Special Exhibit | Staging Theater: Chinese Operatic Practice and Performance

This exhibition will be open every day, April 12-June 30, during Hatcher Library open hours.

Featuring the vibrant paintings of Peking opera face patterns, performance props, and rare books, this exhibition is a tribute to the University of Michigan's commitment to the presentation of Chinese operatic arts and culture. In the Winter Semester of 2019, a Peking opera performer specializing in the jing 淨 role engaged in a Chinese New Year artist-residency; the renown Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theater of Jiangsu Province, China, stages a production of The Lute (Pipa ji 琵琶記); and an international conference examines the critical role of media in the making and remaking of Ming-Qing literature and performance.

All of these endeavors offer the U-M faculty, staff, and students and Michiganers a chance to experience and embrace Chinese operatic arts and literary culture at the highest level and to introduce to the audience traditional Chinese aesthetic and moral values and their challenges and meanings in traditional and contemporary contexts.

Please visit https://ii.umich.edu/lrccs/news-events/events/videos-of-past-events.html to access the online recording of Peking opera performer, Li Yang, in vocal recitation and in the practice of hand painting his own operatic face pattern. Introductions are provided by Professor David Rolston and LRCCS Postdoctoral Fellow Anne Rebull with Professor Joseph Lam being painted at the end of the program as the character Cao Cao

This exhibition is co-organized by Carol Stepanchuk and Liangyu Fu, and is sponsored by the U-M Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. Special thanks to Professor Joseph Lam, Professor David Rolston, and the Confucius Institute.

Photo caption:
Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theater of Jiangsu Province, China