Chinese opera is a centuries-old art form that is still vibrant and alive today. It combines song, dance, pantomime, martial arts, poetry, acrobatics, stylized costumes and make-up into a world-renowned form of theatre (for more on Chinese opera, click here). Our workshops offer students a fun and participatory journey into Chinese culture. Their guides are teaching artists with decades of classroom experience and a unique combination of classical opera training (in China and Taiwan) and formal study in educational theatre (mainly at New York University). This synthesis has allowed us to conduct residencies across the tri-state area (as well as internationally from Canada to Korea), under the auspices of many AIE organizations, including City Lore, Henry Street Settlement, and Circuit Productions.

Chinese opera is often dealt with as an abstruse, heavy, distant subject not to be touched except by ‘experts’. Our approach is just the opposite – to draw participants into this vibrant art form through fun and participation. This makes it easy for us to draw connections out from opera to broader subjects in ways that support many different sides of the regular classroom curriculum, from language arts to social studies to the arts. Through our workshops, participants learn about the aesthetics and history of this cultural treasure, and about the place and people it comes from, but also engage their own creativity. Hands-on training – adjusted for the age of the students – is central to the workshops, so that participants learn not only with their minds but also with their bodies.

For example, participants not only learn the traditional meanings of the colors and symbols in opera facepainting, but create their own facepaint designs drawing on the tradition. Similarly, after trying on delicate embroidered silk opera costumes and learning their symbolic language, they design costumes that bring together their own cultural resources and the Chinese traditions. The stories of adventure and romance in the Chinese opera classics are used as gateways into Chinese history and culture, as well as launching pads from which participants develop their own pantomime presentations based on anything from their own lives to the superheroes of U.S. popular culture. By the time participants see the full-dress assembly program which typically ends a workshop, they are able to appreciate it in all its subtlety in a much more complete way than they could the presentation at the beginning of the program.

Chinese opera workshops can be arranged at any length from a single session to a semester-long residency, for any age from elementary school to graduate school. We are always eager to work with teachers to integrate workshops into their curriculum, based on the needs of the class.

CTW’s Chinese opera workshops are designed to fulfill a number of New York State Learning Standards in the Arts, Social Sciences and Health &Physical Education:

• Arts Standard 2: Knowing and using arts materials and resources
• Arts Standard 4:Understanding the cultural dimensions and contributions of the arts
• Social Studies Standard 2: World history
• Social Studies Standard 3: Geography
• Health & Physical Education Standard 1: Personal health and fitness