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The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World

Online ISBN:
9789882207394
Print ISBN:
9789622099944
Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press
Book

The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World

Published:
1 May 2010
Online ISBN:
9789882207394
Print ISBN:
9789622099944
Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press

Abstract

Any traditional theatre has to engage the changing world to avoid becoming a living fossil. How has Beijing Opera — a highly stylized theatre with breath-taking acrobatics and martial arts, fabulous costumes and striking makeup — survived into the new millennium while coping with a century of great upheavals and competition from new entertainment forms? This book answers that question, looking at the evolution of singing and performance styles, make-up and costume, audience demands, as well as stage and street presentation modes amid tumultuous social and political changes. The author's study follows a number of major artists' careers in mainland China and Taiwan, drawing on primary print sources as well as personal interviews with performers and their cultural peers. One chapter focuses on the career of the author's own mother and how she adapted to changes in Communist ideology. In addition, the book explores how performers as social beings have responded to conflicts between tradition and modernity, and between convention and innovation. Through performers' negotiation and compromises, Beijing Opera has undergone constant re-examination of its inner artistic logic and adjusted to the demands of the external world.

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