“Chinese Theater in the Present Age” Workshop - May 30, 2024
- gyacdofficial
- May 31, 2024
- 31 min read
Updated: Nov 4, 2024
Event Introduction
Modern Chinese theater is a product of the encounters and dialogues among diverse artistic forms from different eras and cultures. The origins of Chinese theatre trace back over a thousand years to the bustling markets of the Song and Yuan dynasties. From the early nanxi Southern Dramas to the chuanqi long plays of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and from the zaju dramas of the Yuan capital to the various regional operatic of our current world, Chinese opera embodies an enduring cultural legacy within Chinese literature and has become a timeless artistic tradition on stage.
In the present age, where economic and cultural exchanges are increasingly global and theatrical arts flourish worldwide, how can Chinese opera make itself anew while preserving its traditional aesthetics to tell unique modern stories? When the “theater” as we know it becomes a phenomenon that transcends cultural, national, and even linguistic boundaries, how will Chinese theatre negotiate with and avail itself of its cultural heritage?
The "Chinese Theater in the Present Age" workshop, organized by the Global Youth Alliance for Chinese Drama (GYACD), invites experts, scholars, practitioners, teachers, and student representatives from around the world to explore the conventions and innovations, the developments and heritages, and the present and future of Chinese theatre. The panelists’ talks will be organized chronologically, exploring the various forms of Chinese theatrical traditions from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the present day.
Professor Chenlin Wei will begin by introducing the aesthetic characteristics of classical Xiqu (Chinese Opera). Yiwen Wu will then examine the cultural exchanges on Chinese and Euro-American stages in the 20th century. Dr. Yunqi Zhang, drawing on her extensive experience as a practitioner of Chinese opera, will discuss the heritage and reformation of Kunqu opera since 1949. Following this, Senior Teacher Cunfu Lin will explore the importance of theatre in liberal arts education for high school students. GYACD’s high school student representative Annie Wu will serve as the respondent and engage in further discussions with our four panelists from a high school student’s perspective.
Panelist Bios and Talk Titles:
Professor Chenlin Wei (Xi'an Jiaotong University, Associate Professor): “The Aesthetics of Classical Xiqu (Chinese Opera)” [In Chinese]
Associate Professor at the School of Humanities, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Assistant Director of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature; Secretary of the “A Community For The Chinese Nation” Base of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. She earned her bachelor's degree from the School of Humanities at Xiamen University, her master's degree from the School of Humanities at Renmin University of China, and her Ph.D. from the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. She serves as a correspondent reviewer for Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, the only humanities and social sciences sub-journal under Nature, and is a guest editor for the Journal of Chinese Studies at the University of Hong Kong.
Yiwen Wu (University of Chicago, PhD Student): “All the World’s a Stage: The Power of Transcultural Theater” [In English]
Doctoral student at the University of Chicago focusing on East Asian premodern theater and cross-cultural performance. She is also a professional theater practitioner. She has worked as a dramaturg at seven different theaters in the Chicago area. Her puppet plays have been performed at local theaters and the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival.
Dr. Yunqi Zhang (Peking University, PhD): “What is Tradition: The Heritage and Reformation of Kunqu Repertoire Since 1949” [In Chinese]
Ph.D. in Philosophy from Peking University and a Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera practitioner. From a young age, she studied Kunqu Opera under the renowned Shi Hongmei of the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre, focusing on “Guimen Dan” (young female roles), and Peking Opera, focusing on “Huashan” (virtuosic female roles). She also studied under various teachers from the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theatre and Beijing Kunqu Research Institute. She won the gold medal in the 3rd CCTV National Peking Opera Amateur Competition and the gold medal in the 12th National Chinese Opera Students Competition. She played the lead role in the Peking University production of The Peony Pavilion, which toured nationwide. Since 2017, she has been teaching Peking and Kunqu Opera performance courses at the Peking University Peking and Kunqu Opera Society.
Cunfu Lin (Hangzhou Foreign Languages School, Senior Teacher): “Drama in Education: Applications and Reflections for Humanities Pedagogy in Secondary Education” [In Chinese]
Degree in Master of Arts. Senior Chinese Language and Drama Teacher at Hangzhou Foreign Languages School, Deputy Director of the Education Research and Development Department, and a member of the Zhejiang Theater Association. In 2022, he was recognized as an Advanced Individual in Educational Research in Zhejiang Province. He is the advisor for the Feiyang Drama Club at Hangzhou Foreign Languages School. Since 2011, he has offered various drama elective courses and received multiple honors such as the school's Outstanding Elective Course and Provincial Excellent Course awards. The student works that he supervised have won several awards in drama competitions at the provincial and city levels, including the Provincial Arts Festival for primary and secondary schools. He has led several province-level research projects and published over ten papers in core journals. From 2014 to 2023, he organized more than ten training sessions on drama education for primary and secondary school teachers in Zhejiang Province.
Other Participants
Student Representatives:
Yue Annie Wu (GYACD High School Student Representative), Nanjing Vista School
Senior student at Nanjing Vista School and a lifelong enthusiast of Kunqu Opera and drama. She has won the Special Prize in Foreign Language Drama in Jiangsu Province. She is one of the high school student founders of GYACD, and the organizer of the Drama in Schools events of the alliance.
Nico Yu (GYACD Undergraduate Representative & U.S. Coordinator), New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Born and raised in Shenzhen, China, costume and character designer, Nico Yu, pushes herself into creating both visually stunning and rich-in-storytelling designs that bring characters to life. Nico has recently received her degrees in the Production and Design studio, NYU Tisch School of Arts. With a deep belief in the importance of costume design in world-building, Nico's design aims to capture the complex emotions and relationships of the characters. Recent credits include Moonshine Requiem (artistic director/costume designer); Waning Crescent (costume designer); Bonefruit (costume designer); and The Insanity (costume designer).
Moderator and Event Co-Sponsor:
Aaron Huang (Moderator), University of Chicago
Aaron recently received his Bachelor of Arts honors degree in Music and East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, graduating summa cum laude. He is one of the founders of the University of Chicago Chinese Opera Society.
University of Chicago Chinese Opera Society (Co-Sponsor)
University of Chicago Chinese Opera Society is the only student-led Chinese opera organization in the Great Chicago area. In 2023, it received official recognition as a Recognized Student Organization (RSO) by the University of Chicago. Aiming to promote China's rich traditional culture in the Midwest, the University of Chicago Chinese Opera Society is dedicated to studying and performing Peking Opera, Kunqu, and other regional styles of Chinese opera. We have invited renowned Chinese opera practitioners and scholars from both China and abroad to visit the University of Chicago and have successfully organized a series of performances, lectures, and workshops. Through our efforts, we hope to serve as a bridge fostering cultural exchange between China and the United States while encouraging interactions between the academic and artistic communities.
Audio Recording & Slides: The Aesthetics of Classical Xiqu (Chinese Opera) by Professor Chenlin Wei [In Chinese, with English Translation]
English Translation:
Hello everyone! I am Wei Chenlin, and I am delighted to see the launch of the "Global Youth Sinophone Theater Creative Initiative" and to witness so many drama enthusiasts, especially young students, engaging with, appreciating, and even researching and creating Chinese drama.
I believe this is a cause for celebration. In this context, the "Chinese Stage in the Present Age" workshop is clearly a significant event, both for the heritage of classical Chinese drama and for the future creation and development of Chinese theater.
Additionally, I want to express my gratitude to the Global Youth Alliance for Chinese Drama and the University of Chicago Chinese Opera Society, particularly Aaron Huang, for inviting me to share my understanding and views on the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese classical drama.
I am very pleased to be able to share this with young students. Today, my topic is "The Aesthetic Characteristics of Classical Xiqu (Chinese Opera)."
I would like to start by asking everyone to think about the words that come to mind when ancient critics evaluated the writing styles of playwrights.
In the "Formulary for Correct Sounds of Great Harmony," Zhu Quan uses "The Roc Soars into the Sky" to describe Bai Pu's style and "The Divine Turtle Stirs the Waves" to describe Qiao Ji's style, while "A Beauty Among Flowers" is used to describe Wang Shifu's style.
In "New Critiques of Chuanqi plays," Gao Yi praises Fan Wenruo's style as "the Lingering Fragrance of Exquisite Flowers and Jade Plants ," and Feng Menglong's style as "Lotus Reflected in Water, Graceful and Leisurely." He compares Shen Jing's style to "Crowning Jade Adorned with Gems, Polite and Courteous," and Shan Ben's style to "A Newly Adorned Girl from the land of Yue, Charming and Fragrant."
Others use different roles and appearances to metaphorically describe various styles. For instance, Wang Jide in his "Rules of Song" writes: "When comparing chuanqi plays to character types, 'The Western Chamber' is like a leading lady, with impeccable looks and voice; 'The Tale of Pipa' is like a leading man, sometimes in grand attire, sometimes in tattered clothes, both deeply moving; 'The Pavilion for Praying to the Moon' is like a young comic role, occasionally humorous, making people laugh out loud; 'The Return of the Soul' is like a newly debuted young lady role, enchanting and charming, but with occasional errors; 'The Tale of the Hairpin' and 'The Broken Kiln' are like characters with a painted face, not bound by appearance, yet indispensable; Wujiang's various plays are like old teachers on stage, precise and flawless, but not eliciting applause; 'Washing Gauze' and 'The Red Whisk' are like old women and supporting men, not demanding much from the audience; the rest of the inferior plays are like miscellaneous roles, only fit for holding cups and flags."
Chen Jiru compares dramatic styles to paintings: "The Romance of the Western Chamber is a colored peony, The Tale of Pipa is a plum blossom drawn with ink; The Romance of the Western Chamber is a gorgeously made-up beauty, The Tale of Pipa is a white-clad Bodhisattva."
We see that different critics and playwrights used various metaphors to evaluate classical drama. This raises the question: what are the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese classical drama?
Chinese classical drama has undergone a long and unique developmental process, evolving gradually under the long-term influence of its national history and culture. Throughout its development, it has formed its distinct aesthetic characteristics, particularly demonstrating great wisdom and rich imagination in resolving the contradictions of representing life within the spatial and temporal constraints of the stage. This is why Chinese classical drama remains enduringly vibrant and stands uniquely among the world’s theatrical traditions. Today, I will analyze a few fundamental aesthetic characteristics to help you better understand Chinese classical drama.
The first fundamental aesthetic characteristic of Chinese drama is the integration of singing, dancing, and acting. "Xiqu is the performance of stories through singing and dancing," as defined by Wang Guowei in "A History of Song and Yuan Xiqu." This means using singing and dancing to tell a story, integrating singing, dancing, and acting into a single art form.
This is why early forms like animal dances, shamanistic rituals, court dances from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and even comic performances and acrobatics, can only be considered precursors to Xiqu, not fully developed forms. Xiqu, requiring the fusion of singing, dancing, and acting to tell stories, differs from European opera, which relies mainly on singing, dance drama, which relies on dancing, and spoken drama, which relies on dialogue and action. It is an art form that evolved through a long, gradual process.
The second aesthetic characteristic of Chinese drama is the use of illusory techniques to transcend the limitations of stage time and space. Ming Dynasty drama theorist Wang Jide said in "the Rules of Songs": "The essence of drama lies in reality, but its application lies in illusion. It is easy to depict reality realistically, but it is difficult to create reality through illusion." This means that while Xiqu aims to realistically portray actions and scenes, it often employs illusory techniques in performance.
Classical Xiqu primarily uses illusory methods to address the contradiction between "reenactment" and the limitations of stage time and space. Illusion involves omitting or abstracting elements that are difficult or impossible to present on stage and using the actor’s mimetic actions to create the illusion that these elements exist. Therefore, we say "the scenery moves with the actors," "time follows the singer's rhythm," and "actors replace props."
Illusion relies on stylized performance, which is not a simple and mechanical mimicry of life but a refined, exaggerated, and aestheticized representation, which becomes relatively fixed and standardized over time. This "expressionist" and "aestheticized" form of representation not only overcomes the spatial and temporal limitations of the stage but also aligns with Chinese audiences' aesthetic expectations of stage imagery.
This approach allows the stage, originally constrained by time and space, to become more liberated and capable of depicting a rich and expansive panorama of life. The "illusory" aesthetic characteristic of Chinese classical Xiqu is closely related to the influence of Song Dynasty "huaben" (storyteller's scripts) and "zhugongdiao" (a form of ballad singing) literature.
Moreover, the "illusory" aesthetic characteristic is intrinsically linked to the traditional Chinese cultural aesthetic concept of "using the illusory to depict the real.” In Chinese poetry, meaning beyond the words is emphasized; in music, the notes not played by the strings are valued; in painting, the pursuit is beyond the image and rather focuses on conveying the spirit rather than the form. Similarly, in Xiqu, the goal is to perform reality through illusory means.
For instance, whipping indicates the horse is running, rowing suggests the boat is moving, raising a hand opens a door, and lifting a leg signifies entering a room. This allows for the hyperbolical and illusory nature of operatic stylization to be effectively showcased.
The third aesthetic characteristic of Chinese opera is the performative system of singing, speaking, acting, and fighting. These four elements merge into one complete performative system. Singing (唱) in opera encompasses both narrative and lyrical functions.
Speaking (念) refers to the recitation done by characters when they enter or exit the stage. This includes monologues, dialogues, interjections, asides, and simultaneous dialogue.
Acting (做) involves the various actions performed by characters in the play. The "acting" on stage primarily uses stylized movements to express the characters' personalities and their thoughts and emotions as the plot develops.
Fighting (打) in opera actually refers to the dance-like physical movements in the performance. Therefore, "singing, speaking, acting, and fighting" can also be referred to as "singing, speaking, acting, and dancing," which might be a more accurate description.
The fourth aesthetic characteristic of Xiqu is the specialized division of roles, known as "hangdang" (行当). Chinese opera employs a systematic and comprehensive approach to role division, encapsulating the vast diversity of characters in a limited number of categories: Sheng (young male roles), Dan (female roles), Jing (roles with painted faces), Mo (old male roles), and Chou (comic roles).
Each category has developed a full repertoire of performance techniques that allow for the portrayal of characters with rich and diverse personalities. The normativity and expressiveness of stylization create varying distances between the actions and real life, with degrees of complexity and simplicity, making the performance versatile and freely transformative.
This concludes my presentation for today. Thank you, everyone, and Thank you, Aaron.
Audio Recording: All the World’s a Stage: The Power of Transcultural Theater by Yiwen Wu [In English]
English Transcript:
When Aaron first invited me to give a talk at this event, he described this initiative as a place for students and a stomping ground for theatrical experiments. The initiative focuses especially on Sinophone theater, on making Chinese-speaking theater for the world. For my talk today, I would like to share with you two stories of Chinese-speaking theater going into the world. I hope to use these two stories to think with you about the power and challenge of cultural exchange in theater.
I learnt the first story from my theater professor in college. In 1983, American playwright Arthur Miller traveled to China, and directed a production of his Death of a Salesman at the People’s Art Theatre in Beijing. On the opening night, Miller sat quietly in the back row of the theater, nervously watching the audience members’ reaction from the back, anxious to find out about their reactions to this play about the American dream. He saw the audience members, Americans and Chinese, laughing at the same jokes and crying the same tears. Long after the curtain closed, a Chinese couple stayed long in their seats. One said to another: “You know what? It is a story about us.” Both looked into each other’s eyes, with surprises.
I remembered hearing this story in my first theater class at the University of Virginia, and finding so much strength in this moment of cross-cultural resonance. For someone who was studying abroad far away from home for the first time, I was too often reminded that I was in a foreign place––by the differences in food, by my lack of language skills, and sometimes even by that little aroma of unknown herbs in the air. I knew. I was in a foreign place. But there seemed to be a possibility of seeing ourselves in something that appears absolutely foreign to us, as is demonstrated in the story. I was then pushed to further lean into the unknown, leaving behind my comfort zone and marching into this uncharted territory.
In fact, when I came to the States in 2013, I was ready to throw myself into the studies of western drama: Arthur Miller, Shakespeare, Caryl Churchill, and Samuel Beckett. I was determined to become an expert in the realm of western classics, what I deeply believed then, the basics of a humanities education.
It was not until my third year in college that I started to question my own prejudice in this choice of focus. It was in my “Modern American Drama” class that I learnt about Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater–one of, if not the most significant style of theater in modern history. When I looked closely into his writings, I noticed how his concept of epic theater was rooted in his employment of alienation effect, which did not appear until he witnessed Mei Lanfang’s demonstration of traditional Chinese theater arts in Moscow in the spring of 1935. The idea that underneath the bare bones of modern theater lies something Chinese was quite shocking to me then. To be honest, prior to that moment, I had always thought of the west as a separate world from the east. After all, I came all the way to the States to learn something new and different. What’s even worse was that in my antithetical way of thinking, the west always represented what’s modern and advanced whereas the east represented what’s past and not modern. Even though I grew up watching local opera performances and absorbing local cultures, deep down, I had always treated them as traditions, and therefore always stuck in the past tense, bearing the risk of being backwards. To be sure, my narrowed way of thinking was rooted in a long history of orientalism and colonialism. Even today, stereotypical representations of East Asia as a left-over culture that never brings itself into the modern period still persist in modern media. In fact, many times, the biases, like the one that I had, are often internalized by ourselves. For example, prior to Mei Lanfang’s tour in Europe and America, he was most heavily criticized by May-fourth intellectuals, including Lu Xun and Hu Shi, as hollow, unnecessary, and absolutely dated. Interestingly, it was after Mei’s tour was warmly received by the world when the May-fourth intellectuals started to change their attitudes toward Chinese opera––another alarming example where we remain oblivious to the strength of our own culture unless it is recognized by the rest of the world.
My discovery of Brecht and Mei Lanfang completely changed my trajectory in artistic practice and academic research. It was a time where I was forced to confront my biases toward my own culture, and inspired to treat East Asian theater as a subject as serious as, if not more than, the western classics.
In the following years, I reveled in a much more diverse way of learning and practice. In the summer of 2018, I joined an international group of artists in training with the New York SITI Company, exploring new ways of storytelling that combine American director Anne Bogart’s expressionistic theatrical visions with Japanese artist Suzuki Tadashi’s original actors’ training techniques. I read August Wilson’s “The Ground on Which I Stand” alongside theoretical writings on Chinese opera. For Wilson, the ground he stands on runs into the rich culture and history of Black America. For me, my ground is not only rooted in China, but deeply connected to those corners in times and places that appear to be so far away from me. I continued to find joy in these moments of resonating with the seemingly unfamiliar voices, uncovering new connections between the past and present, and forming unimaginable bridges between here and there.
I believed that theater could offer a place for different people to resonate with the stories of others, crying their eyeballs out for others’ sorrow, laughing on the floor for others’ happiness. The empathetic experience could bring us closely together, therefore erasing our tendency to discriminate and otherize.
It was with this dedication for transcultural theater and this curiosity for East Asia that I entered the PhD program at the University of Chicago. To my surprise, once I attained a higher level of understanding of different cultures, I started to also see the frictions that are embedded in these transcultural historical moments.
When Arthur Miller directed the People’s Art Theatre in Beijing, he got into a serious fight with the local artists, about their usage of heavy make-up when portraying foreign characters. In the end, Miller won the fight, and the show was so successful that it completely changed the once-common practice of foreign-looking make-up in Chinese theater. The cause of this fight, as many scholars had already pointed out, was actually rooted in their lack of knowledge in each other’s practice. For Miller, the make-up was off-putting because it reminded him of the problematic blackface in minstrelsy, whereas heavy make-up had always been a common theater practice on Chinese stages.
Brecht’s encounter with Chinese theater was also not all roses. Even though Brecht had published various essays on Chinese theater, and it had become a consensus among scholars that Chinese theater was one of the major inspirations for him–especially his widely-known concept of “alienation effect”–Brecht himself had always denied Chinese influence. In recent years, scholars have also noticed how Brecht misunderstood Chinese theater in various ways. Most alarmingly, the reason why he came up with the idea of “alienation effect” was partially because, for someone who never had any experience of Chinese theater before, the performance appeared strange and surprising to him. Rather than acknowledging that he lacked the knowledge of Chinese theater, Brecht mistakenly concluded that traditional Chinese theater aimed at achieving an alienation effect. To be sure, as I shared with you earlier, the two incidents, despite these misunderstandings and tensions, were two powerful cross-cultural encounters that ended up building bridges for future exchanges. At the same time, I want to share with you different perspectives of the same story, walking you through my own journey of discovering and reconsidering the power of transcultural theater.
We live in a world where we are, more than ever, connected to each other via the global media and transportation network. At the same time, we also live in a time where the world is increasingly segregated by opposing viewpoints, by warfare, and by a global pandemic. Perhaps now, more than ever, we are confronted with the risk of conflicts and miscommunications in our encounter with the world, and now, more than ever, the world needs an open transcultural space where we listen and share with each other.
So, my friends, all the world’s your stage. Don’t be afraid, and I hope that my speech can give you some courage to speak, make, act, even when you run into frictions and gaps, that you would just continue to speak, make, act, more and more.
Audio Recording & Slides: What is Tradition: The Heritage and Reformation of Kunqu Repertoire Since 1949 by Dr. Yunqi Zhang [In Chinese, with English Translation]
English Translation:
Traditional Chinese operas like Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera are often seen as more conservative than forms of modern performance art such as film and theater. They are more valued for the cultural heritage they represent rather than their ability to reflect contemporary issues or entertain audiences. However, the general public, who do not watch traditional operas, often misunderstand this so-called “conservatism.” Critics believe that Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera repeatedly perform centuries-old stories, while certain fans think they can see Chinese opera performances exactly as they were hundreds of years ago. In reality, even the most conservative operatic forms like Kunqu constantly stage newly composed plays that reflect contemporary times. Even traditional repertoires undergo continuous adaptation and transformation, making them significantly different from how they were fifty or eighty years ago.
This talk aims to briefly outline the evolution of Kunqu Opera over the past seventy years by introducing newly written, staged, and produced Chinese operas since 1949. People with a basic understanding of traditional Chinese opera typically encounter the classifications of "traditional plays" and "new plays," but these distinctions are often overly simplistic. For Kunqu, plays like The Peony Pavilion are considered traditional, while newly composed plays such as The Seizing of Luding Bridge or Tale of the Bloody Hand are seen as contemporary works created after the founding of the People's Republic. However, even The Peony Pavilion contains many elements not from centuries-old traditions. Rather, they are adaptations by actors from the twentieth century or even the 1980s and 1990s. In other words, "traditional plays" are not entirely traditional.
I will now examine the heritage and reformation of Kunqu Opera since 1949 from the vantage points of both "new plays" and "traditional plays." The “new plays” can be broadly categorized into several types. The first type involves the excavation and compilation of traditional repertoires. While some traditional plays have been handed down for centuries, many are incomplete. Some only retain the melodies and ornamentations, while others have lost the stage performances entirely, with only the music scores remaining, if at all. The more complete traditional plays often survive as fragmented highlights, much like well-known segments in other art forms. Therefore, even for plays like The Peony Pavilion and The Tale of the Lute, which are relatively well-known and frequently performed in excerpts, new content is often needed to create a complete and coherent narrative. At the same time, certain segments need to be trimmed to meet the contemporary requirement of limiting performances to under three hours. As a result, most "full-length plays" performed today, which run for an entire evening, contain a significant amount of newly written material. One of the most influential Kunqu opera productions of the 20th century, the "Young Lovers’ Edition of The Peony Pavilion," is actually a blend of traditional and newly composed elements. The complexities surrounding The Peony Pavilion warrant a more detailed discussion later on.
Simultaneously, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Kunqu opera community has been extensively recreating old plays, which had entirely or mostly lost their original musical scores. This process often involves using the story outlines of ancient scripts to write new scripts or even adapting the plots, thus creating new full-length productions. In fact, many Kunqu plays that appear very traditional in name and stage design are actually entirely new compositions. For example, the Kunqu play The Peach Blossom Fan, often performed today, was created in the 1980s by Shi Xiaomei and Zhang Hong, with Zhang revising the script and Shi responsible for the staging. The Peach Blossom Fan had no surviving segments related to the main storyline, so the current version is entirely new. The Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre's version of Romance of the Western Chamber was adapted in 1982 by the famous playwright Ma Shaobo from Wang Shifu's original, with new music by Fu Xueyi. The version of Romance of the Western Chamber performed in southern regions like Jiangsu and Zhejiang is a traditional Kunqu play but based on a Ming dynasty adaptation by Li Rihua. Similarly, the representative work of Yongjia Kunqu, Zhang Xie the Scholar, was completely rewritten and staged in the 1990s based on Southern Song dynasty's nanxi version of the play. Other examples include the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre's The Offspring of a Noble House. The original is a Jin dynasty play, but the performance was newly staged.
In contrast to excavating old plays, another type of new composition reflects contemporary times. Since 1949, Kunqu troupes have staged many modern plays using Kunqu's performance techniques and music (or music in a similar style). Starting from the late 1950s until the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, Kunqu troupes nationwide created many revolutionary-themed plays. The earliest was the 1958 play Steel Flame Mountain by the Hunan Kunqu Opera Theatre, telling the story of the Monkey King joining the steel fervor of the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s. That same year, the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre staged Red Clouds, about a woman who sacrifices herself to protect the Red Army from oppressive landlords. Premier Zhou Enlai praised the play for opening a new path for Kunqu's development. It significantly influenced Kunqu troupes nationwide, with various other adaptations staged. The version performed by the Jiangsu Province Kunqu Troupe was led by the famous performer Zhang Jiqing. Another category of revolutionary modern plays used traditional opera's martial arts techniques to depict arduous battles or journeys, such as the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre's 1960 play commemorating China's ascent of Mount Everest, Climbing the World's Highest Peak (although criticized for not looking much like Kunqu), and the 1963 play Seizing the Luding Bridge (considered successful but heavily revised in the unsuccessful 2016 re-staging).
Several of the famous eight model plays during the Cultural Revolution also had Kunqu versions, such as the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe's Qiong Flower, a Kunqu adaptation of The Red Detachment of Women; the Zhejiang Kunqu Opera Troupe's Sparks Amid the Reeds, a Kunqu adaptation of Sha Jia Bang; and different Kunqu adaptations of The Red Lantern by the Zhejiang Kunqu Opera Troupe and the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe. During the Cultural Revolution, the Hunan Kunqu Opera Troupe was the only one not disbanded and staged many plays characteristic of that era, including Soaring Over the Dragon River, Two Sixty, and The Female Pilot. After the reform and opening-up, Kunqu troupes continued to stage contemporary plays, such as the 1991 Yongjia Kunqu Opera Troupe's The Story of Jiafu Village, about villagers resisting and punishing unscrupulous businessmen, and the 1996 Suzhou Kunqu Opera Troupe's Dream Chasing in the City, portraying the confusion and frustration of rural workers migrating to cities.
In recent years, Kunqu Opera has continued to adapt and innovate to attract contemporary audiences, often integrating current themes into its performances. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, new Kunqu plays like the Jiangsu Province Kunqu Opera Troupe’s Jiangcheng Affection and the Kunqu Opera Troupe’s Spring Dawn were staged, both addressing the global health crisis.
Interestingly, many plays traditionally set in ancient times can also serve as reflections of contemporary issues. Since the founding of the People's Republic, several Kunqu plays, though staged in historical contexts, were created to resonate with modern realities. For example, Fifteen Strings of Cash, although based on the traditional The Dream of Double Bears, was aligned with the central government’s campaign against “subjectivism.” Similarly, the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre's 1960 production of The Spring and Autumn of Wu and Yue, inspired by Washing Silk, was staged during the period of natural disasters in China to evoke the spirit of perseverance. Another clear example is the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Troupe's post-Cultural Revolution play The Usurpation by Empress Lü, which carried an obvious political message in response to the turbulent political climate of the time.
In the 1980s, Kunqu troupes also staged several new plays focused on political and bureaucratic themes, like Zhejiang Kunqu Opera Troupe's Record of Ups and Downs and Hunan Kunqu Opera Troupe's One-Day Prefect, which reflected the growing concerns over corruption during the reform and opening-up period. These plays not only adapted traditional storytelling techniques but also embedded contemporary social critiques.
Apart from addressing current themes, Kunqu troupes have experimented with various methods to broaden their appeal, including adapting works from other opera styles and even from international literature. For example, the 1978 adaptation of Shaoxing opera Monkey Hit Lady White Bone Thrice and the 1979 adaptation of Peking opera Chun Cao Invades the Hall into the Kunqu play Fake Son-in-law Ascends to Heaven exemplify this trend. In 1980, the Northern Kunqu Opera Troupe staged The Blood-stained Beauty, adapted from Peking opera The Martyrs of Jia Shen. Other adaptations included The Case of the Desiccated Well, based on the Sichuan opera The Corpse in the Well, and Gongsun Zidu, adapted from the Peking opera Zidu. These adaptations reflect Kunqu's flexibility and the way it engages with broader cultural and artistic trends.
Kunqu has also ventured into the adaptation of foreign works. For example, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe adapted Shakespeare's Macbeth into The Tale of the Bloody Hand in 1986. Similarly, the Northern and Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupes both adapted Japanese folk stories into the Kunqu play Tsuru in the mid-1990s. Later, in 2004, the Jiangsu Province Kunqu Opera Troupe staged an adaptation of Goethe's Faust, and in 2015, the Northern Kunqu Opera Troupe adapted a Russian folktale into Olonkho – Yakut. These adaptations showcase Kunqu's ability to transcend cultural and geographic boundaries while still retaining its unique stylistic elements. More recently, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe's experimental adaptation of Ionesco's The Chairs in 2016 and Zhejiang Kunqu Opera Troupe's The Bell Tower, based on Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in 2017, demonstrate how Kunqu continues to innovate by incorporating diverse literary and dramatic sources.
Reflecting on the role of tradition in Kunqu, we can categorize plays that were written and performed before the Republican era as "traditional plays." However, even these so-called traditional plays often contain recomposed elements, having been significantly revised by actors and directors over the decades. For instance, in most current performances of The Peony Pavilion, only the Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream scene has been passed down relatively unchanged from the early Republican era. Even this, however, has been subtly altered by different actors' personal interpretations. Other scenes, such as Seeking the Dream, Portrait Painting, and Soul’s Departure, were re-choreographed and restaged as recently as the 1980s and 1990s. Plays like Farewell at the Yang Pass from The Purple Hairpin also underwent significant revision due to the loss of their original performance elements.
This continuous evolution of Kunqu’s repertoire highlights the idea that many so-called “traditional plays” are actually recomposed works. Even martial plays, which were almost entirely lost in southern Kunqu opera, have been re-adopted from Peking Opera, as seen in performances like The Village of Hu and Fleeting by Night. This re-composition isn’t limited to plays that lost their original performance methods; even some classic plays have been revised. For example, the performance of Capturing Alive was transformed into a complex dance sequence in New China, moving away from its original, more static form. Similarly, plays like The Gifting of the Sword by the Princess of a Hundred Flowers and The Theft of Poems from The Jade Hairpin were also re-choreographed for deeper artistic expression by New China's first generation of Kunqu actors.
Even plays like The Wind and Cloud Meeting: Escort to Beijing have been extensively revised. For example, the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre's performance of the play in 1954 inspired many adaptations across different genres of Chinese opera. By 1960, the play had been completely re-imagined, with new lyrics and a revised storyline, resulting in a performance that was drastically different from the original. This process of constant adaptation demonstrates that most of the Kunqu performances we see today are far from “traditional” in the strict sense. Instead, they are “recomposed traditional plays” that have evolved with each generation of performers.
Even the most seemingly traditional plays, like Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream, have undergone stylistic changes in singing and performance techniques over time. Recordings from the Republican era show that actors’ enunciation was much more forceful than it is today, a shift likely influenced by the advent of microphones and subtitle machines. Despite these changes, we still refer to such plays as "traditional" because their performance style continues to embody the fundamental norms of Kunqu. Although these norms are constantly evolving, the plays' historical context allows us to focus more on appreciating the artistry and technique involved in their performances.
In conclusion, while Kunqu has changed significantly over the past hundred years, this transformation reflects its enduring vitality. The genre’s ability to adapt to contemporary issues and incorporate new styles and narratives has allowed it to survive and thrive. However, not all changes are necessarily beneficial, and some innovations may detract from the integrity of the art form. Just as academic scholarship must engage with previous research, artistic innovation in Kunqu requires a dialogue with tradition. The challenge lies in maintaining a balance between respecting the art form’s rich heritage and embracing the creative opportunities of the present.
From a practical perspective, the emphasis on innovation in Kunqu poses certain challenges. In today’s opera industry, broad “traditional plays”—even those heavily revised in the 1990s—serve as basic training material for Kunqu actors. These traditional plays function like a compressed package of skills that allow actors to master Kunqu’s four core performance techniques (singing, speaking, acting, and fighting) and the five methods (hand movements, eye expressions, body posture, footwork, and technique). Actors build their artistic abilities by studying these plays, perfecting their craft over time. However, when it comes to career development—whether it’s securing funding, earning professional titles, or winning awards—actors and troupes often rely more on newly composed plays. This dynamic means that all Kunqu troupes are constantly producing and performing new plays, but not all of these productions are of high quality. Some are simply a necessary means to an end, much like academic “publish or perish” environments where scholars must produce work regardless of its merit.
The emergence of poor-quality new plays in Kunqu may stem from the same pressures that produce subpar academic work. Yet, just as many mediocre poems have faded away throughout history, poor new plays will likely disappear over time. In contrast, meaningful innovations tend to stand the test of time. While it’s inevitable that not every experiment will succeed, a large body of trial and error is essential for generating the few creative breakthroughs that will propel Kunqu forward.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize that not all innovation in Kunqu is inherently positive. Although there are no rigid rules governing what Kunqu must be, there are still relative norms that help evaluate new works. For instance, just as academic research must engage with the work of past scholars to be considered credible, artistic innovation in Kunqu must also engage with tradition to maintain artistic integrity. A deviation from tradition can be valuable if it forms a meaningful dialogue with past conventions. For example, when Song dynasty scholars reinterpreted pre-Qin texts, they often deviated from the original meanings but created new interpretations that were self-consistent and addressed the concerns of their own time. This was a form of creative misreading. On the other hand, baseless distortions that ignore the original context without offering something valuable in return would not qualify as innovation but as a misunderstanding.
From a practical standpoint, the focus on new plays in Kunqu brings with it a hidden risk. As traditional plays represent the fundamental training for actors, allowing them to accumulate artistic abilities, the push for constant innovation might disrupt this balance. Traditional plays, even when adapted over time, serve as the core curriculum for mastering Kunqu’s artistic disciplines. Without enough exposure to these foundational works, new actors might miss out on the essential skills that underpin the art form. Meanwhile, the rush to create new plays, driven by institutional pressures for recognition, might prioritize quantity over quality. This dynamic can lead to a proliferation of weak productions that, while necessary for financial or career advancement, fail to contribute meaningfully to Kunqu's artistic legacy.
However, it’s also true that, just as many poor literary works have been lost to history, so too will the less successful Kunqu innovations fade away. The process of creating a robust artistic tradition inherently involves trial and error, and it is through this experimentation that truly great innovations emerge. Without a broad base of experimentation, Kunqu would not have the opportunity to grow and adapt to the changing cultural landscape.
In the end, the key to Kunqu’s future lies in a careful balance between innovation and tradition. While Kunqu must continue to evolve in order to stay relevant, it must also remain rooted in the foundational techniques and principles that have defined the art form for centuries. Innovation is most powerful when it respects and engages with tradition, creating a meaningful dialogue between the old and the new. When this balance is achieved, Kunqu can continue to thrive, offering audiences both the beauty of its historical legacy and the excitement of its contemporary relevance.
In conclusion, the story of Kunqu’s evolution over the past seventy years is one of dynamic transformation and ongoing experimentation. While many see Kunqu as a conservative art form, it has, in fact, adapted continuously to reflect the social, political, and cultural changes of the times. From excavating lost works to creating new plays that address contemporary issues, Kunqu has demonstrated its capacity for innovation while staying true to its roots. The challenges faced by Kunqu today—whether in maintaining artistic quality amidst institutional pressures or navigating the complexities of innovation—are part of the broader journey of balancing tradition with modernity.
Ultimately, Kunqu’s ability to endure lies in its vitality and adaptability. As long as it continues to engage in thoughtful, meaningful innovation while respecting its rich tradition, Kunqu will remain a dynamic and relevant art form in the 21st century and beyond. Its blend of classical artistry with modern sensibilities ensures that Kunqu continues to captivate new generations of audiences, offering a bridge between the past and the present.
Audio Recording: Drama in Education: Applications and Reflections for Humanities Pedagogy in Secondary Education by Cunfu Lin [In Chinese, with English Translation]
Let's take a look at this still from the play Blessing of Xianglin's Wife. Do you notice anything unusual? Yes, snow is falling on the stage. Now, take a few seconds to imagine how you would make it snow on a simple school stage, especially with only 24 hours left before the performance. This seems like a daunting challenge, doesn’t it?
On the night of December 30, 2023, our theater group faced this exact predicament. The students brainstormed for an hour, exploring every possible solution, and finally decided to attach a paper box to the stage’s fly bar with a long string. When Xianglin's Wife ascended the steps, the snow would fall. This plan was finalized the night before the performance. I immediately ran back to the office, grabbed a cardboard box and a stack of A4 paper, and everyone got to work.
But then another problem arose: how could we attach the box to the fly bar and make sure the paper snow would fall at the right moment? The first problem was easy to solve, but the second one required several experiments. The students figured out they could control the snowfall by pulling the string. However, our performance was scheduled as the seventh act, and there was no time to set up the box between acts. The box had to be placed beforehand, but any slight touch of the string would cause the snow to fall prematurely, potentially ruining the effect.
One student volunteered to guard the string until the performance ended. She stayed backstage from the start of the show and, at just the right moment when Xianglin's Wife climbed the steps, she pulled the string perfectly, creating the snowfall you see in the photo.
I’ve been involved in school theater for over a decade, and this incident remains one of the most memorable. It reaffirmed my belief in the magic of theater and the stage’s ability to bring people together and make miracles happen. At Hangzhou Foreign Language School, where I work, we've performed many plays over the past ten years. Imagine these productions taking place in a middle school—it’s quite miraculous, isn’t it?
Over these years, drama has profoundly influenced our school's culture, leading to the creation of a clear framework for campus theater. From performances to project-based learning, interdisciplinary teaching, and finally to drama education, Hangzhou Foreign Language School has developed a distinctive curriculum for theater on campus. The success of theater here has led me to reflect on the value of educational drama in developing the core competencies of humanities subjects for middle school students.
Let's first look at the Ministry of Education's 2022 statement on the core competencies for humanities subjects in K-9 education:
Chinese Language: Cultural confidence, language application, thinking skills, aesthetic creation.
English: Language ability, cultural awareness, critical thinking, learning ability.
Arts: Aesthetic perception, artistic expression, creative practice, cultural understanding.
Social Studies: Political identity, moral cultivation, legal awareness, sound personality, and a sense of responsibility.
The common core competencies across these humanities subjects are: language communication skills, cultural expression, creative thinking, learning to learn, political understanding, social skills, and the ability to be a citizen with responsibility and initiative.
Now, let’s consider whether traditional classroom teaching methods can cultivate these core competencies. My 20-plus years of teaching experience have provided me with two insights. First, the bad news: current classrooms and pedagogies are products of the industrial age and struggle to meet the needs of the digital era and the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. Second, the good news: drama in education opens a door to developing middle school students' core competencies in humanities subjects. Educational drama empowers students and shifts the focus of teaching, transforming them from passive learners into active participants.
The new curriculum reform emphasizes the student’s central role, addressing their individual, diverse development and needs. Traditional classroom teaching struggles to meet this demand. British drama educator Dorothy Heathcote believed that "the teacher's responsibility is to empower." Just like in a play where the actors are the focus and the director serves as a guide, in education, students should take center stage.
In 2017, I made a bold attempt to center a semester’s Chinese language course around reading, adapting, rehearsing, and performing Les Misérables. Students thought like screenwriters, analyzing the characters and their dilemmas, and completed detailed character biographies. They also thought like directors, considering how to bring the scenes to life on stage. This process not only allowed students to gain knowledge through practice, but it also fostered a deeper understanding of the subject matter. This shift of focus from teacher to student is one of the most significant achievements of educational drama.
Educational drama also supports project-based learning, an interdisciplinary approach that has gained popularity in China. The defining feature of project-based learning is its authenticity. While this approach has played a positive role in educational reform, it often emphasizes the project outcome over the human experience. Theater, however, has an innate ability to fill this gap, offering a more holistic approach by engaging students on a personal level. Heathcote's "mantle of the expert" method, which allows students to adopt roles within a project, bridges the divide between the theoretical and the personal. In my From the Soil project, students transcribed interviews, developed scripts, and performed these stories, gaining both academic knowledge and personal insight in the process.
Another benefit of the "mantle of the expert" model is its use of virtuality. In these virtual scenarios, students can safely explore real-world challenges and develop practical skills, much like how a driving simulator prepares students for the realities of the road. This is one of the core values of educational drama: it allows students to fully engage in complex tasks without facing the real-world risks that might otherwise be beyond their abilities.
Finally, I want to share a key belief with those who care about theater education: the value of educational drama needs to be reassessed. Since its inception, educational drama has been rooted in practice. Rousseau's ideas of "learning in practice" and Dewey's concept of "learning by doing" have laid the foundation for drama in education. Educational drama, with its emphasis on process and reflection, provides fertile ground for true learning to take place. It can enhance students' critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, both of which are essential for navigating the complexities of modern life.
Moreover, as a tool and method, educational drama has an irreplaceable role in teaching strategies, interdisciplinary learning, and student well-being. Drama provides a unique platform for students to develop psychologically, socially, and academically. As the saying goes, "The iron-clad road ahead is arduous, but now we are starting anew." I believe that with the efforts of dedicated educators, educational drama will continue to play an increasingly vital role in developing the core competencies of students in the humanities.
Thank you to the Global Youth Alliance for Chinese Drama for providing a platform for meaningful conversations about high school drama education. Thanks to Aaron and the organizers for their efforts, and thank you all for listening. This concludes my speech.
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