Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues

Author: Tan See Kam
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888208861
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
Part historical drama, part thriller, and part comedy, Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues (1986) invites--if not demands--examinations from multiple perspectives. Tan See Kam rises to the challenge in this study by first situating Tsui in a Sinophone context. The diasporic director explores different dimensions of "Chineseness" in the film by depicting competing versions of Chinese nationalism and presenting characters speaking two Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin. In the process he compels viewers to recognize the multiplicities of the Chinese identity and rethink what constitutes cultural Chineseness. The challenge to a single definition of "Chinese" is also embodied by the playful pastiches of diverse materials. In a series of intertextual readings, Tan reveals the full complexity of Peking Opera Blues by placing it at the center of a web of texts consisting of Tsui's earlier film Shanghai Blues (1984), Hong Kong's Mandarin Canto-pop songs, the "three-women" films in Chinese-language cinemas, and of course, traditional Peking opera, whose role-types, makeup, and dress code enrich the meaning of the film. In Tan's portrayal, Tsui Hark is a filmmaker who makes masterly use of postmodernist techniques to address postcolonial concerns. More than a quarter of a century after its release, Tan shows, Peking Opera Blues still reverberates in the present time.

Peking Opera

Author: Chengbei Xu
Publisher:
ISBN: 9787508537238
Category :
Languages : zh-CN
Pages : 130

Book Description

Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan

Author: Nancy Guy
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252029739
Category : Operas, Chinese
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan tells the peculiar story of an art caught in a sea of ideological ebbs and flows. Nancy Guy demonstrates the potential significance of the political environment for an art form's development, ranging from determining the smallest performative details (such as how a melody can or cannot be composed) to whether a tradition ultimately thrives or withers away.When Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and military retreated to Taiwan in 1949, they brought along numerous Peking opera performers. Expecting that this symbolically important art would strengthen regime legitimacy and authority, they generously supported Peking opera's perpetuation in exile. Valuing mainland Chinese culture above Taiwanese culture, the Nationalists generously supported Peking opera to the virtual exclusion of local performing traditions, despite their wider popularity. Later, as Taiwan turned toward democracy, the island's own "indigenous" products became more highly valued and Peking opera found itself on a tenuous footing. Finally, in 1995, all of its opera troupes and schools (formerly supported by the Ministry of Defense) were dismantled.Nancy Guy investigates the mechanisms through which Peking Opera was perpetuated, controlled, and ultimately disempowered, and explores the artistic and political consequences of the state's involvement as its primary patron. Her study provides a unique perspective on the interplay between ideology and power within Taiwan's dynamic society.Nancy Guy is an associate professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.

Beijing Opera Costumes

Author: Alexandra B Bonds
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351380451
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 632

Book Description
Beijing Opera Costumes: The Visual Communication of Character and Culture illuminates the links between theatrical attire and social customs and aesthetics of China, covering both the theory and practice of stage dress. Distinguishing attributes include an introduction to the performance style, the delineation of the costume conventions, an analysis of the costumes through their historical precedents and theatrical modifications, and the use of garment shape, color, and embroidery for symbolic effect. Practical information covers dressing the performers and a costume plot, the design and creation of the make-up and hairstyles, and pattern drafts of the major garments. Photographs from live performances, as well as details of embroidery, and close-up photographs of the headdresses thoroughly portray the stunning beauty of this incomparable performance style. Presenting the brilliant colors of the elaborately embroidered silk costumes together with the intricate makeup and glittering headdresses, this volume embodies the elegance of the Beijing opera.

Drama Kings

Author: Joshua Goldstein
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520247523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Describes the formation of the Peking opera in late Qing and its subsequent rise and re-creation as the epitome of the Chinese national culture in Republican era China. This book looks into the lives of some of the opera's key actors, and explores their methods for earning a living, and their status in an ever-changing society.

Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera

Author: David Rolston
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004463399
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 817

Book Description
What was the most influential mass medium in China before the internet reaching both literate and illiterate audiences? The answer may surprise you...it’s Jingju (Peking opera). This book traces the tradition’s increasing textualization and the changes in authorship, copyright, performance rights, and textual fixation that accompanied those changes.

Peking Opera

Author: Colin Mackerras
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 104

Book Description
Born in the grandeur of the Qing dynasty, Peking Opera is known the world over for its lively music, colourful costumes, and thrilling displays of acrobatic prowess. Although reflective of the many changes that have occurred in Chinese society, Peking Opera today retains the drama and action that have charmed generations of audiences. Peking Opera's success rests on a fine integration of performance, plotting, and music. This illustrated introduction traces the developments of the genre from its roots in Chinese folk and high-art dramas to its situation in the present day. It features explanations of the opera's common character types, short descriptions of selected pieces, and discussions of the common stage settings and music that support the performance art.

Peking Opera

Author: Chengbei Xu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521188210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 139

Book Description
Peking Opera provides a comprehensive illustrated introduction to the origins and development of this unique performance art.

Opera and the City

Author: Andrea Goldman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804782628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

Book Description
In late imperial China, opera transmitted ideas across the social hierarchy about the self, family, society, and politics. Beijing attracted a diverse array of opera genres and audiences and, by extension, served as a hub for the diffusion of cultural values. It is in this context that historian Andrea S. Goldman harnesses opera as a lens through which to examine urban cultural history. Her meticulous yet playful account takes up the multiplicity of opera types that proliferated at the time, exploring them as contested sites through which the Qing court and commercial playhouses negotiated influence and control over the social and moral order. Opera performance blurred lines between public and private life, and offered a stage on which to act out gender and class transgressions. This work illuminates how the state and various urban constituencies manipulated opera to their own ends, and sheds light on empire-wide transformations underway at the time.

Listening to Theatre

Author: Elizabeth Wichmann
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824812218
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
"[Wichmann's] writing has authority rarely encountered.... Not only a comprehensive study but [a] study of Beijing theater. A marvelous overview, a virtual encyclopedia." --Choice "Overall, this is a pathbreaking book in terms of contributing to our understanding of the important Chinese art form that is the Beijing opera. It is a model of production. Its wealth of detail does not prevent it from being eminently readable. The author has unparallelled mastery of knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of her subject. The book will certainly help not only to make Beijing opera better understood in the West but also to make it more widely performed and appreciated." --China Review International, Spring 1994