2018 Peking Opera Festival
It’s another weekend my friends, this week instead of reporting back to you via my smartphone while sweating inside a tent camping in the wilderness worrying about bears, I am back to more familiar terrestrial territory being a spectator and reporting on new live international cultural events.
Today we were invited to the 2018 Peking Opera Festival at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in Greenwich Village, downtown’s premiere cultural center for the arts.
Our good friend magician, author, film-maker, and actress Grace Chang who was the emcee of the event was super-cool enough to invite us as her special guests by giving us 2 V.I.P complimentary reserved tickets for the Sunday afternoon performance.
What an incredibly colorful spectacle of song, dance, romance, and combat this opera was!
It was a very hot day in NYC, and the performance was located directly across the street from historic Washington Square Park, where we relaxed and killed some time before going into the opera house.
Dance, Acrobatics, and Combat
Peking opera is a form of Chinese opera which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century. It remains highly popular in Chinese culture today, and has also spread to other countries such as the United States and Japan.
The form was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court and has since come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China. Major performance troupes are based in Beijing and Tianjin in the north and Shanghai in the south. The art form is also preserved in Taiwan (Republic of China), where it is also known as Guójù.
Peking opera features four main types of performers. Performing troupes often have several of each variety, as well as numerous secondary and tertiary performers.
With their elaborate and colorful costumes, performers are the only focal points on Peking opera's characteristically sparse stage. They use the skills of speech, song, dance and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive, rather than realistic.
Above all else, the skill of performers is evaluated according to the beauty of their movements.
Performers also adhere to a variety of stylistic conventions that help audiences navigate the plot of the production. The layers of meaning within each movement must be expressed in time with music.
Melodies include arias, fixed-tune melodies, and percussion patterns. The repertoire of Peking opera includes over 1,400 works, which are based on Chinese history, folklore, and, increasingly, contemporary life.
A wonderful day to experience the sunshine, eastern culture, dance, and art.
Such cultural experiences in all art forms opens the mind to new possibilities.
Now its time for my meditation!
Hope you are having a most colorful weekend!
Cheers,
Kaju
Recent Comments
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Very interesting. I enjoyed your post and pictures immensely.
Thanks so much!!
All the best,
Wendi :)
How absolutely beautiful, thanks for sharing!
We love living down here in Ecuador, but sometimes, we do miss these incredible presentations that you are able to attend in the Big Apple.
You are always a VIP! To us, for sure!
Have a great week, Kaju.
Awww, that's really sweet. Thanks so much my dear friends Colette & Philip! Such diverse cultural presentations which I love occur in so many of the larger major metropolitan areas in the world, not only NYC.
Are there such non-indigenous cultural events in Ecuador's major city? Or are they only limited to the largest cities on the continent, such as Rio De Janeiro and Buenos Aires?
Have a wonderful week!
They do happen, but generally in the capital city of Quito, where we first lived, or the other major, largest, city in the country, Guayaquil.
Manta, where we live, has a population of about 300,000. The main industry is tuna (3rd largest world producer), so not many cultural events here.
We shall live vicariously through you! When you post, we feel like we are participating, anyway;)
Hi Kaju
What an Amazing surprise for New York Peking Opera Kaju you Certainly get invited to so many Functions / Live Performances /
Shows .. Please remember to report on being a Film Critic plus Instagram
Many thanks
David
PS your post was so Balances with Photos and Content written
with Oriental style and flow loved it
Glad you enjoyed this post David! It was a wonderful last-minute surprise to get "comped" these great tickets 3rd row ($100 per ticket cost) by our dear friend who was the emcee.
There is an even deeper behind the scenes story of giving and "paying it forward" associated with Grace Change, who comped us those seats.
I think I will share that story in a separate post.:)
That's a great question Yoko. We know people who make their living in entertainment. conversations happen and we get invited, and often comped. I can't really complain!
Thank you for taking the time to tell of your experience, and thank you for some lovely photos.
Derek
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I have to say friend that I am glad it was you that was there and not me as opera is not something that I like. Now for sitting in the park in the sunshine I would have been ok with.
As long as you enjoyed it though, that is the main thing here. Certainly beats camping in a tent with the lions and tigers and bears oh my lol. xxxx
Both have there benefits and their own inconveniences, C! Yes I agree, bad opera can be rather boring!
But this wasn't that!
Glad to hear that friend. I have only been once to opera and once to ballet and found them both very boring. xxxx
Yep, ZZZZZ...that's what bad opera can do!
Any opera does that to me lol. zzzzzzzz xxxx
Lol!!
Check this out, but don't be having any zzzzzz or you may just miss something lol. xxx
Hahaha!