Wing Chung Ng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039119
- eISBN:
- 9780252097096
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039119.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Defined by its distinct performance style, stage practices, and regional- and dialect-based identities, Cantonese opera originated as a traditional art form performed by itinerant companies in temple ...
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Defined by its distinct performance style, stage practices, and regional- and dialect-based identities, Cantonese opera originated as a traditional art form performed by itinerant companies in temple courtyards and rural market fairs. In the early 1900s, however, Cantonese opera began to capture mass audiences in the commercial theaters of Hong Kong and Guangzhou—a transformation that changed it forever. This book charts Cantonese opera's confrontations with state power, nationalist discourses, and its challenge to the ascendancy of Peking opera as the country's preeminent “national theatre.” Mining vivid oral histories and heretofore untapped archival sources, the book relates how Cantonese opera evolved from a fundamentally rural tradition into urbanized entertainment distinguished by a reliance on capitalization and celebrity performers. It also expands analysis to the transnational level, showing how waves of Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia and North America further re-shaped Cantonese opera into a vibrant part of the ethnic Chinese social life and cultural landscape in the many corners of a sprawling diaspora.Less
Defined by its distinct performance style, stage practices, and regional- and dialect-based identities, Cantonese opera originated as a traditional art form performed by itinerant companies in temple courtyards and rural market fairs. In the early 1900s, however, Cantonese opera began to capture mass audiences in the commercial theaters of Hong Kong and Guangzhou—a transformation that changed it forever. This book charts Cantonese opera's confrontations with state power, nationalist discourses, and its challenge to the ascendancy of Peking opera as the country's preeminent “national theatre.” Mining vivid oral histories and heretofore untapped archival sources, the book relates how Cantonese opera evolved from a fundamentally rural tradition into urbanized entertainment distinguished by a reliance on capitalization and celebrity performers. It also expands analysis to the transnational level, showing how waves of Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia and North America further re-shaped Cantonese opera into a vibrant part of the ethnic Chinese social life and cultural landscape in the many corners of a sprawling diaspora.
Christina Elizabeth Firpo
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501752650
- eISBN:
- 9781501752674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501752650.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter is a study of the sale of sex in ả Đào singing houses, a form of female performance art dating back to the fourteenth century. In its twentieth-century iteration, sex work in ả Đào ...
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This chapter is a study of the sale of sex in ả Đào singing houses, a form of female performance art dating back to the fourteenth century. In its twentieth-century iteration, sex work in ả Đào singing houses appealed to those with a taste for traditional culture in an era of dynamic cultural change. The success of clandestine sex work in ả Đào venues lay in the ability of sex workers and their managers to capitalize on both the sensuality inherent to this genre of female performance art and the legitimacy associated with a revered traditional art form. The result was that ả Đào venues operated as ambiguous spaces that blurred the traditional lines separating art, sex, and commerce.Less
This chapter is a study of the sale of sex in ả Đào singing houses, a form of female performance art dating back to the fourteenth century. In its twentieth-century iteration, sex work in ả Đào singing houses appealed to those with a taste for traditional culture in an era of dynamic cultural change. The success of clandestine sex work in ả Đào venues lay in the ability of sex workers and their managers to capitalize on both the sensuality inherent to this genre of female performance art and the legitimacy associated with a revered traditional art form. The result was that ả Đào venues operated as ambiguous spaces that blurred the traditional lines separating art, sex, and commerce.
