Eugenio Barba
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099944
- eISBN:
- 9789882207394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099944.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This section discusses Jingju, which literally means “Beijing drama”, and is the Chinese word for the theatrical genre known in the West as “Peking/Beijing Opera”. It defines jingju as a total ...
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This section discusses Jingju, which literally means “Beijing drama”, and is the Chinese word for the theatrical genre known in the West as “Peking/Beijing Opera”. It defines jingju as a total theatre which emphasizes stylization over realism. It includes the Chinese terms for jingju's four basic skills, translated by Elizabeth Wichman as “singing, speaking, dance-acting, and combat”. It elucidates that “dance-acting” includes pure dance and pantomime as well as the visible results of “acting” in the Western sense, while “combat” in this non-mimetic theatre encompasses stylized fighting with swords and spears, martial arts, and acrobatics. It further elucidates how performers and spectators approach jingju, what it meant to people at different times, and how it managed to evolve and survive throughout the twentieth century.Less
This section discusses Jingju, which literally means “Beijing drama”, and is the Chinese word for the theatrical genre known in the West as “Peking/Beijing Opera”. It defines jingju as a total theatre which emphasizes stylization over realism. It includes the Chinese terms for jingju's four basic skills, translated by Elizabeth Wichman as “singing, speaking, dance-acting, and combat”. It elucidates that “dance-acting” includes pure dance and pantomime as well as the visible results of “acting” in the Western sense, while “combat” in this non-mimetic theatre encompasses stylized fighting with swords and spears, martial arts, and acrobatics. It further elucidates how performers and spectators approach jingju, what it meant to people at different times, and how it managed to evolve and survive throughout the twentieth century.
Xing Fan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888455812
- eISBN:
- 9789888455164
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888455812.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Chapter 6 examines acting in model jingju from three perspectives: how it is related to the role-types, schools of performance, and the old form (song, speech, dance-acting, and combat) of ...
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Chapter 6 examines acting in model jingju from three perspectives: how it is related to the role-types, schools of performance, and the old form (song, speech, dance-acting, and combat) of traditional jingju. By examining the fusion of selectively adapted traditional practices and newly invented performance styles and techniques, this chapter offers an insight into how performance practices in model jingju are intricately related to traditional jingju, though their associations as seen through these three perspectives unfold in different ways. The author discerns an overall pattern of creation: the deconstruction of traditional practices and the liberty to select appropriate traditional elements and fuse them with new ones, be they borrowed from other performing arts or newly created. In some cases, to deconstruct means to destroy, and to break down leads to abandonment. In other cases, to break down leads to breakthrough; the deconstruction nurtures innovative and alternative practices that embody unique aesthetic qualities of model jingju. This chapter features personal interviews with the performers of principal heroes/heroines and other major roles.Less
Chapter 6 examines acting in model jingju from three perspectives: how it is related to the role-types, schools of performance, and the old form (song, speech, dance-acting, and combat) of traditional jingju. By examining the fusion of selectively adapted traditional practices and newly invented performance styles and techniques, this chapter offers an insight into how performance practices in model jingju are intricately related to traditional jingju, though their associations as seen through these three perspectives unfold in different ways. The author discerns an overall pattern of creation: the deconstruction of traditional practices and the liberty to select appropriate traditional elements and fuse them with new ones, be they borrowed from other performing arts or newly created. In some cases, to deconstruct means to destroy, and to break down leads to abandonment. In other cases, to break down leads to breakthrough; the deconstruction nurtures innovative and alternative practices that embody unique aesthetic qualities of model jingju. This chapter features personal interviews with the performers of principal heroes/heroines and other major roles.
