Definition of shadow play
: a drama exhibited by throwing shadows of puppets or actors on a screen
— called also shadow show
Examples of shadow play in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web The shadow play of the concrete sunscreen of 3525 Turtle Creek.
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Mark Lamster, Dallas News, "100 reasons to love Dallas right now: A critic’s list of the places that make the city and its architecture special.," 15 May 2020 Through shadow play in the solo shots of the members, the video offers a visual representation of the track’s ruminative narrative and the Jungian shadow concept, which is a recurring metaphor on the album.
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Sara Delgado, Teen Vogue, "BTS Surprised Fans With New "Black Swan" Music Video," 4 Mar. 2020 The khachkar would have shimmered as light and shadow played on its lace-like surface, making the deep-carved stone appear as opulent as the woodwork and stucco of great palaces.
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Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books, "Between Two Empires," 17 Jan. 2019 The visual material is culled from comic strips, street demonstrations, Cuban movie posters and filmed be-ins; the technique encompasses collages, stick figure animations, shadow plays and kaleidoscopic special effects.
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New York Times, "In ‘The Color of Pomegranates,’ the Cinema of the Cryptic," 24 May 2018 Particularly lovely is the shadow play (by lighting designer Jacob Snodgrass) which turns her solo into a beautiful trio.
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Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, "Moving Company’s ‘Dance Shelter’ always defies expectations; sometimes, it works," 11 May 2018 Trump’s whole trade agenda, then, is a shadow play.
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David Dayen, The New Republic, "Trump’s Theater of Trade," 27 Mar. 2018 Projected light creates dynamic shadow play that turns the Marciano’s huge first-floor gallery into an abstract 3-D film.
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Anita Gates, New York Times, "From 12th Century B.C. to 2017, Art in Startling Variety," 7 Mar. 2018 Light and shadow plays over them, and both the tax collector and the cleric have one tiny fingertip blazingly struck by light — Donatus’s left thumb, and Eustatius’s left pinkie.
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Cate Mcquaid, BostonGlobe.com, "Did Leonardo da Vinci have a hand in a Worcester Art Museum painting?," 8 Mar. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'shadow play.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for shadow play
The first known use of shadow play was circa 1890
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