Folk Culture Portraiture

As promised yesterday, here is a series of folk culture portraiture photographs. The Taipei Xiahai City God’s birthday is commemorated on the 13th day of the 5th Chinese lunar month, and a two week long series of traditional Chinese and Taiwanese opera performances were held in the public square alongside the temple.

I had the opportunity to photograph two different opera troupes during the festival. The photos you see in this post are from the Xin Ing Feng Opera Company and the Sho Qing Opera Company.

Taiwanese folk opera, a part of the southern school of Chinese opera, is the only form of traditional Han drama known to have originated in Taiwan. Coming from Yilan in eastern Taiwan a century ago, Taiwanese opera saw its greatest popularity in the 1920s and again in the 1960s. The modern form, with its need to compete with modern forms of entertainment, is continually evolving and changing, while at the same time remaining true to its simple, folk tale roots.

Actors and actresses frequently perform in roles of the opposite sex. In its early days, a Qing Dynasty ruling barring women from performance meant that men had to play the female roles as well as male roles. After women began to perform in 1920s, they started taking male roles as well, with the two most famous opera stars, Yang Li Hua and Sun Tsui-feng both becoming famous for their portrayal of male characters in their early careers.

There are three classifications of characters, namely male lead (sheng), female lead (dan) and jester (chou). Originally, these were the only roles but over time these have evolved and there are now eight main characters. Today an opera performance will usually consist of older and younger male leads (lao sheng and xiao sheng), male supporting actor (fu sheng), villain (fan sheng), martial artist (wu sheng), older female lead (lao dan), younger female lead (xiao dan) sorrowful female lead (ku dan) and male jester (chou). Costumes, makeup and manner are often indicative of the role, examples being the male lead’s painted face and bright colors, the female leads bright colors, the jester’s red nose and unkempt appearance and the ku dan who is always crying.

For more images, you can take a look at the full Folk Culture Portrait gallery.

If you have the chance to take in a performance of this traditional art, it’s highly recommended. As well as being a highly entertaining spectacle, traditional opera is a living cultural treasure.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 06:00. It is filed under Living, Travel and tagged with opera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.