The tiger devours the affable monk, students clash in a dramatic spear and sword fight, plates twirl without ever smashing, couples fall in and out of love… Chinese puppets perform a series of breath-taking scenes and plunge us into a world where the dazzling dexterity of the puppeteer blends with lightness and reverie.
Yeung Faï, the last member of a puppeteer dynasty (5 generations and several centuries of practice), is unrelenting in the pursuit of his art and has become a celebrated and unchallenged master of Chinese glove puppets, a virtuoso able to express most accurately the state of mind, temper and feelings of the characters he handles.
In his luggage scattered on a makeshift stage, he carries along a legacy of puppets and an expertise that is both obsolete and unconventional. If the man seems lost in our contemporary world, the maestro is revealed when the suitcases open and spread their contents of improbable stories to the modern eye.
An all-around and multifaceted performance, these “puppet scenes” are designed for all audiences.
The itinerant puppeteer offers what history has bequeathed him: a striking lesson of humour and humanity.

Laure Adler, a conversation with Yeung Faï 

Representing the fifth generation of a family of puppeteers, he was trained to puppetry by his father and has become a master of this art form. The passionate artist produces performances worldwide, filled with poetry, humour and beauty, adding sometimes a political slant about China, his native country, but always capturing young as well as adult audiences.
Yeung Faï in Teahouse.
In Yeung Faï’s family, everyone practices the art of puppetry and passes it down to the next generation.  «I’m number 5, he explains. I’ve never really had a choice. It was decided I’d be the heir. I had a certain artistic sense». As a young child, he really enjoyed shows. «Even if they ended very late, I stayed up». At the age of six, he designed his first puppet, which he sculpted in wood. When he was 14, he started self-producing his shows. «It was a full-time job for me».
From this childhood, he has also kept painful memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. «It was very difficult at the time. We almost died of hunger. Sometimes I think about this and wonder how I survived. Thinking about it makes us cry». Yeung Faï explains that the Cultural Revolution was tragic for mankind and its consequences are still perceptible nowadays: «It wiped out culture. Society had been dehumanized. In China, people are still afraid to talk about it. But I will never forget. I suffered too much and still suffer today». His father was arrested and his family driven out of their home. They found shelter in a shack, and were forced to scavenge in the streets. «I was only 7 years-old». Some people helped him survive. «After the Cultural Revolution, I decided to leave China».
Today, he’s happy. Happy to live on his art. What matters to Yeung Faï is to introduce very different people to puppetry, rather than people from a specific line of descent only. «Culture belongs to the whole of mankind, not to a single person. It should therefore never be lost. I try to teach people from all backgrounds, from all countries». He adds: «The Chinese government is afraid of any creative art form, afraid of creation, of art. Because as soon as you have freedom, you start thinking, having opinions, and this is a consistent trend in all art forms».
He finds inspiration in other art forms, but he’s always seeking new ideas:
«Traditionally, the arts influence one another, particularly puppetry. Originally, it was born in teahouses and was a way to tell stories; then music was added, and then it grew into an art form in its own right…».

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Yeung Faï, biography