Since 2019, Kaohsiung's local enterprise ROE and the Radiant Education Foundation have worked with the Kaohsiung Museum of History (hereinafter referred to as "KMOH”) and its Kaohsiung Museum of Shadow Puppet, which has long been committed to promoting Taiwan's shadow puppetry culture, in an attempt to pass on this traditional art to next generations. We have jointly launched the Light and Shadow - Shadow Puppetry Promotion Project, to support KMOH and the Kaohsiung Museum of Shadow Puppet to promote shadow puppetry at schools and to implement the Kaohsiung local creation and the holiday regular guided tours projects. Meanwhile, we have striven to popularize various types of theaters actively and to create a learning environment for our employees and their family members by holding workshops and incorporating shadow play into our Family Day; as such, our colleagues and their family members can have a better understanding of shadow play culture through the games. Since 2020, we have carried out a shadow puppet lighting fixture improvement project by means of the company’s expertise, and released the first-stage achievement of a new lighting fixture this year (2021).

Shadow puppetry is limited by the form of performance. In the past, shadow play could only be staged in dimly lit sites or at night, which made it unfavorable for promotion. Meanwhile, the forms of traditional lighting fixtures were limited and there were concerns about the safety, which affected the performance easily. ROE and KMOH have conducted research and development of lighting fixtures in terms of the safety, convenience, and performance effects. After a year of visits and multiple improvements, we have created a new lighting fixture for the current stage, featuring energy efficiency, diverse functions, and lightweight and easy to assemble, and anti-interference. We have significantly reduced the power consumption and reduced the surface temperature of the lighting fixture effectively to avoid public safety accidents. We have also equipped it with an intuitive light control device to allow users to switch between white light, yellow light, or colored light freely with the effect of fading or flickering. The lightweight feature and the simple assembly method have made it favorable for outdoor performances and teaching. Most importantly, the lighting fixture can avoid the interference of the ambient light to achieve a certain imaging effect in the indoor environment that is not completely dark while alleviating the impact of the ambient light.

Through the collaboration between the government and the private sector, we have taken into account tradition and innovation, cultural legacy, as well as hardware and technology improvement, to incorporate new elements into the traditional culture of the shadow puppetry in Kaohsiung. In the future, ROE and KMOH will assume the social responsibilities to light up shadow puppets behind the scenes and continue to develop new lighting fixtures for shadow puppetry with the aim of enabling the culture of shadow puppetry to be part of the daily life of the local community; meanwhile, we will work to incorporate contemporary elements to allow the public to be closer to the shadow puppetry culture.

(Photo by: Kaohsiung Museum of History)