{"id":6133,"date":"2011-09-30T17:36:19","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T21:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=6133"},"modified":"2011-10-01T11:16:35","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T15:16:35","slug":"beijing-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/beijing-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"Beijing Opera (\u4eac\u5267)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"\"<\/a>Beijing opera or \u4eac\u5267 (<\/em>j\u012bng<\/a> j\u00f9<\/a>) is a traditional form of Chinese theater which combines music, vocals, miming, dance and even acrobatics into the performance. Beijing Opera arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century as traditional art form. Beijing Opera was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court (who were northern Manchus) and has come to be regarded as one of the (many) cultural treasures of China.<\/p>\n

If you go to Beijing or Northern China, I urge you to attend an Opera. It is like nothing you will ever see in western theaters. The sounds, the peacock-like costumes, the wails and the acrobatics. It’s really an all in one show!<\/p>\n

Peking opera features four main types of performers who are included into one large troupe, that eats, sleeps, lives and travels together. In a performance, costumes are very ornate and elaborate as performers are the only focal points on Peking opera’s characteristically sparse stage.<\/p>\n

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The performer use their gifts of speech, song, dance, and fleet of foot, to create symbolic and suggestive meanings for the audience, Most actions are implied abstractions,\u00a0 rather than realistic events happening on stage. Hence understanding Beijing opera is very difficult, even if you speak the language. It’s all about subtlety or some reference that few know about. Understanding the movements, costumes and speech is integral to understanding the storyline. Think of it as a Chinese Shakesperian play. I mean…you guys read the cliff notes right? Wherefore art thou means “Why are you? not “where are you”. So confusing…<\/p>\n

Thus physical action is a huge part of Beijing Opera, and the skill of performers is evaluated according to the beauty of their movements. Performers also adhere to a variety of stylistic conventions that help audiences navigate the plot of the production, otherwise they would be somewhat lost. The layers of meaning within each movement must be expressed in time with music, so you will see lots of pauses followed by jerking movements and then lingering pauses.<\/p>\n