The Implication of Traditional Chinese Culture in Peking Opera

Beijing Opera, as a national opera, is also a part of Chinese traditional culture, is an important form of traditional Chinese culture. It not only shows the characteristics of Chinese traditional culture, but also contains fine traditional virtues and spiritual thoughts. In order to spread the Chinese culture like Peking Opera from generation to generation and promote its international spread, this paper aims to explore the characteristics and implications of traditional Chinese culture embodied in Peking Opera.

An Age of Transition: Restaging Brecht’s Encounter with Beijing Opera

The scene is Moscow, 1935. A who’s who of the European avant-garde has gathered to see the work of their foremost Chinese colleague: the Beijing opera master Mei Lanfang. Among them is the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who sees in Mei’s performances the aesthetic effect he aims to develop in his own work: an effect he will soon call the ‘alienation effect.’ In 1936, Brecht pens his famous essay “On Chinese Acting,” in which he argues—approvingly—that Chinese theatre alienates the actor and audience from a play’s narrative by smashing the fourth wall and championing symbolism over realism. But did Brecht get it right? In this essay, I examine this remarkable episode in global theatre history. I argue that Brecht misunderstood Beijing opera’s theatre aesthetics, yet nonetheless meaningfully engaged with Chinese culture. A renewed encounter between Brechtian theatre and Beijing opera, I suggest, opens up intriguing possibilities in dramatic performance and theatre aesthetics.

Discussion on the Morphological Characteristics of Dance Performance of "Female Roles" in Gannan Tea-picking Opera

Gannan tea-picking opera is a folk opera popular in the south of Jiangxi, among which "Liangdan Yichou" is the most representative way of performance. "Female roles" can be divided into "Xiao Dan" and "Cai Dan". The relationship of "Liangdan Yichou" in Gannan tea-picking opera can be roughly summarized as "the clown who plays the role of a female is responsible for matching, Zhengchou resembles the female character type in Beijing opera and “Fanchou”makes troubles. Cai Dan gives a beat of person with bad behavior. As the female character type in Beijing opera like three-inch “golden lotuses” (woman's bound feet in feudal age) encounters the exaggerated caricature like clown who plays the role of a female, the distinctive female dance performance style of Gannan tea-picking opera was formed. This paper aims to sort out and summarize the formation of the "female roles" dance performance in Gannan tea-picking opera and its unique character characteristics to have a clearer understanding of the aesthetic norms and artistic value of the dance performance of "female roles" in Gannan tea-picking opera to improve the cultural content of Gannan tea-picking opera and promote the inheritance and development of Gannan tea-picking opera as a whole.

The Peking Opera or the Beijing Opera? An International Usage Frequency Analysis Based on the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GLoWbE)

The regional differences in the frequency of synonym use reflect the social cognition of various speech groups. Both Peking opera and Beijing opera refer to an identical Chinese cultural entity, but they differ considerably in international usage frequency in the GLoWbE where disparity can be manifested among 20 English-speaking communities. Beijing opera enjoys a slightly higher frequency than Peking opera in total, and several Asian and African countries even have no relevant data concerning this art. Besides, we explore some potential reasons for interpreting these phenomena.

China’s ‘CivilOlympic’ Performances and (Re)gained Global Visibility Fantasising about a New Brand China through Olympic Public Service Announcements

This article investigates how China fantasised about itself and the Beijing 2008 Olympics through the award-winning TV public service announcements (PSAs) of the Beijing Opera Series, with a focus on visibility. By drawing on theories of the spectacle, I perform a semiotic analysis of the most recurrent signs, organising them according to the main themes that emerge. The theatre stage – which represents the Olympic stage – is closely linked to China’s dream of owning the Games and its desire for global visibility. The performance includes the theatrical performance of the Beijing Opera and the performance of civilisation, which semiotically over-determines the Games. The protagonists include famous actors and roles of Beijing Opera (i.e. Dan, who is an anthropomorphic metaphor for China), as well as ordinary people, who are extraordinary for their high degree of civilisation. The spectators, especially through the intradiegetic presence of a Western male Other, validate the country’s performative success and confirm its achieved global visibility.

Simplification in subtitling filmic Beijing Opera

In recent years, opera translation and surtitling has become a field of growing popularity in translation studies. While current research often revolves around opera in the western countries or opera translation for the stage, this paper aims to explore the translation of Beijing Opera in films. The discussion will draw upon literature on opera translation and surtitles while examining Beijing Opera. With reference to Raise the Red Lantern (1991), directed by Zhang Yimou, an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, this paper will focus on the rendition of Beijing Opera and propose subtitles for an opera sequence in the film. The major finding is that it is possible to convey the general meaning of the lyrics of Beijing Opera through simplification, i.e. culturally-bound references could be simplified for better understanding. This is an addition to the existing research on translation from other languages into English and will have implications for future practices in this domain.