam, worked with over 20 people to create the puppets in the show. They estimate it took 16 hours to make each puppet.

“Every puppet that was designed for Song of the North was based on iconography or visuals from Iran. We created the design to be very geographically specific to the land,” Rahmanian said. “There are a lot of different sizes of puppets and many characters have multiple sizes. I had to calculate how each character appears and moves in each scene. There’s a lot of math involved to make the puppets look how they do!”

Two human-like shadow puppets talking — Photo: Richard Termine

Practice your puppetry skills with these New Victory Arts Break activities!

Siobhan Santini Pellot from New Victory Education

Inspired by Song of the North, grab a flashlight and some cardboard and create a shadow mask character with Siobhan!

New Victory Teaching Artist Sam Jay Gold

Play with light and colorful household objects to create a shadow environment with Sam Jay Gold. Fun fact: Sam is one of the performers in Song of the North!