Today Gary will talk about Chinese Opera, or what we call 大戲 (Da xi).
That was the traditional Malaysian art form that my group chose for the assignment.
Given so many weeks to research and write the report but just starting to do the week before submission, this is the common problem of UTARians (or can I say, every college students?).
Last week we had the opportunity to watch live Chinese Opera performance, and interview the performers. It was the first time in my life to watch Chinese Opera.
The details will be written in the report and presented in the class so I won't talk much about it here but
what I want to say is, Chinese Opera, or even other forms of traditional Malaysian arts are dying, not slowly, but rapidly. Lesser and lesser people will appreciate these arts as technology has taken over every form of entertainments in our society. Younger generations would not ever think of attending any traditional art performances to seek for entertainment or to appreciate it, not even me. If this subject doesn't exists, I would not have the chance to watch Chinese Opera.
I said that art isn't art any more nowadays in my last post and traditional arts are dying in this post. Does this means all art will rot and people will forget about their existence?
No I don't think so.
Art is like energy.
Energy cannot be destroyed. It will only transform from one form to another. Just like art.
One day, traditional art will probably disappear but, it will not be destroyed. It will continue to exists in our world in other form. Most probably in other contemporary arts, or even in the memory of people. It may not exists the way it used to be, but its spirit will remain in the heart of people.
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| A lil sneak peek of the Chinese Opera. |
This is your most serious and refreshing post to me because you decided to tackle a tough topic ~ how to keep a tradition alive?
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about how an art form will transform or change to exist in another form but it cannot be destroyed. A very Taoist way of thinking for sure :) In our history though, most of the art forms that have been preserved and maintained and that have survived have done so because of people who are committed enough and dedicated enough to preserve it through their individual efforts of getting funding, performing it in other parts of the world, petitioning it to be considered a UNESCO heritage.
I think some of that is hard to do when you don't have committed young people willing to carry the torch for that art form. I am curious why there are not more young people interested in Chinese Opera in Malaysia.
Could it be because it is not something that has remained relevant to youth? Many traditional art forms remain relevant by changing or transforming in some way, either by incorporating more modern themes in their work or by including the voices of young people as performers or creators of the art form.
Maybe Chinese Opera has not innovated enough and not been able to keep the art form relevant to youth and this is why youth are not interested in keeping it alive. To maintain it, current practitioners will need to go to the root of the art form, to ask questions like:
What is Chinese Opera? What is its core essence?
What is Chinese about Chinese opera? What can we change about it to keep it alive without compromising on its core elements?
Is Chinese language the core element? Or Chinese performers?
What if we have Chinese-speaking performers who are not Chinese? Can they participate in this art form?
Can you use different languages in Chinese Opera? Would that make it no longer Chinese Opera?
These are just some questions that need to be asked IMHO. The question is, are there any people asking them?