Beijing Opera as a Representation of Chinese Culture - Essay Example

?Beijing Opera Culture relates to the specific way of life of a given group of people. It relates to the language of communication, beliefs, norms, social activities, arts & sciences, spirituality, social interaction, and line of thought. Also known as, Peking opera, Beijing Opera represents the finest combination of literature, music, mime, dance, martial arts, fine arts, in China. This traditional Chinese theatre differs from opera, pantomime, and drama and puts more emphasis to 'Chang (Singing)', 'Nian (Speaking)', 'Zuo (Acting), and 'Da (Fighting)'. The Beijing Opera originated from the middle period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and entails four performances that include Anhui – Sanqing Troupe, Sixi Troupe, Chungong Troupe, and Chun Troupe that reside in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai China1. Indeed, there were many names for Beijing Opera in its history such as Pihuang, Erhuang, Huang Qiang, Peking Opera, Pingju Opera, and Chinese Opera. However, Peking Opera that was born when the 'Four Great Anhui Troupes' brought Anhui opera supersedes the rest. Beijing Opera manifests itself as one of the cultural treasures of China. Although formed in Beijing, Beijing Opera is not the native-born but a melting opera. In the Beijing Opera, singing has the certain tune that expresses the sentiment of the dramatic persona. Taiwan preserves the art form known as Guoju though it has spread to Japan and the United States. Beijing Opera is the essence of Chinese national drama and has tremendous influence in both China and abroad. According to Beijing Opera, acting is the performance of movement and expression while fighting is the martial arts performed by dancing. At the same time, Beijing Opera appreciates the pleasing stylistic and artistic harmony of the dance and music, and art designs. Beijing Opera has very strict role division that includes Sheng, Dan, Jing, and Chou. 'Sheng' acts the masculine positive role, ‘Dan’ acts the feminine positive role, and ‘Jing’ acts the supporting role of greathearted masculine, while 'Chou' acts as a lively, humorous, quick-witted masculine. Each kind of role also has different face painting and dressing to indicate their identity. More significantly, the Beijing Opera relates to the political and military struggle and has a historical theme. Beijing Opera truly represent China culture because it keeps together the diverse elements of history, mythology, literature and poetry, singing, dancing, acting, face painting, stage fighting and acrobatics in Chinese culture2. However, during the second half of the 20th century, Beijing witnessed a steady decline in audience numbers due to a decrease in performance quality and an inability of the traditional opera form to capture modern life. In addition, the production requirements of the archaic language, and the influence of Western culture is not pleasant to the development of Beijing Opera3. In light of Beijing Opera, performance is an art topic that is very dominant in this Chinese traditional theatre. Beijing Opera performances are renowned for their very vibrant and gorgeous colored costumes. A Beijing Opera performance entails story, voice, music, movement, costumes, and makeup and stage properties4. Aria is the music for the voice of Beijing Opera belongs to the Ban-Qiang. Song music and speech in a Beijing performance occur simultaneously with dance movements of the performer. There are about three kinds of plays in Beijing Opera, which include the traditional play, the historical play, and the modern play. The different Beijing performance costumes are fundamental in the Beijing Opera performance. The Beijing opera costumes were mainly made of wool or coarse cloth and decorated with various meticulously embroidered patterns with special and unique stagecraft that draws a lot of admiration and love by the audience. Face painting manifest in Beijing Opera performances to display the character of the specific role and understanding of the opera’s plot5. Beijing Opera facial painting falls into four categories that include personality makeup (facial designs, painted faces), decorative makeup (decorated faces), mood makeup (changing facial designs), and pictographic makeup (animal-like facial designs)6. The black painted-face is more neutral, representing valor and wise, the yellow and the white painted-faces has the derogatory meaning, representing atrocity and duplicity, the blue and the green ones are also neutrality, representing the bold and courageous hero while the golden and the argentite painted-faces are more mystical, representing god or a monster. Performers will tend to participate in one role. The roles include Sheng, which is the standard male characters, Dan, which is the female characters, Jing, which is the painted-face male characters, and Chou, which is the male-ugly character7. Mei Lanfang is one of the most remarkable performing artists in Beijing Opera. Beijing Opera performance mostly takes place in the Summer Palace, Beijing. The Beijing performance as an artistic form, its continual path of development is full of the Chinese nationality's creational fervor and displays the characteristic of the Chinese nation8. Indeed, Beijing performance will never be old, and still reserves the potential nurturing to fulfill in its life. Though the Beijing Opera artists are mostly illiterate and uncultured, they relevantly transmit the Chinese culture through the Beijing Opera performance. The stylization in Beijing performances encompasses behaviors of daily life in the performance with an aim of creating awareness to the audience and making them beautiful in the performance9. In addition, since the training of Beijing Opera performers starts at childhood, the performers get adequate training to perfection, disciplined and manifest the Chinese culture in totality10. In addition, the traditional repertoire of Beijing opera includes more than 1,000 works, based on Chinese History and traditional stories about civil, political, and military struggles. Moreover, the face designs in Beijing Opera have borrowed greatly from Chinese Folk Art designs, folklore, and Chinese language. The Opera masks on the other hand are perfect examples of the cultural background of the Chinese people11. The impact of Beijing Opera performance in the Chinese culture is so fundamental that in Taiwan, the Ministry of national Defense of the Republic of China runs a national Beijing Opera training school12. As such, Beijing Opera will continue to development and assert its position in world cultures a status that no other forms of art can substitute. This demonstrates the correlation between Beijing Opera and Chinese culture. Conclusion Culture as defined herein entails language, beliefs, art and science, norms, spirituality, social interactions, and social activities. Indeed, art forms a major part of any culture. Chinese culture is one of the most dominant cultures outside the United States of America and has been there for many decades. The Beijing Opera is a clear representation of this culture. The components of Beijing Opera include music, speech, voice, dance, stage movements, martial art, costumes, makeup, face painting, and the actual performance. The Beijing Opera performance is the most fundamental aspect of Beijing Opera. It requires a lot of training to become a good performer and sometimes the training starts at childhood. The different costumes, masks, face-paintings have unique meaning of the character’s role and derives an understanding of the entire plot. The characters choose one of the four character roles that include Sheng, Dan, Jing, and Chou in the performance. The impact of the Beijing Opera performance runs all over the world and has specific significance to the Chinese culture. Indeed, the Beijing Opera manifests itself as one of the cultural treasures of China as it represents China culture by keeping together the diverse elements of history, mythology, literature and poetry, singing, dancing, acting, face painting, stage fighting and acrobatics in Chinese culture. Bibliography Beijing Trip. “Beijing Opera”. Beijing Trip. Accessed 24, April 2012. http://www.beijingtrip.com/feature/opera.htm Mobi Reference. Travel Beijing, China: Illustrated Guide, Phrasebook and Maps. London: MobileReference, 2010. Wertz, Richard. “Beijing Opera”. Beijing Opera. Accessed 24, April 2012. http://www.ibiblio.org/chineseculture/contents/entr/p-entr-c01s02.html Wichmann, Elizabeth, Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. , Read More