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Event
Pursuing the Verdant Dream: Two Afternoons of Kwun & Yueju Opera
Pursuing the Verdant Dream
Two Afternoons of Kwun & Yueju Opera
3 PM
$15 General Donation
$13 VPES Member, Senior & Student Donation
The Velaslavasay Panorama presents "Pursuing the Verdant Dream: Two Afternoons of Kwun & Yueju Opera" directed by Professor Zhao Gan Li. On Saturday, August 6th, we welcome the Kwun Opera Society, which will present selections from the story of "The Peony Pavilion" accompanied by live musicians. On Sunday, August 7th the California Yueju Opera Center will perform selections from four different opera stories in the Yueju canon, including "The Dream of the Red Chamber" and "The Jade Hairpin."
Originating from different provinces in mainland China, Kwun and Yueju are two distinct operatic styles. Kwun Opera is considered by some to be the oldest form of Chinese theatre and the inspiration from which dozens of provincial theatre forms originated. Yueju opera is the second most popular Chinese opera form in China, surpassed in popularity only by the well-known Peking Opera, and is noteworthy in that both male and female roles are played by female actresses. Yueju has developed into a cohesive art form in more recent times, becoming formalized for the stage just in the past 100 years.
Qiaoer Zheng will perform the leading role in "The Peony Pavilion" presentation on August 6th. She won the
Outstanding Youth Performer Award from the Shanghai Kwun Performing Arts Center and is currently studying
for her master degree in performing arts at University of Hawaii. Ms. Zheng will be joined by Li-Yung Hou,
Zhiying Gan and Justina Lee, outstanding performers and rising stars of Kwun Opera. Musicians from the Kwun Opera
Society will accompany the singers with traditional Chinese instruments.
On Sunday August 7th, Sophie Wu and Mary Wang with play the lead roles in Liang Shanbo & Zhu Yingtai and
other Yueju stories. They will be joined by other professional Yueju Opera performers, including Zhiping Dong
and Jane Zhou, who is the president of The California Yueju Opera Center. Professor Zhao Gan Li, director of
the series, currently serves as a primary Art Director and teacher of Chinese Opera techniques with the Chinese
Kwun Opera Society and the California Yueju Opera Center. She has worked as a theory researcher, writer and
critic at the Chinese Opera Institute in Beijing, and came to the United States in 1994 as a visiting artist.
"Pursuing the Verdant Dream: Two Afternoons of Kwun and Yueju Opera" has been organized by Guan Rong and Sara Velas in coordination with the live performance director Professor Zhao Gan Li, the Kwun Opera Society and the California Yueju Opera Center. Ms. Rong and Ms. Velas have created a graphical interpretation of the well-known opera story "The Romance of the Western Chamber", a serial animation that can be viewed online at http://panoramaonview.org/Western_Chamber.html
Pursuing the Verdant Dream has been funded in part by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Los Angeles and The Velaslavasay Panorama Enthusiast Society.
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LocationThe Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 West 24th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90007
United States
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