Beijing Opera Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Beijing Opera - Essay Example This traditional Chinese theatre differs from opera, pantomime, and drama and puts more emphasis to 'Chang (Singing)', 'Nian (Speaking)', 'Zuo (Acting), and 'Da (Fighting)'. The Beijing Opera originated from the middle period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and entails four performances that include Anhui – Sanqing Troupe, Sixi Troupe, Chungong Troupe, and Chun Troupe that reside in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai China1. Indeed, there were many names for Beijing Opera in its history such as Pihuang, Erhuang, Huang Qiang, Peking Opera, Pingju Opera, and Chinese Opera. However, Peking Opera that was born when the 'Four Great Anhui Troupes' brought Anhui opera supersedes the rest. Beijing Opera manifests itself as one of the cultural treasures of China. Although formed in Beijing, Beijing Opera is not the native-born but a melting opera. In the Beijing Opera, singing has the certain tune that expresses the sentiment of the dramatic persona. Taiwan preserves the art form known as Guoju though it has spread to Japan and the United States. Beijing Opera is the essence of Chinese national drama and has tremendous influence in both China and abroad. According to Beijing Opera, acting is the performance of movement and expression while fighting is the martial arts performed by dancing. At the same time, Beijing Opera appreciates the pleasing stylistic and artistic harmony of the dance and music, and art designs. Beijing Opera has very strict role division that includes Sheng, Dan, Jing, and Chou. 'Sheng' acts the masculine positive role, ‘Dan’ acts the feminine positive role, and ‘Jing’ acts the supporting role of greathearted masculine, while 'Chou' acts as a lively, humorous, quick-witted masculine. Each kind of role also has different face painting and dressing to indicate their identity. More significantly, the Beijing Opera relates to the political and military struggle and has a historical theme. Beijing Opera truly represent China culture because it keeps together the diverse elements of history, mythology, literature and poetry, singing, dancing, acting, face painting, stage fighting and acrobatics in Chinese culture2. However, during the second half of the 20th century, Beijing witnessed a steady decline in audience numbers due to a decrease in performance quality and an inability of the traditional opera form to capture modern life. In addition, the production requirements of the archaic language, and the influence of Western culture is not pleasant to the development of Beijing Opera3. In light of Beijing Opera, performance is an art topic that is very dominant in this Chinese traditional theatre. Beijing Opera performances are renowned for their very vibrant and gorgeous colored costumes. A Beijing Opera performance entails story, voice, music, movement, costumes, and makeup and stage properties4. Aria is the music for the voice of Beijing Opera belongs to the Ban-Qiang. Song music and speech in a Beiji ng performance occur simultaneously with dance movements of the performer. There are about three kinds of plays in Beijing Opera, which include the traditional play, the historical play, and the modern play. The different Beijing performance costumes are fundamental in the Beijing Opera performance. The Beijing opera costumes were mainly made of wool or coarse cloth and decorated with various meticulously embroidered patterns with special and unique stagecraft that draws a lot of admiration and love by the audience. Face painting manifest in Beijing Opera performances to display the character of the specific role and understanding of the opera’s plot5. Beijing Opera facial painting falls into four categories

Religion Experience Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Religion Experience - Research Paper Example It is important to note that Roman Catholic and some of its splinter affiliates has the majority believers population among the Christians and the world at large and this explains why this is a globally observed period with internationally recognized periods of Holiday (Catholic University of America,2002). It is important to understand the underlying concepts that constitute the entire season and the subsequent holidays which have a lot of meaning to the Christian faithful. East results from the lent season which constitutes 40 days after which the Pentecost season begins lasting 50 days. Due to its focus on this symbolic event in the life of Jesus from whom the Christian believers derive their spiritual identity, it remains the central point on which all other religious activities calendar is drawn. It is worth to note that the Easter season is dotted with many other special days before and after and one such a day is Ash Wednesday. This an exclusive day which marks the first day of Lent and falls within the months of February 14th and March 11th at an estimated six and half weeks prior to Easter. Archival records of the early Christianity indicate varied length of lent which was later fixed at 40 days from the 7th century. The lent period is set at 40 days which is consistent with the period Jesus took starving in the wilderness. In respect of that doctrine, believers are expected to go through a period of fasting and sacrificing much of their time praying and helping the needy in the society (Wilkinson & Charing, 2004). This solidifies the faith by an action slogan that is much talked about in the bible and other theological scholarly works. Abstinence from sexual intercourse from every believer is equally expected during this special season as it is generally dedicated to the service of God. The most common mark of celebrating this Ash Wednesday is the smearing of ash on the forehead of the participants as a symbol of penance and this is attached to blessings. It is worth to note that some aspects of this event have changed over time. This is in regard to the application of ash on the forehead exclusively on participants which has lately changed to a case where ash is given to the entire congregatio n during the service and all members in attendance are marked. The religious connotations that were directed towards this event have equally changed from the traditional likening of human being to dust and the new idea of preaching repentance (Catholic University of America, 2002). It is also important to notice that this ash is derived from the burnt palm fronds which previously had been used during the Palm Sunday. Within the larger concept of the Easter season, on-catholic churches like the Eastern Orthodox celebrate clean Monday which begins with the lent period and the only difference in the catholic version is skipping of Sunday with a claim that Jesus resurrected on Sunday. During the Easter season, Passion Sunday is also celebrated as a commemoration to the maiden entry of Jesus to Jerusalem before he was crucified some days later. The event actually proceeds through a procession of palm fronds which constitutes blessing and the same are later burnt to produce ash for the ne xt year’s Ash Wednesday. There are fifty days of Easter season between the end of lent and the Holy Saturday. It is important to note that Holy Saturday is very significant in respect to the celebration of the Easter holiday. This is the day when most Christians across the world begin to prepare for Easter services (Wilkinson & Charing, 2004). In the historic periods of the Christianity people engaged in an overnight fasting in preparation for baptismal of new