Opera leaves audience on a cultural note

Madame Ping Sun performs as part of the Peking Opera–Quintessential Chinese Art of Singing, Dancing and Martial Art showcase, in Irvine Lecture Hall May 5.

Photo courtesy Scott Stedman.

Billowing voices resonated from the Irvine Lecture Hall Monday. It was the Peking Opera — the Quintessential Chinese Art of Singing, Dancing and Martial Art.

The exhibition included demonstrations of scenes from famous pieces and provided information about storytelling, costumes, typical roles of different actors and the artistic skills of acting and singing. Guest performers Madame Ping Sun and Jinsen Ye, a married couple from Beijing, China, gave a presentation to inform the audience about the Peking Opera.

“It’s a great visual and interactive way to teach students about culture and history and art and everything,” said Wenshan Jia, an intercultural communication studies professor who played a significant role in bringing Sun and Ye to Chapman.

Peking Opera originated in Beijing about 200 years ago and, like traditional opera, performers tell stories through movement, singing and elaborate dancing to create a form of art that combines the best elements of literature, music and dance, according to the website of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Nepal.

Jia said he thought bringing the Peking Opera performers to Chapman would be beneficial for the students.

“Chapman is branded as a university that promotes global citizenship education,” Jia said. “My job is to teach intercultural communication, so I saw this as a great opportunity.”

The event was open to the public, and with about 75 people in the crowd, Jia said it was a good turn-out.

“It looked like everybody was excited,” Jia said. “It was actually better than I had anticipated.”

Samantha Schmidbauer, a senior business major and Asian studies minor, said the event brought in a great audience.

“I hope it was an experience that (the audience) can share with their friends and family and become more interested in Asian culture from that,” Schmidbauer said. “You never know what might stem from people watching a different thing that they’ve never seen before.”

Schmidbauer is one of Jia’s students and said they are working together on two research projects, both involving Asian culture.

Due to her connection to Jia and Asian culture, Schmidbauer said that the Peking Opera was the perfect event for her.

“I’ve been to China before so I’ve had the privilege of seeing an actual opera performance, but for people here, they probably would have never seen that,” Schmidbauer said. “I think it was a great way to really make (students) aware of the arts or, at least, it’s a start.”

Other students, such as senior communication studies major Danielle Molina, attended the Peking Opera for an extra credit opportunity, although Molina said that she was intrigued prior to the event because of Jia’s enthusiasm about it.

“I’m involved with Dr. Jia’s senior seminar class, so we do a lot of research in intercultural communication,” Molina said. “(Attending the Peking Opera) was an extra credit opportunity but it was also interesting to see what was going to be happening because (Jia) described it as a pretty important event.”

Even though Molina was originally driven to attend the Peking Opera for a small grade boost, she said she enjoyed the performances and getting to see how Sun sang and danced.

“It’s really amazing to see how different cultures have their own form of art, whereas we are just sitting here, going to movies and doing stuff like that while they have their own (forms of entertainment),” Molina said.

Molina said a few things about the event could have been tweaked to make it better.

“They could have had some more music or had it in another building where it could have been laid out nicer,” Molina said.

Jia said he hopes the Peking Opera can be brought back to Chapman to perform in the Musco Center for the Arts after it opens, for a much larger audience.

Photo courtesy shengjingyoujian.