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We were recently invited by Jin Cai Middle School to host an introductory Peking Opera workshop for their first “Golden Autumn Camp” at their main campus in Pudong New Area.
The 2 week camp was dedicated to introducing Chinese culture to a large party of British middle school students from a variety of schools in the UK.? The students, who travelled to Beijing to look around the capital before coming to Shanghai, received daily classes in Chinese language, in addition to taking part in numerous other workshops and classes concerning some other aspects of Chinese culture.
DDA were specifically invited to host the Peking Opera session, following our very successful Peking Opera event last year at Jin Cai’s international campus, for the British Consulate’s Cultural and Education Section’s Summer School Immersion Course, which is run annually in cooperation with Jin Cai School.
This year’s session was again hosted by Rose Oliver from DDA and Ms Yang Ya Nan of Shanghai’s First Academy of Peking Opera and Performing Arts, along with her 2 colleagues Mr Qiao Yu and Yang Yi Fan, and Ms Jessie Zhang, also of Double Dragon Alliance.
Mr Qiao and Mr Yang performed an acrobatic sequence from the Peking Opera “San Cha Kou” or “The Three Crossroads/The Wicked Innkeeper” which was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience, who ranged between 15 – 16 years of age. Afterwards they led several students through a short section of the play, letting them try out some of the movements themselves.
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The UK students also got to experience face painting, being made up as various characters from Peking Opera, including the Monkey King (Sun Wu Kong), a jester, and a hero and heroine. They also tried several of the traditional costumes and footwear that characters would wear, including a martial art heroine’s battledress, complete with headdress and armour, which Ella from the UK stated was so heavy and cumbersome, she couldn’t imagine how the performers could breathe, let alone dance or perform acrobatics.
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The UK participants also tried out some of the singing and dancing techniques, as demonstrated by Ms Yang Ya Nan, and although they appeared easy when performed by Ms Yang, everyone found them to be very complex and required a great deal of practice to get right.
Many of the teachers also remarked on the diligence of the performers and on the amount of practice they must have already put in to have reached the levels of skill they displayed.
A couple of students and some teachers were also game to try “riding a horse” in Peking Opera, which requires a special horse-whip instrument, with which the performer executes certain specific movements, representing the action of getting on and off and of riding a horse.
The workshop wrapped up with an informal Q & A session.
The whole seminar, which lasted just over 2 hours, was also attended by many of Jin Cai’s Chinese students in addition to those from the UK and everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. It was a great chance to find out more about this fascinating slice of Chinese culture and although the three performers from Shanghai’s First Academy of Peking Opera and Performing Arts may specialize in different fields from the UK and Chinese students, it was an inspiration to the audience members to see the level of expertise that can be attained through hard work and constant practice.
It was a great pleasure to work with the staff at Jin Cai School and meet all the students, and we hope we’ll have the pleasure of hosting similar seminars there in the future.