Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The use in theatrical performances of marionettes, generally cut out of flat pieces of leather representing persons and scenery of theatrical plays, the shadows of which are thrown upon a screen. The shadow-play is found in China, the Malay Archipelago, and all over southern and western Asia. It is also known in Egypt, Turkey, and eastern Europe.
- noun A theatrical performance played with figures, the shadows of which are thrown upon a screen.
Etymologies
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Examples
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There's no need to say much about English National Opera's first staging of Handel's Radamisto, transparently directed by David Alden, precisely designed by Gideon Davey and lit with skilful shadow-play by Rick Fisher.
Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; Benjamin Grosvenor, LSO; Promised End; Radamisto Fiona Maddocks 2010
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Hong Kong-born artist Paul Chan is represented by his hypnotic, shadow-play film "4th Light" (2006), in which household objects drift eerily upward as if in an underwater debris field.
The Usual Suspects Lance Esplund 2010
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At night here, where there is no electricity, perfect darkness falls, and everything becomes a shadow-play of barely visible flickers.
Kidnapped, Raped, Married: The Extraordinary Rebellion of Ethiopia's Abducted Wives 2010
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At night here, where there is no electricity, perfect darkness falls, and everything becomes a shadow-play of barely visible flickers.
Johann Hari: Kidnapped, Raped, Married: The Extraordinary Rebellion of Ethiopia's Abducted Wives 2010
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Whole communities -- with all their social, political, cultural and family networks -- gutted by the heedless flight of capital to cheap labor (and slave labor) markets abroad, and by the dissolution of an embodied economic life into the shadow-play of high finance, the ghostly manipulation of numbers that produces nothing of value except gargantuan profits for a very few.
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Sufi Islam teaches instead that the realm of Allah is wholly separate and spiritual and nothing to do with the shadow-play of mere mortals.
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I wonder if she came out to Hollywood with a dream... and as I watched the young lady in question practicing bedroom gymnastics, suddenly I started to see her as a little girl, a real human being and not just a shadow-play on the screen.
The Green Door is Closed Steven Barnes 2009
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However, families and children of all ages will certainly enjoy two rooms on the ground floor: "the family forum," a kid-friendly art room, where children can shadow-play and decorate vases, thereby learning about the forms and variety of Greek vases, as well as "the Timescape room," a clever interactive exhibit that places the Getty Villa and its holdings of Greek, Roman and Etruscan art in historical context.
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Their shadow-play on the sloping walls as light passes through is beguiling.
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An Enlightened being sees the things of this world as shadow-play, is not attached to winning or losing, or the rightness and wrongness of things.
Archive 2007-02-01 Steven Barnes 2007
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