Editing Shadow play (section)

==History==
Shadow play probably developed from "par" shows with narrative scenes painted on a large cloth and the story further related through song. As the shows were mostly performed at night the par was illuminated with an oil lamp or candles. Shadow puppet theatre likely originated in Central Asia-China or in India in the 1st millennium BCE.<ref name=chen25>Fan Pen Chen (2003), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1179080 Shadow Theaters of the World], Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 62, No. 1 (2003), pp. 25-64</ref><ref name=orr69>{{cite journal | last=Orr | first=Inge C. | title=Puppet Theatre in Asia | journal=Asian Folklore Studies | publisher=Nanzan University | volume=10 | issue=1 | year=1974 | doi=10.2307/1177504 | pages=69–84| jstor=1177504 }}</ref> By at least around 200 BCE, the figures on cloth seem to have been replaced with puppetry in Indian ''[[tholu bommalata]]'' shows. These are performed behind a thin screen with flat, jointed puppets made of colorfully painted transparent leather. The puppets are held close to the screen and lit from behind, while hands and arms are manipulated with attached canes and lower legs swinging freely from the knee.<ref name=Rawling1999>{{cite web|url=http://pages.citenet.net/users/ctmw2400/chapter2.html|title=Observations on the historical development of puppetry|last=Rawlings|first=Keith|year=1999}}</ref>

The evidence of shadow puppet theatre is found in both old Chinese and Indian texts. The most significant historical centers of shadow play theatre have been China, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent.<ref name=orr69/><ref name=bosnes302/><ref>{{cite book|author=Martin Banham|title=The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ubr35UeE-UQC |year=1996| publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-44654-9|pages=434, 526–531, 906, 1114–1115}}</ref>

According to Martin Banham, there is little mention of indigenous theatrical activity in the Middle East between the 3rd century CE and the 13th century, including the centuries that followed the Islamic conquest of the region.<ref name="Banham1996p241">{{cite book|author=Martin Banham|title=The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ubr35UeE-UQC&pg=PA241|year=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-44654-9|pages=241–242}}</ref> The shadow puppet play, states Banham, probably came into vogue in the Middle East after the Mongol invasions and thereafter it incorporated local innovations by the 16th century. Little mention of shadow play is found in Islamic literature of Iran, but much is found in Turkish and 19th-century Ottoman Empire-influenced territories.<ref name="Banham1996p241"/>

While shadow play theatre is an Asian invention, hand puppets have a long history in Europe.<ref name="Banham1996p887">{{cite book|author=Martin Banham|title=The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ubr35UeE-UQC |year=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-44654-9|pages=887–888}}</ref> As European merchant ships sailed in the search of sea routes to India and China, they helped diffuse popular entertainment arts and cultural practices into Europe. Shadow theatre became popular in France, Italy, Britain and Germany by the 17th century.<ref name=kuhn371/><ref name=boehn352/> In France, shadow play was advertised as ''ombres chinoises'', while elsewhere they were called "magic lantern".<ref name=kuhn371>{{cite book|author1=Annette Kuhn|author2=Guy Westwell|title=A Dictionary of Film Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxcVXI-AwkUC&pg=PA371 |year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-958726-1|page=371}}</ref> [[Goethe]] helped build a shadow play theatre in Tiefurt in 1781.<ref name=boehn352>{{cite book|author=Max von Boehn|title=A Photographic Guide to the History of the Shadow Puppet Theatre in the West|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WH58CgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher= Read|isbn= 978-1-4474-8098-3|pages= 352–355}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Evelyn K. Moore|author2=Patricia Anne Simpson|title=The Enlightened Eye: Goethe and Visual Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t8NziuogPvcC&pg=PA255 |year=2007|publisher=Rodopi|isbn=978-90-420-2124-2|pages=255–256}}</ref>

===Prelude to cinematography===
According to Stephen Herbert, the popular shadow theatre evolved nonlinearly into projected slides and ultimately into [[cinematography]]. The common principle in these innovations were the creative use of light, images and a projection screen.<ref>{{cite book|author=Stephen Herbert|title=A History of Pre-cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pwg_dav1IpcC|year=2000|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-21148-2|pages=iv–ix, Introduction chapter}}</ref> According to Olive Cook, there are many parallels in the development of shadow play and modern cinema, such as their use of music, voice, attempts to introduce colors and mass popularity.<ref>Olive Cook (1963), [https://archive.org/details/movementintwodim00cook Movement in Two Dimensions], Hutchinson, pages 47-58</ref>