Close
About
FAQ
Home
Collections
Login
USC Login
Register
0
Selected
Invert selection
Deselect all
Deselect all
Click here to refresh results
Click here to refresh results
USC
/
Digital Library
/
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
/
An old art in a new home: Beijing Opera in Los Angeles
(USC Thesis Other)
An old art in a new home: Beijing Opera in Los Angeles
PDF
Download
Share
Open document
Flip pages
Contact Us
Contact Us
Copy asset link
Request this asset
Transcript (if available)
Content
AN OLD ART IN A NEW HOME:
BEIJING OPERA IN LOS ANGELES
by
Pamela Chan
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
May 2014
ii
Acknowledgements
Many people opened their schedules and hearts to me during this journey of
cultural discovery. I appreciate their generosity, their incredible stories, and their
introducing my young eyes to a beautiful ancient art form in which I would not have
otherwise had the opportunity to immerse myself. Thank you to Haipo Wang, Wendy
Chang, Eric Cheung, Elizabeth Williams, Ghaffar Pourazar, Aileen Sun, Pei-Lan Sun,
Winston Sun, Bing Bing Ao, Ding San Chang, Shirley Hsu, and Joshua Goldstein.
Sasha Anawalt was the first to suggest the possibility of focusing on Beijing Opera
in Los Angeles. She has guided this thesis since the very beginning, lending her insights,
keeping my language on point, and helping me turn what began as a small audio
slideshow project into an artistic experience I will never forget. Thank you also to thesis
committee members Tim Page and Elizabeth Hynes, two brilliant writers and music
aficionados that provided a constant source of support and encouragement.
Last but not least, this adventure could not have happened without the help of
one other very important person, my mother. Thanks for your endless patience, your
wisdom, and for willingly taking on the role of being my “cultural broker”-- for giving
me the opportunity to better understand the Chinese language, its history and its
customs. Thank you for helping me get back to my Chinese roots.
iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iv
An Old Art In a New Home: Beijing Opera in Los Angeles 1
I. Introduction 4
II. Past: The Host 6
III. Present: The Club 13
IV. Future: The Innovator 19
V. Conclusion 25
References 27
iv
Abstract
For over two hundred years, Beijing Opera has been the essential expression of
traditional Chinese culture. Audiences around the world have enjoyed its lavish blend of
percussive music, colorful costumes, lyric poetry, painted faces and jaw-dropping
acrobatics. Yet, even in the face of worldwide appreciation, Beijing Opera is losing its
audience at home. In an effort to preserve the unique musical style and heritage, the
Chinese government has tried to revitalize Beijing Opera mostly through creative
approaches to building a larger audience. Success, however, has remained elusive.
Beijing Opera in Mainland China is in a downward spiral. Interestingly, however, it is
also prospering in Los Angeles, California, at this precise time.
Based in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than half the population is of Asian
ancestry, hundreds of Chinese men and women have banded together during the last
three decades of Chinese immigration to form amateur opera clubs dedicated to
preserving and performing Beijing Opera. Through weekly club meetings, annual live
performances, radio programs, and other innovative activities, professional Chinese
opera artists and amateur opera enthusiasts come together to promote Beijing Opera to
a wider audience. They share their passion for China’s most sophisticated branch of
musical drama.
This thesis focuses on three individuals and artists who represent the past,
present, and future of Beijing Opera in Los Angeles. With their help and support, an
ancient Chinese tradition continues to live on-- at least for the time being.
1
An Old Art In A New Home:
Beijing Opera in Los Angeles
In the almost 40 years since Mao Tse-tung’s Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, Beijing (Peking) Opera has undergone a sea change in a response to
international curiosity that has urged the slow, but significant, evolution of its modern
voice particularly in Los Angeles.
A culmination of several regional opera styles in China that goes back to the 13
th
century, Beijing Opera officially arrived on the scene in 1790, and has, for more than two
centuries until present day, been the supreme expression of Chinese culture. Through
imperial patronage and popular acclaim, the genre became the quintessence of Chinese
dramatic art, reaching its zenith in the first half of the 20
th
century, when performances
played to crowded houses of both young and old, rich and poor—across the nation. Its
newfound home in the United States is no surprise, exactly.
Aside from being regarded as “the ultimate, quintessential representation of
Chinese identity” (Huang 2011)-- thanks partly to it being officially declared as China’s
‘national opera’ (guoju)-- Beijing Opera has influenced Western art forms in the past,
inspiring performers and playwrights from Charlie Chaplin to Bertolt Brecht.
Such leading actors and critics as Mei Lanfang (China’s foremost Peking Opera
star) and Qi Rushan, two of the greatest popularizers of Beijing Opera abroad, gained
massive followings beginning in 1929 with their extended American tours to major cities
like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. A sumptuous concoction of
painted faces, lavish costumes, bold music, and powerful choreography, their
performances were proclaimed in 1930 by a New York World critic as one of the “most
exciting evenings” he had ever spent in theater (Guy 2001).
2
Yet, even while experiencing a sweep of contemporary worldwide appreciation
and reception, Beijing Opera continues to lose its audience in China. Denounced as
decadent and reactionary by Chairman Mao and his wife, Jiang Qing, the art form has,
since the 1976 end of Mao’s social-political movement, lost its appeal to native
audiences. This is especially true among youths who, according to John M. Glionna in a
2007 Los Angeles Times article, see the “stilted pageants” as “something of a cultural
embarrassment, tantamount to an American teen snickering in disdain when Mom plays
her old Neil Diamond albums” (LA Times 2007).
The influx of popular culture from Mickey D’s to Michael Jackson has also played
a large role in eroding affection for Beijing Opera. China’s ‘Millennial’ generation
consider Beijing Opera (as well as 300 other various forms of Chinese regional operas,
each based on local dialects and cultural differences) to be slow and out of touch with
reality.
“Ravaged by the 1966-1967 Cultural Revolution and largely ignored by today’s
youth, Peking Opera is fast disappearing from the stages it once ruled throughout
China,” reported the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “Its audience is dropping by as much as
5% a year by one estimate. If the trend continues, experts fear, one of the world’s great
art forms for two centuries is in danger of vanishing within a generation” (LA Times
1997).
Although multiple campaigns have been carried out in past years to cultivate
awareness and appreciation for the art form among young Chinese, most, if not all
Beijing Opera theaters on the Mainland remain empty of new blood. Its ever-growing
following from around the world, however, has not diminished since the days that Mei
Lanfang introduced Western eyes and ears to an ‘abstract’ art form now deployed “as a
3
means to create and meet the demands on the cultural market for traditional China – a
commodity with exotic and nostalgic value” (Goldstein 2007).
For the last century, great Beijing Opera actors, playwrights, directors, and
enthusiasts have gathered “at the forefront of cultural exchange to bring the ancient art
form to the crossroads of culture” (Huang 2011). Beijing Opera has been transformed,
renewed and significantly changed by artists hoping to spawn a new kind of hybridity
that will combine the old and the new worlds, Eastern and Western traditions.
“This art,” said Kenneth Pai, a Chinese opera expert, during the opening of his
2006 revival of “Peony Pavilion” at UCLA, “has to change to survive.”
In order to avoid further extinction, Beijing Opera has, as Pai predicted, begun to
change. It has adopted new strategies for survival, with its respective artists infusing
energy into revitalizing and restoring to vivid life a centuries-old art form. Though the
genre continues to experience a decline in China, its counterpart in the West is,
interestingly, riding a new wave of popularity and has actually prospered since the 1970s
in Los Angeles, California. This thesis is about that prosperity, told through three
individuals who represent the past, present, and future of Beijing Opera.
4
I. Introduction
Of all the Western cities around the globe, including more well-known Chinese
opera hotspots such as San Francisco and New York City, Los Angeles is, for veteran
Beijing Opera actress Haipo Wang, “home to most people who have experience
performing [Chinese opera],” as well as the most “audience members willing to spend
time and money to love [it]" (Wang October 2013).
Mostly centered in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than half of the population
is of Chinese ancestry (Li 2009), various Beijing Opera pieces can be found. They are
supported by Chinese opera clubs, event hosts, and Beijing Opera professionals, as well
as amateurs. Hundreds of men and women have banded together during the last three
decades of Chinese immigration in the California Southland to dedicate themselves to
preserving and performing this exotic musical form. Through weekly Chinese opera club
meetings and annual live performances, they come together to preserve a cultural
tradition.
Though most club members consider themselves amateurs, many have previously
performed on the professional stage back in Mainland China and Taiwan. With high
hopes of offering Los Angeles viewers a glimpse of what traditional Beijing Opera might
look and actually feel like, these men and women, most of whom are over the age of 40,
attempt to stop a slowly dying cultural tradition of melodious music, colorful costumes,
titillating acrobatics, and painterly visages from disappearing. They worry that the
rhythms of a wei-ching or the verses of an ancient Mandarin dialect have begun to
sound foreign, awkward, and extremely unappealing to their children and
grandchildren.
5
With the collective help of various opera enthusiasts, the art form has, over the
last thirty years, settled and evolved comfortably in the city of Los Angeles. Here are the
stories of three different artists, each with various strategies, who take it upon
themselves everyday to preserve and sustain a Chinese musical tradition.
6
II. Past: The Host
On Sunday evenings, from ten to eleven, Haipo Wang’s astonishing, husky
resonant voice entices KAZN 1300 AM radio listeners to pay attention to her program
with its impressive blend of ancient melodies, Chinese history and personal stories.
Wang had led Los Angelenos on this journey of cultural discovery and appreciation since
2005.
Wang (born Manpo Wang), who has been a Beijing Opera celebrity for over 40
years, has made a name for herself as an international Chinese opera star. She is a force
to be reckoned with on the radio and in Chinese opera in North America, and continues
to make it her mission to keep Beijing Opera from fading in a city that is, to her mind,
“the most vibrant place in all of United States for Chinese opera” (Wang October 2013)
In L.A., Wang is the “go-to” for Beijing Opera, the ultimate resource. By utilizing
her wealth of performance experience, as well as her vast knowledge of the techniques
and history behind the art form, Wang finds time between her busy schedule of hosting,
traveling, and teaching to introduce one of the “largest suburban Chinese
concentration[s] in the nation” (Li 2009) to a ‘passion’ that she has had since her
teenage years.
Wang didn’t always hold a special place in her heart for an ‘art’ that she had “no
desire to do to begin with.” At the age of thirteen, she was dragged by her father to
audition for the Taiwan Hai-Guang Drama School, a Navy-sponsored Chinese opera
academy in Southern Taiwan. Accepted by the school, she unwillingly attended. It took
her almost a decade before she connected to what would later become her signature
role, Judge Pao Cheng, part of the Ching or ‘painted face’ category of male roles.
7
Roles in Beijing Opera are divided into four categories or parts: Sheng (male),
Dan (female), Ching (painted face), Chou (clown). Wang, who had always possessed a
unique speaking (singing) voice-- deep, loud and abnormally low in the vocal register--
easily met the difficult-to-reach range and technical skill required by any Ching-role
character. Her task was, and remains, nearly impossible for the subtle squeaks of
pubescent males to accomplish.
Unable to find any other qualified students (male or female), Wang’s Hai Guang
instructors assigned her to experiment with the part of Judge Pao Cheng to see if it
would be a natural fit. It was. At age eighteen, Wang ended her search for a ‘signature’
role—a luxury to which most young Beijing Opera artists aspire but few have the
pleasure of receiving.
Since then, she remains the only woman in Taiwan to have ever played any Ching
character professionally. Wang wrote a new page in Chinese opera history, and made
herself well known in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres for her frighteningly
realistic portrayals of a strict and historically respected royal courtier who is often
described as bearing an “Iron Face and Absolute Justice.”
Her ability to overcome the obstacles of womanhood to play a male role landed
her life-changing career opportunities early on, such as being CCTV’s only Taiwan-based
singer of choice for its annual New Year’s Eve specials, as well as being the first
Taiwanese recipient of The Plum Blossom Award, China’s highest theatrical
achievement. “Audiences are crazy about the Ching role being played by a woman,
which explains her [instant] popularity,” says Linda Ruckwar, a schoolmate of Wang’s
from her days at the Hai Guang School (Ruckwar November 2013).
8
There are many physical differences between the character Judge Pao Cheng and
Wang. He is large and broad-shouldered, a strict and commanding man whose round
and chubby face is strikingly painted in multiple colors in order to indicate the
complexity of his character. At 5’6,” Wang may be tall for an Asian female, but her
slender frame, long almond-shaped face, and fully feminine figure are a far cry from
even the most petite versions of any Ching performer.
The disparities, however, are what drew Wang to playing such an often-
misunderstood character who, on the surface, seems to be a cold-hearted and merciless
man with an unshakeable devotion to the Emperor and to his country. It was Wang’s
task to convey the intricate feelings deep inside the Judge, taking the audience into his
complex world of right and wrong, joy and sorrow. “[There is an] affectionate nature
hidden within the characters portrayed as painted-face roles,” Wang says. “I want to
show that [everything] can have something good” (Wang November 2013).
As the Judge, Wang is required to wear three layers of heavily padded clothing,
have yards of wool-top fabric wrapped tightly around her head, apply jars of sticky black
tar-like face paint to her otherwise soft porcelain skin, clomp around in ten-inch high-
heeled boots, as well as attempt to balance both a wide metal cap on her head and a
heavy gray beard on her chin.
The preparation process, which takes as long as four hours, became
understandably exhausting after sixty-plus international tours with both the Ta-Peng
and Sheng-tung Chinese Opera Troupes, prompting Wang at age 43 to retire from
performances in full costume, opting only to perform in partial Judge Pao attire. She
also decided that it was time for a change, a drastic one. So in 1999, she and her family
made their move from Taiwan to Los Angeles.
9
Since then, Wang has turned her focus toward Chinese opera hosting, a more
recently popularized profession that marries the two distinct arts of opera and hosting.
It is Wang’s responsibility to serve as a sort of emcee by welcoming attendees and
introducing plays, offering simple and charming explanations of every number in order
to make performances easier to follow and enjoy –- responsibilities similar to the tasks
assigned to Miss Soo Yong, the Chinese-American “mistress of ceremonies” who
promoted audiences’ familiarity during Mei Lanfang’s celebrated 1930s American tour
(Guy 2001).
Wang had started radio hosting in 1986, but it had always been a side gig, one in
which she took much interest but had always pushed away whenever she was needed in
productions as a Ching actress. With hosting, however, Wang is now able to experience
a “pleasure” and “satisfaction” that singing had not always been able to provide. “I
change my career because deep inside, singing is not what I love to do… [Chinese opera
hosting is actually] more difficult job because you must have knowledge about Chinese
opera and have good technique in hosting. I change profession, yes, but it still the same
stage!”, she explained while getting ready backstage at an October 2013 show at the
Baldwin Park Performing Arts Center.
Wang’s days as the stern and poker-faced Judge may be over, but her remarkably
rich professional career as a female Ching performer is what distinguishes her from
other Beijing Opera advocates living in and around the Los Angeles area. These days,
Wang puts her efforts into showing the City of Angels how good Beijing Opera can be,
especially for the “soul,” she says. She bears the title of “LA hostess of choice” for most,
if not all, Chinese and Taiwanese programs, events, and Chinese opera shows in
Southern California, including those put on by various amateur opera clubs.
10
Her weekly Chinese opera radio show further immerses L.A. residents into the
fascinating world of such a uniquely integrated art form and are, according to Bing Bing
Ao, a co-worker of Wang’s at KAZN 1300, “a favorite in the [Southern California]
Chinese community.” Playfully titled, “Family of Night Cats,” Wang’s show, which is
pre-recorded in her home studio, has for the last eight years garnered significantly high
ratings each weekend in the 50+ demo group, especially in cities surrounding the San
Gabriel Valley (Ao December 2013).
“People need to [actually] listen to the art, the music, to really appreciate it,”
stresses Wang. “Beijing Opera is a treasure, something uniquely [Chinese]” (Wang
January 2014).
Wang usually devotes a large part of her show to sharing the stories behind two
separate operatic pieces, offering audience members not only new ways to look at
various librettos, but novel ways to listen to them as well. On occasions, she shares with
night owl listeners her most interesting (and embarrassing) tales from the stage,
engaging experienced and inexperienced Beijing Opera lovers in Mandarin with many
pleasurable minutes of witty banter, thoughtful criticism, and her distinctively roarish
laugh.
Most shows also feature an informative Chinese history lesson, offering tidbits of
information that provide further insights into an art that Wang feels, possesses a beauty
that cannot be seen, felt, or touched. “[Beijing opera is] all in mind, body, and soul,” she
declares. “It is link between past and present […] Nothing can compare with [this art], it
is too important to throw away.”
11
As a professionally trained Ching actress, a long time radio host and an
internationally acclaimed ‘star,’ it comes as no real surprise that Wang’s name is
synonymous with Los Angeles Beijing Opera.
“Where there is land, there is Chinese [people]. Where there is Chinese people
there is Chinese Opera,” she says (Wang November 2013).
Back in its homeland of Mainland China, Beijing Opera is victim to urbanization,
modern entertainment, lack of government funding and other changes that have
propelled its fall from glory. Yet, Wang, unlike some of her professional counterparts,
refuses to become pessimistic. She remains confident that the art form will continue, at
least in Los Angeles, to blossom. “Los Angeles [is] home to most Chinese, so it will
[naturally] have most Chinese opera. [In LA,] Chinese opera will always [be] blooming…
like a flower,” she says.
Along with trying to increase the playtime of these ancient melodies on the air,
Wang also wants to (re)spark some sort of interest for Beijing Opera from individuals of
Generation Y-- like her daughter Tiffany Tian, a sophomore at UC Riverside who feels a
certain “strange weirdness” to the art, even after many years of “tagging along” to her
mother’s performances.
For Wang, there is still “hope” left for Beijing Opera. Her daughter seems to
quietly agree. When probed a bit more on the subject, Tian admits with a tiny smile, “it
is something you can learn to love. Slowly” (Tian November 2013).
This ‘snail-paced’ appreciation for Beijing Opera provides Wang with hope. It
proves, in her mind, that although considered “ancient,” there is still something within
the art form that has the ability to appeal, “even a little bit,” to unfamiliar audiences.
12
“Beijing Opera always here no matter what,” she says. “‘Musical trend’ like
Madonna or Justin Bieber can only last so long after singer go away, but Chinese opera
different. Artist come and go, and change a lot over time but [the art itself] will never
change. It is forever.” [Wang January 2014]
13
III. Present: The Club
On Saturday afternoons, Wendy Chang sits patiently inside a festively-decorated
Alhambra rehearsal hall, feet tapping, fingers drumming, and head bobbing to the
clashes of odd-sounding musical instruments and high pitched voices that resonate
through the paper thin walls of an old warehouse building on the western end of Valley
Blvd.
After scribbling quick notes onto a pad of paper, Chang looks at her opera club
members of a dozen elderly Chinese, who individually gaze attentively at an ashy-haired
man in his sixties, swaying and singing in the center of their messily formed half-circle.
On hard fold-up chairs in the far corner, six musicians sit uncomfortably with ancient
instruments on their laps, softly pounding the tops of some worn out drums or gently
bowing the horse strings of a hu-ching, the Chinese violin.
The small, yet incredibly energetic older man at the center is half perspiring and
red in the face from almost ten minutes of maintaining the impossibly high-pitched
wailing of a Hsiao-sheng (young man) performer. He finishes his last note with great
pride, eyes twinkling and his ordinarily stern face illuminated with a youthful glow. As
he takes his bow, Eric Cheung, a professor of International Marketing at Shandong Jiao
Tong University in Shandong, People’s Republic of China, and Beijing Opera performer
of note, apologizes: “I’m out of touch, I know, a little rusty. I not sing since last time I
come to Los Angeles. Almost half year already.”
It’s obvious not a single soul in the room could tell.
Cheung is a 15-year member of Chang’s long-running Beijing Opera club, the
Chinese Opera Association, which opened its doors in 1997 and has remained one of
what Cheung calls, “the best most popular society [in Los Angeles].”
14
Though Cheung is only in town for the “winter season” before returning to his
teaching post later this year, he has held onto his love for Beijing Opera since being
introduced to the theater as a child in Shanghai. “Once you start singing, you cannot
stop,” he explains. “You can spend your life working on Chinese opera and still not be
perfect, it’s exciting, it’s beautiful” (Cheung 2013).
Cheung is one of the twenty or so current members of Wendy Chang’s club which
specializes, according to its English-translated mission statement, in gathering “amateur
and professional Chinese opera singers in Southern California together in an
organization of performers.” Located adjacent to the 710 freeway, Chang’s club’s weekly
Saturday afternoon rehearsal space was once the home of Los Angeles’ first Chinese
language radio station, Chinese Broadcasting Center of Southern California (CBCSC). A
long-running established station prior to its closing in 2009, CBCSC was heavily
interested and involved in promoting the Chinese culture in the growing San Gabriel
Valley, an area deemed by Asian media to be the “Chinese Beverly Hills” or “Little
Taipei,” the latter in reference to the large influx of Taiwanese immigrants that came in
the 1970s (Li 2009).
Chang conceived of the Chinese Opera Association when she, a regular on-air
deejay for the radio station, was asked in 1997 to host the first (and last) Beijing Opera
radio show in the United States to ever feature live Chinese opera singing. Because
performers in all four Beijing Opera role categories were desperately needed, she quickly
formed a small group of local amateur singers for the Saturday afternoon live
broadcasts. Little did she know that her group of performers would slowly evolve over
the next decade into one of Southern California’s largest, most tightly-knit amateur
Beijing Opera ‘clubs.’
15
“It’s very difficult to put on a full Chinese opera performance overseas,” says
Chang, who since her club’s inception, has tried her best to schedule as many live
performances as possible so that “everybody can get onto the stage” (Chang 2013),
As an amateur group attempting to put on a Beijing Opera production in Los
Angeles, Chang and her club often struggle to find enough funding, resources, and free
time to put towards planning and developing the extravagant kinds of performances
that once played to raucous houses all over China—the kind that many professionals
would consider to be of higher quality.
“[We have] no sponsors, have no choice but to be responsible for planning
costume, venue, cost, transportation, musicians, instruments, scene partners…Every
detail from start of show to final curtain by ourselves,” says Chang. “[It’s] a lot of work,
we spend money in order to perform!”
Yet, despite the obvious challenges of putting on an amateur performance, as well
as the extremely high costs, which can range anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000
(depending on the size of the production), the Chinese Opera Association stages two
regular productions each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Over the years, its
shows have become celebrated biannual events in the Southern California Chinese-
American community, having even been featured one year by the Pacific Asia Museum
in Pasadena.
Chang’s group is one of the ten to fifteen remaining amateur Beijing Opera clubs
scattered in and around the San Gabriel Valley. Throughout the last few decades,
various clubs both large and small have come and now gone, such as the Southern
California Club, Tung Ching Club, Plum Club, and Dahan Tieng sen Club (LA Times
16
1988)-- which also happens to be the first Chinese opera club Chang had joined upon
her 1986 arrival in Los Angeles.
According to both Chang and Cheung, the first Beijing Opera club, named Los
Angeles Beijing Opera, began in 1964, by retired Peking Opera singer Li Tung-chen
(who also happened to be a close friend of Peking Opera legend Mei Lanfang) and her
daughter Lisa Lu, a 1960s Chinese-born Hollywood actress who is known for her string
of iconic television appearances, and more recently, for her roles in the 1993 film “The
Joy Luck Club” and the 1987 Oscar-winner “The Last Emperor.”
During the 1970s, there were not many Chinese immigrants in Southern
California. But there were enough retired Chinese opera singers and Taiwanese foreign
exchange students who, despite being in a strange new country, did not want to put to
rest their love for Mei Lanfang, opera, or the Chinese culture in general. This is why
Beijing Opera enthusiasts, like Lu and her mother, banded together to form the first and
only ‘performance’ club in Monterey Park, doing everything they could to help their
beloved Chinese tradition thrive on foreign soil.
Though Lu herself never received any formal academic training, her mother --
who was once hailed by the China Times Weekly as a “popular primadonna in the
Yangtze River basin” -- helped hone her flawless performance abilities through “larynx
training and showmanship cultivation to become a creditable Peking opera primadonna
in California.” Upon arriving, they began to recruit disciples, attempting to study Peking
Opera by prying into its structure and theory on the basis of Western drama and
subsequently prompting a significant growth in Los Angeles Beijing Opera clubs of all
sizes in the decades to come (Han-chang 1982).
17
“The older Chinese government and political people (especially in Kuomintang)
all motivate[ed] and support[ed] Beijing Opera,” says Chang, “so most older Chinese all
love to sing, probably know how to sing, and have passion for it.”
Chang, who began her love affair with Beijing Opera in her sophomore year at
National Chengchi University in Taipei, is no stranger to this passion, which is why she
continues to this day to play, perform, sing, and run a society dedicated to promoting
Beijing Opera, a “fading art” she “fell in love with over fifty years ago.”
“Once you become passionate about something, the passion stays with you
forever, go with you everywhere,” Chang says. “It’s not easy to discover something you
are truly interested in, but if you lucky enough to find it you grab on, fall in love, and
don’t let go.”
Aside from planning, producing and executing the Chinese Opera Association’s
yearly routine of fall and spring performances, Chang can often be found up front and
center-stage as well, wearing powdery white makeup, silky floral dresses, Pucca-shaped
buns, and dainty cotton slippers as she charms audiences with one of her two specialty
roles, Ching-yi (Leading Lady) or Hua-dan (Lady in Waiting), part of the Dan category
of roles.
“[Wendy] organize a lot of performance. [But] she is quite a [Chinese opera]
enthusiast and very talented performer too,” says Cheung.
Whether under the spotlight or behind the scenes, Chang’s decades-long
admiration for Beijing Opera is brutally apparent. “[This art] represents the Chinese
culture, society, and people as a whole. It is a rare tradition that should never be lost,”
she says.
18
“Amateur groups are the best [Los Angeles] has to offer [in] Chinese opera,” she
adds with a sigh, “[so] as a longstanding group within the area, it is our responsibility to
pass on such a beautiful cultural tradition, to keep Chinese tradition alive overseas.”
“Our biggest hope is to gather a larger younger audience, they are the ones who
will keep tradition alive when [everything] change.”
The changes occurring within Beijing Opera, Cheung remarks, are “inevitable,”
just like any “cultural trend” with other classical arts forms around the world, including
Japanese Kabuki theater or Italian and Indian Sanskrit operas. “Every country wants to
preserve their own heritage [but] they cannot compete with popular rock n’ roll,” says
Cheung, “It is same for China.”
“All this happen because of our youth’s lack of interest, patience, and
appreciation for the history. You need time and experience to appreciate, but [young
people] want quick, they want big concert. They are [also] only ones responsible for
keeping the custom alive as we get older and face off with life,” he continues, his face
growing serious. “If younger people don’t join us, the trend will just be the same….There
must be an intervention.”
19
IV. Future: The Innovator
“Cultural brokers empirically and interpretively study the culture to be represented,
arrive at models of understanding, develop a particular form of presentation from a
repertoire of genres, and bring audiences and culture bearers together so that cultural
meanings can be translated and even negotiated.”
-Richard Kurin, as written in Reflections of a Cultural Broker: A View from the
Smithsonian
Instead of passively hoping for foreign approval and wider reception, Ghaffar
Pourazar takes matters into his own hands. He is an unlikely champion of Beijing
Opera, a cultural broker. Pourazar has dedicated himself to performing and teaching a
200-year-old Chinese art form, a career choice not so commonly found among British
men.
Born of Iranian Azeri descent, Pourazar, or “Gefa” in Chinese, is now considered
the most successful foreign performer of Beijing Opera, having become famous both in
China and around the world, his story having been told on CNN, BBC, CCTV, as well as
in the Asian Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
A Los Angeles resident who constantly shuttles between Beijing and California in
an attempt to rescue what he sees as “the result of hundreds of years of perfection
passed down to us” from completely disappearing, Pourazar is a recognized artistic
innovator.
For over two decades, the “perfection” of Beijing Opera has been a continual
source of pleasure for Pourazar, who had become instantly drawn to the beauty, power,
20
and “difficulty of mastering the [ancient] art form” in 1993, after witnessing his first
Peking Opera performance at age 32.
“Tears were in my eyes,” he writes in an email recalling the summer performance
in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall that changed his life. The show made such an impact
that he gave up his career as a computer animator to pursue the art form he describes as
“a time capsule of Chinese culture, history, mythology, poetry, literature, fine arts, and
performance” (Pourazar January 2014).
Over the next five years, Pourazar learned the discipline of Beijing Opera by
enrolling in Beijing’s Peking Opera School, undergoing an intensive 10-hour daily
training regime that was punishing, dirty, and often unbelievably “painful.” Today, he is
the first Westerner to have ever completed this arduous program, having now devoted
more than 20 years of his life to mastering two iconic roles, those of the Monkey King
and the Warrior.
Pourazar recalls that everyday in the Peking Opera School began with exercises to
contort his legs and waist. While training, he tested the limits of his middle-aged body, a
challenge made more acute by the presence of young, limber classmates not only half his
age, but half his size. Along with these physical difficulties, Pourazar also admits to
having had a hard time adapting to the unfamiliar environment.
Since graduating, Pourazar has been playing the role of a cross-cultural Beijing
Opera cupid who aims to marry East and West with innovative approaches to “[widen]
the scope of young artists, thus giving [the] understanding and communication skills
necessary to bring [an] ancient art form into the modern era,” he says.
One of his most recent efforts came in March 2011, when the graceful, gravity-
defying movements, seamless choreography, and colorful satin robes of Pourazar and
21
his small group of international artists enchanted LAUSD elementary students at the
Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The children were taught, after a short performance of
various Beijing Opera excerpts, the “basic postures and movements” of the art form,
followed then by a full day of participating in different hands-on activities, including
“face painting and costume, lecture, demonstration and performances” to learn the
fundamentals of the art.
Like Wang, Chang and Cheung, Pourazar laments the loss of interest for Beijing
Opera, especially among the younger generations. “In China, already people of [young]
age are totally ignorant about this art form. Even amongst the older people there are
extremely few who [are] exposed to it continuously for long enough to begin to
comprehend it,” says Pourazar.
The “art form,” Pourazar continues, has become “a museum piece, except for the
tourist shows giving the foreigners the impression that the opera is healthy and
growing.” The reality of the situation, however, is that “out of thousands of plays less
than a hundred can go on stage, out of thousands of troupes only a few dozen provincial
troupes are left.”
Pourazar feels that the only way for Beijing Opera to keep its head above a rising
tide of movies, TV, rock music, and karaoke bars is to instigate reform, arguing that he
has a responsibility to use “creativity” to attract more audience members.
The International Monkey King Troupe’s 2011 performance at the Getty Museum
was just one of many hybrid (sometimes bilingual) Chinese opera productions put on by
the Pourazar-founded performance company, which consists of 17 talented students,
graduates, and senior masters of The National Academy of Beijing Opera. Its goal is to
make Beijing Opera accessible to a worldwide audience. Most of its performances
22
include an introduction to the Beijing Opera form as well as the dialogues of selected
pieces spoken in the English language.
For more than a decade, Pourazar has, along with his troupe, had much success
in creating ‘changes’ in Beijing Opera. The first non-Chinese to have led the National
Opera Troupe of China, Pourazar adapted and directed the Peking Opera production of
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in October 1997, raising quite a few
eyebrows from traditionalists for his use of both opera and ballet to tell his story. In
2001, he took the traditional Chinese opera “Legend of the White Snake” and translated
it into English with subtitles, making it the first ever interpreted bilingual performance
ever to be presented on stage.
Three years later, with help from the Northeast Cultural Coop, a nonprofit
cultural organization based in New Hampshire, Pourazar and his troupe took advantage
of a rare opportunity to introduce American audiences to the Chinese art form by
visiting 14 universities and performing arts centers in the United States as a part of their
2004 tour, “The Adventures of the Monkey King: A Beijing Opera. “That same year, a
web based curriculum titled, “The Monkey King’s Guide to China,” was implemented by
Pourazar, with help from Cornell University’s East Asia Program, to introduce
schoolchildren to the culture and history of China using the Monkey King story and
Beijing Opera as a hub.
A constant Beijing Opera ‘innovator,’ Pourazar often has a double-sided strategy
when it comes to “rescuing” the Chinese heritage: one is to preserve the traditional
repertoire by presenting it the way it used to be, in its most authentic form. Another is to
make things more hip, more “cool,” to attract a generation of uninterested kids who
would probably rather be doing anything else.
23
“Beijing opera was never fixed, it was always changing,” Pourazar said in a 2003
interview with Paul J. Mooney of the South China Morning Post, while referring to Mei
Lanfang, the “cultural broker” who had, nearly ninety years ago, made Peking Opera
more accessible to the American audience.
“[Mei Lanfang] put fashion into it, he was looking at what the audience liked,'
said Pourazar, who often finds himself countering criticisms that traditional Beijing
Opera continues to be ‘watered-down’ by innovative attempts such as his.
Yet Pourazar, like individuals such as Kenneth Pai and Eric Cheung,
acknowledges that change needs to occur if Beijing Opera plans to survive. “It's like
teaching an old man to run,' he says of attempts at reform. “You're not fighting an
enemy, but time. You can't stop nature” (Pourazar October 2003).
Now at age 54, Pourazar divides his time between what he feels are the two
centers of Peking Opera, Los Angeles and Beijing. He continues to create works by
commission and to lead global tours for The International Monkey King Troupe in the
US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. And, since 2011, he has served as the
‘International Liaison’ for the Beijing Opera Museum in China, organizing international
exchanges, lectures, demonstrations, and performances with institutions and museums
(like the Getty) around the world. He’s also the director and founder of the International
Center For Beijing Opera (ICBO), a non-profit organization in Beijing which specializes
in creating, preserving, and promoting Beijing Opera using new techniques.
The goal of ICBO, says Pourazar, as quoted on ICBO’s official website, “is to
reveal the meaning behind the movements, traditions and stories in the Beijing Opera,
thus providing the audience with an experience that brings them closer to the Chinese
people, their culture and history.”
24
These days, Pourazar intends to make use of the rise in digital media and
technology. By taking advantage of his expertise in animation, Pourazar hopes to
pioneer a great cause by creating 3D animation works of Beijing Opera with his
technological team. A new project, tentatively titled, “Legacy: Technology Preserves
Tradition” is still in its beginning stages and plans to record and showcase Beijing Opera
movements through computer technology. If completed, the project will not only
comingle East with West, but the digital world with the traditional, the new with the old.
“We want to start in China and Los Angeles maybe eventually reach Broadway,” says
Pourazar (Pourazar February 2014).
There’s no doubt that Pourazar has big dreams for Beijing Opera. As a performer,
a teacher and an innovator, he shows an unwavering commitment to the art form. Like
Wang, Chang, and various other LA-based Beijing Opera lovers, he happily joins the
fight to help a declining genre continue “blooming” not only in Los Angeles, but all
around the world.
25
V. Conclusion
On the radio, Haipo Wang’s deep and relaxing voice plays softly in the
background as many Chinese men and women prepare to turn in for the night, seeking
rest before another grueling Monday morning commute and the start of another nine-
to-five, or more, work week.
A strange aroma—the earthy mix of freshly brewed ginseng tea, chicken broth
and mandarin oranges-- tickles the nose of a semi-circle of white-haired Chinese opera
singers devoting half its Saturdays to perfecting and improving their pitch, form, and
operatic techniques. They are cramped inside a stuffy warehouse building that has been
renovated into a mini-rehearsal hall.
If you look, listen and even sniff closely enough, remnants on the airwaves and in
physical spaces, of Beijing Opera can be discovered across Los Angeles County. They
may be a far cry away from the magnificently staged spectacles that once enthralled vast
crowds in China, but they are, at least in some way shape or form, a step in the right
direction— toward revival, toward change.
“Just like [in] karaoke-- shows [can be] sometimes very different,” says Haipo
Wang when asked about Beijing Opera in Los Angeles, “but people still enjoy it. Nobody
[in LA] is truly ‘professional,’ nobody [continues to] train since age 12.” But the
Southern California Chinese community still goes to shows because it provides them
with “tradition and a feeling of home” (Wang January 2014).
Beijing Opera, as Wang suggests, is “forever,” and its future in Los Angeles is
looking bright. Not only is it being invigorated by a mix of opera professionals (like
Wang), amateurs (like Chang), and innovators (like Pourazar), but it is also
continuously evolving as it absorbs new influences from its surrounding society and
26
other art forms.
“[It is] same with Chinese food. [The] dish here never going to be as good as real
thing, but [people will] still go try. Maybe they cannot get full satisfaction, but small
taste enough,” she continues.
Wang sums it up quickly: “In Los Angeles, you can get a small taste of Chinese
opera anywhere, even if it is not the most delicious! Too many people love the art to let it
go unperformed” (Wang November 2013).
The future of Los Angeles Beijing Opera lies is the hands of these individuals.
Whether or not their innovative efforts will be of significant help still remains to be seen.
Only time will tell.
27
References
Interviews
Ao, Bing Bing. Telephone interview with author, Pasadena, California, December 13,
2013.
Chang, Wendy. interview with author, Monterey Park, California, December 28, 2013.
Cheung, Eric. interview with author, Monterey Park, California, December 28, 2013.
Pourazar, Ghaffar. E-mail correspondence(s) with author, January 3, 2014, January 25,
2014, and February 17, 2014.
Pourazar, Ghaffar. Interview with Paul Mooney, Beijing, China, South China Morning
Post, October 23, 2003.
Tian, Tiffany. Interview with author, Brea, California, November 10, 2013.
Wang, Haipo. Interview(s) with author, Baldwin Park, California and Brea, California,
October 27, 2013, November 10, 2013, and January 18, 2014.
Publications and Articles
Chu, Henry. “An Old Art Struggles in New China.” Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1997.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-05-23/news/mn-61647_1_peking-opera-
performances (accessed October 23, 2013).
Glionna, John M. “Keeping Peking opera from the final curtain.” Los Angeles Times,
December 17, 2007. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/17/world/fg-opera17
(accessed October 23, 2013).
Goldstein Joshua. Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-Creation of Peking
Opera, 1870-1937 . Berkeley, University of California Press , 2007.
Guy, Nancy. “Brokering Glory for the Chinese Nation: Peking Opera’s 1930 American
Tour.” Comparative Drama 35, no. 3/4 (2001): 377-392.
Han-chang, Tan, translated by Huang Yu-Mei. “Lisa Lu -Actress, opera star, Academy
professional.” China Times Weekly, September 1, 1982.
http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=122160&CtNode=124 (accessed January 14, 2014)
Huang, Alexander C.Y. “Beijing Opera between East and West in Modern Times.” In
Onstage: The Art of Beijing Opera, ed. Kim Karlsson and Martina Wernsdorger (Basel,
Switzerland: Museum der Kulturen , 2011) : 196-205.
28
Hudson, Berkley. “Chinese Opera: Centered in Monterey Park, Clubs of Devoted
Immigrants Keep An Exotic Musical Form Alive." Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1988.
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-05-08/news/ga-3558_1_chinese-opera (accessed
September 12, 2013).
Kurin, Richard. Reflections of a Culture Broker: A View from the Smithsonian.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997: 19.
Li, Wei. Ethnoburb : The New Ethnic Community in Urban America . Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press , 2009 : 2-7 & 90-01.
Mooney, Paul. “Singing for Survival.” South China Morning Post, October 23, 2003.
http://pjmooney.com/scmp-opera.html (accessed February 22, 2014).
Pang, Cecilia J. “(Re)cycling Culture: Chinese Opera in the United States.” Comparative
Drama 39, no. 3/4 (2006): 361-396.
Scott, A.C. Mei Lan-fang: The Life and Times of a Peking Actor . Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press , 1971: 109.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
For over two hundred years, Beijing Opera has been the essential expression of traditional Chinese culture. Audiences around the world have enjoyed its lavish blend of percussive music, colorful costumes, lyric poetry, painted faces and jaw‐dropping acrobatics. Yet, even in the face of worldwide appreciation, Beijing Opera is losing its audience at home. In an effort to preserve the unique musical style and heritage, the Chinese government has tried to revitalize Beijing Opera mostly through creative approaches to building a larger audience. Success, however, has remained elusive. Beijing Opera in Mainland China is in a downward spiral. Interestingly, however, it is also prospering in Los Angeles, California, at this precise time. ❧ Based in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than half the population is of Asian ancestry, hundreds of Chinese men and women have banded together during the last three decades of Chinese immigration to form amateur opera clubs dedicated to preserving and performing Beijing Opera. Through weekly club meetings, annual live performances, radio programs, and other innovative activities, professional Chinese opera artists and amateur opera enthusiasts come together to promote Beijing Opera to a wider audience. They share their passion for China's most sophisticated branch of musical drama. ❧ This thesis focuses on three individuals and artists who represent the past, present, and future of Beijing Opera in Los Angeles. With their help and support, an ancient Chinese tradition continues to live on—at least for the time being.
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
Conceptually similar
PDF
Chewyourarts.com: an arts engagement experiment
PDF
The road to Hopscotch: an exploration of identity with Los Angeles' mobile opera
PDF
Screenwriting in the digital age: for the first time, new technology and distribution methods give feature film writers power to make a living outside Hollywood studios
PDF
One big damn band: an introduction to the Red Dirt musical scene
PDF
At home in Los Angeles
PDF
The Nutcracker network
PDF
Fellowship of the ringheads: LA Opera's Ring cycle and the cult of Wagner
PDF
The art of embarrassment and the embarrassment of art
PDF
The drive home: a podcasting journey
PDF
Jazz in south Los Angeles and its connection to the community arts
PDF
The 818 session: a krump community rizes in North Hollywood
PDF
Skid Row culture: an embedded journalist's exploration of art and community in the nation's homeless capital
PDF
Doing fringe In LA: how three performing artists stay off-beat in the entertainment industry's backyard
PDF
The relevant art museum: views on the role of a 21st century museum
PDF
Three stories of ourselves: architecture’s solution to man’s place within nature as told by Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra
PDF
Georges Delerue in Hollywood: the film composer's legacy, as seen through his final chapter
PDF
Coloured identity in post-apartheid South Africa
PDF
This is country music: How Brad Paisley and today's Nashville ain't as far from Hank Williams as you might think
PDF
Whatever happened to suburban rhythm?: The unsung music of Long Beach, California
PDF
The changing face of arts journalism: an embedding experiment with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Asset Metadata
Creator
Chan, Pamela
(author)
Core Title
An old art in a new home: Beijing Opera in Los Angeles
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism (The Arts)
Publication Date
04/15/2014
Defense Date
04/15/2014
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Beijing Opera,Los Angeles,OAI-PMH Harvest,Performing arts
Format
application/pdf
(imt)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Anawalt, Sasha (
committee chair
), Hynes, Elizabeth (
committee member
), Page, Tim (
committee member
)
Creator Email
pamelac@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-378736
Unique identifier
UC11295997
Identifier
etd-ChanPamela-2359.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-378736 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-ChanPamela-2359-0.pdf
Dmrecord
378736
Document Type
Thesis
Format
application/pdf (imt)
Rights
Chan, Pamela
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
Beijing Opera