They view its success around the world as a point of pride, regarding the opera as an important means by which foreigners come to understand their culture. Yueju opera is popular throughout China and provides a cultural bond among Cantonese speakers in the country and abroad. An important form of recreation, the opera is also, in some rural communities, combined with ceremonial, religious and sacrificial elements into a spiritual amalgam of art and custom known as Shengongxi.

It has developed a rich repertoire of stories ranging from historical epics to more realistic descriptions of daily life. It also incorporates stunts and fights using real weapons and drawing on the Shaolin martial arts, as illustrated by the central Wenwusheng role that demands proficiency in both singing and fighting.

Rooted in the Cantonese-speaking provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi in south-eastern China, Yueju opera is characterized by a combination of string and percussion instruments, with elaborate costumes and face painting. The Chinese tradition of Yueju opera combines Mandarin operatic traditions and Cantonese dialect.

1000-2000 (11B), as well as seminars in early modern and modern Chinese history & historiography, popular culture, and gender & sexuality.īetween language classes and library work, Goldman toured Taiwan with a semi-professional xiangsheng (Chinese comedy) troupe and while conducting her dissertation research in China, after archive hours, she apprenticed with a professional xiangsheng master in Beijing.© 2008 Culture bureau of Guangzhou Municipality : Goldman teaches the survey of early modern and modern China, ca.

She is currently working on two new projects: the first is a transnational look at the transformation of the ancillary commercial sex culture surrounding Chinese opera performance in the first half of the twentieth century the second is a history of gossip from roughly 1750-1850. Her first book, Opera and the City: The Politics of Culture in Beijing, 1770-1900, uses opera as a lens through which to observe court and city dynamics in Qing dynasty Beijing. Goldman specializes in the cultural and social history of early modern and modern China, with particular emphasis on the subfields of urban history, performance, the politics of aesthetics, and gender studies.

Chinese opera history