STORYTELLER

Description The shuochang (a type of storyteller representation, partly told and partly sung) actor pictured here is intent on reciting a story by accompanying himself with a small drum held under his left arm and striking it with a club placed in his right hand. The whole body seems to participate in the telling of the story with an exaggerated mimicry that distorts the face into grotesque features. The man is hunched, with a fat and disproportionate body: the limbs are too short compared to his elongated torso and large belly: he is perhaps a dwarf. Bare-chested with a pronounced flabby chest, he rests with his huge butt on a raised circular hoof. He only wears a pair of wide trousers that leave his navel exposed. On his head he wears a straight cap, rounded in the center and raised at the back.