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Introduction Chinese performing arts

The formative period
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The Tang period

The Song period Written by James R. Brandon

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Yuan period
Last Updated: Article History
The Ming period

The Qing (Manchu) period Listen to article 5 minutes

The 20th and 21st centuries

References & Edit History Chinese performing arts, the dance and the theatre arts of China, tied from
Related Topics the earliest records to religious beliefs and customs. These date to 1000 BCE, and
they describe magnificently costumed male and female shamans who sang and
Images & Videos
danced to musical accompaniment, drawing the heavenly spirits down to earth
through their performance.


In China, as elsewhere in East Asia, the descendants of magico-religious
performances can be seen in a variety of guises. Whether designed to pray for
Related Questions kunqu performer
longevity or for a rich harvest or to ward off disease and evil, the rituals of
What are the major ethnic groups impersonation of supernatural beings through masks and costumes and the See all media
in China?
repetition of rhythmic music and patterns of movement perform the function of
Category: Arts & Culture
linking humans to the spiritual world beyond. Hence, dance, music, and dramatic
Related Topics: China • East Asian
mimesis have been naturally fused through their religious function. arts • performing art

The formative period See all related content →

Singing and dancing were performed at the Chinese court as early as the Zhou
dynasty (1046–256 BCE). An anecdote describes a case of realistic acting in 402
BCE, when the chief jester of the court impersonated mannerisms of a recently deceased prime minister so faithfully that
the emperor was convinced the prime minister had been restored to life. Drama was not yet developed, but large-scale
masques (a short allegorical performance with masked players) in which dancing maidens and young boys dressed as
gods and as various animals were popular. Sword-swallowing, fire-eating, juggling, acrobatics, ropewalking, tumbling,
and similar stage tricks had come from the nomads of Central Asia by the 2nd century BCE and were called the “hundred
entertainments.” During the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) palace singers acted out warriors’ stories, the forerunners
of military plays in later Chinese opera, and by the time of the Three Kingdoms (220–280 CE) clay puppets were used to
enact plays. These evolved into glove-and-stick puppets in later years.

The Tang period

The emperor Xuanzong showed an interest in the performing arts, stimulating many advances in stage arts during the
Tang dynasty (618–907). More than a thousand pupils were enrolled in music, dance, and acting schools. Spectacular
masked court dances and masked Buddhist dance processions that soon were learned by Korean and Japanese
performers were part of court life. Three types of play are recorded as having been popular. Daimian (“Mask”) was
about Prince Lan Ling, who covered his gentle face with a horrifying mask to frighten his enemies when he went into
battle. Some suggest the colourful painted faces of warriors in contemporary Chinese opera derive from this play.
Tayaoniang (“Stepping and Swaying Woman”) was a farcical domestic play in which a sobbing wife bitterly complained
about her brutal husband, who then appeared and, singing and dancing, abused his wife even more. The embezzling
rascal hero of Canqun (“The Military Counselor”) became a stock character in later plays. Thus, by Tang times, three
basic types of drama were known: military play, domestic play, and satire of officialdom; and the establishment of role
types had begun.

The Song period

The variety play (zaqu) was created by writers and performers in North China during the Bei (Northern) Song dynasty
(960–1127). None of the scripts has survived, but something of their nature can be deduced from the 280 titles that
remain and from court records. A play consisted of three parts: a low-comedy prologue, the main play in one or two
scenes (consisting of extended sequences of songs, dancing, and perhaps dialogue), and a musical epilogue. Two, three,
or four variety plays would be included in a program along with a sampling from the “hundred entertainments.” In the
following Nan (Southern) Song dynasty (1127–1279), northern writers continued composing plays of this general type
under the name professional scripts (yuanben). None of the 691 professional scripts of which the titles are known has
survived. Concurrently a new form of drama, southern drama (nanxi), emerged in the area around Hangzhou in
southern China. Originally the creation of folk authors, it soon became an appealing and polished dramatic form. A
southern drama tells a sustained story in colloquial language; flexible verses (qu) were set to popular music, making
both music and poetry accessible to the ordinary spectator. Professional playwrights belonging to Hangzhou’s writing
societies (shuhui) wrote large numbers of southern dramas for local troupes. Of these, 113 titles and 3 play texts remain,
preserved in an imperial collection of the 15th century. Zhang Xie zhuangyuan (“Top Graduate Zhang Xie”) is probably
the oldest of the three texts. It dramatizes the story of a young student who aspires to success, earns a degree and
position, but callously turns his back on the girl who faithfully loves him.

Professional theatre districts became established during the Song dynasty. Major cities contained several districts (17 or
more in Hangzhou), with as many as 50 playhouses in a district. Plays performed by puppets and mechanical dolls were
extremely popular.

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A legend attributes the origin of shadow theatre in China to an incident said to have occurred about 100 BCE: a priest,
claiming to have brought to life the emperor’s deceased wife, cast a woman’s shadow on a white screen with a lamp.
Others suggest the shadow play dates only from the Song period. In any case it was widely performed in Song times in
the theatre districts. Puppets were made of translucent leather and coloured with transparent dye so they cast (like
some Indian puppets) coloured shadows on the screen. In this respect they were unlike Javanese shadow puppets,
which, though brilliantly coloured, are opaque and cast a largely colourless shadow. Shadow plays are still performed in
China. Singers, dancers, actors, acrobats, and other performers were all employed at the professional theatres of the
districts. Troupes were as small as possible for economic reasons, containing as few as five or six performers. They
would tour the countryside if they had no work in the large cities, thus spreading urban styles of performing arts
throughout the vast region of China.

Listen to article 10 minutes

The Yuan period

Scholars turned to writing drama in the Yuan period (1206–1368) when they were removed from their positions in the
government by China’s new Mongol rulers, descendants of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan. They developed the earlier
northern style of zaju into a four-act dramatic form, in which songs (in the same mode in one act) alternated with
dialogue. Singing was restricted to a single character in each play. Melodies were those of the Beijing region. The beauty
of poetic lyrics was highly valued, while plot incidents were of lesser importance. About 200 plays survive, from the
thousands of romances, religious plays, histories, and domestic, bandit, and lawsuit plays that were composed. Xixiang
ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber), by Wang Shifu, is a 13th-century adaptation of an epic romance of the 12th
century. The student Zhang and his beautiful sweetheart Ying Ying are models of the tender and melancholy young
lovers who figure prominently in Chinese drama. Loyalty is the theme of the history play Zhaoshi guer (The Orphan of
Zhao), written in the second half of the 13th century. In it the hero sacrifices his son to save the life of young Zhao so
that Zhao can later avenge the death of his family (a situation developed into a major dramatic type in 18th-century
popular Japanese drama). Huilan ji (The Chalk Circle), demonstrating the cleverness of a famous judge, Bao, is known
in the West, having been adapted (1948) by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht in The Caucasian Chalk Circle. The
class of bandit dramas are mostly based on the novel Shuihu zhuan (The Water Margin) and its 108 bandit heroes, who
live by their wits doing constant battle against corrupt and avaricious officials. The life of the common man is portrayed
with considerable reality in Yuan drama, though within a highly formalized artistic frame. The lasting worth of Yuan
plays is attested to by their constant adaptation to new musical styles over the years so that Yuan masterpieces make up
a large part of the traditional opera repertory.

The Ming period

Plays of the Yuan period were widely popular with the people. When under the native Chinese Ming rulers (1368–1644)
Mongol influence was eradicated, drama was, for a time, forbidden. Revived in the south, it increasingly became a
literary form for a scholarly elite. A renowned Ming play is Pipa ji (“Pipa [Lute] Song”), written in 42 affecting scenes,
by the scholar Gao Ming in the 14th century. Its heroine, Zhao Wuniang, sets a perfect example of Confucian filial piety
and marital fidelity, caring for her husband’s parents until their tragic death and then playing the pipa to eke out a
living as she patiently searches for her husband.

In the mid-16th century, a musician, Wei Liangfu, of Suzhou, devoted 10 years

to creating a new style of music called kunqu, based on southern folk and
popular melodies. At first it was used in short plays. Liang Chenyu, poet of the
16th century, adapted it to full-length opera in time, and it quickly spread to all
parts of China, where it held the stage until the advent of jingxi (Peking
[Beijing] opera), two centuries later. Important kunqu dramatists were Tang
Xianzu (died 1616), famed for the delicate sensitivity of his poetry; Shen Jing
(died 1610), who excelled in versification; and the creator of effective theatrical

pieces, Li Yu (1611–85). A large-scale performance of kunqu for the Qing
emperor Qianlong in 1784 marked its high point in Chinese culture. Kunqu had
begun as a genuinely popular opera form; it was welcomed by audiences in
Beijing in the 1600s, but within decades it had become a theatre of the literati,
its poetic forms too esoteric and its music too refined for the common audience.
In 1853 Suzhou was captured by the Taiping rebels, and thereafter kunqu was
without a strong base of support and declined rapidly.
kunqu performer
Contemporary kunqu performer.
The Qing (Manchu) period
Jingxi, or jingju, came into being over a period of several decades at the end of
the 18th century, during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12). In the wake of the
Taiping Rebellion, kunqu troupes resident in Beijing returned to their homes in
the south. Their places in Beijing’s theatres were quickly taken by opera troupes
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from the surrounding provinces, especially Anhui, Hubei, Gansu, and Shanxi.
Anhui opera had been performed on the occasion of the emperor Qianlong’s
birthday in 1790. Jingxi was born of an amalgamation of elements from several
sources: rhythmic beating of clappers to mark time for movements (from
Shanxi and Gansu), singing in the two modes of xipi and erhuang (from jingxi troupe
Anhui), and increased use of acrobatics in fighting scenes. Undoubtedly, court A jingxi troupe performing a scene from
Baishezhuan (The White Snake).
support for jingxi from Cixi (1835–1908), the Empress Dowager, contributed to
its rise, but it was also very widely patronized by local audiences. It became the
custom to rehearse in public teahouses, and in time these became regular
performances providing troupes with much of their financial support.

Essentially, jingxi was a continuation of northern-style drama, while kunqu

marked the culmination of southern-style drama. Musically they are very
different: the former uses loud clappers and cymbals for scenes of action and
the penetrating sound of fiddles accompanies singing; in the latter the flute is
the major instrument, and strings and cymbals are absent. A limited number of
melodies are repeated many times in jingxi (set to different lyrics), while in
kunqu the melodic range is much wider. Jingxi lyrics are in colloquial language

(they are often criticized as lacking in literary merit). Overall, the newer opera
form is highly theatrical and vigorous, while the older form is restrained, 
gentle, and elegant. Some jingxi are Yuan plays or kunqu operas adapted to the
new northern musical system. Many plays first staged as jingxi are
dramatizations of the war novel Sanguo zhi yanyi (Romance of the Three
Kingdoms), written in the 14th century by Lo Guanzhong. Mei Lanfang, the
most famous performer of jingxi female roles in the 20th century, introduced a jingxi performers
number of these highly active military plays into the repertoire. Kunqu dramas Contemporary jingxi performers.

told a long and involved story in great detail, often in 40 or 50 consecutive

scenes. It became the custom in jingxi to perform a bill of a number of acts or
scenes from several plays, like a Western concert program.

Concurrent with the national forms of drama mentioned before, local opera is found in every area of China (the
different forms have been estimated at 300). These operas are performed according to local musical styles and in
regional languages. General characteristics of most forms of Chinese opera are similar, however. Action occurs on a
stage bare of scenery except for a backdrop and sidepieces. A table and several chairs indicate a throne, wall, mountain,
or other location. (More elaborate scenery is used in Guangzhou [Canton] and Shanghai, influenced by Western drama
and motion pictures.) Actors enter through a door right and exit through a door left. Costumes, headgear, and makeup
identify standard character types. Actors play a single role type as a rule: male (sheng), female (dan), painted-face
warrior (jing), or clown (chou). Each role type can be subdivided into several role subtypes. Actors undergo seven years
of training as children, during which time their appropriate role type is determined. Singing is essential for sheng and
dan roles; minor actors and actors of clown roles must be skilled in acrobatics that enliven battle scenes. Singing is
accompanied by a large number of conventionalized movements and gestures. For example, the long “flowing water”
sleeves that are attached to the costumes of dignified characters can be manipulated in 107 movements. Pantomime is
highly developed, and several scenes have become famous for being enacted without dialogue: in Baishe zhuan (The
White Snake) a boatman rows his lovely daughter across a swirling river; in San zha gou (“Where Three Roads Meet”)
two men duel in the dark; in Shi yu chuo (“Picking Up the Jade Bracelet”) a maiden threads an imaginary needle and
sews. Symbolism is highly developed. Walking in a circle indicates a journey. Circling the stage while holding a
horizontal whip suggests riding a horse. Riding in a carriage is represented by a stage assistant holding flags painted
with a wheel design on either side of the actor. Four banners indicate an army. A black flag whisked across the stage
means a storm, a light blue one a breeze or the ocean. Chinese opera is one of the most conventionalized forms of
theatre in the world. It has been suggested that the poverty of troupes and the need to travel with few properties and
little scenery led to the development of many of these conventions.

Confucian morality underlies traditional Chinese drama. Duty to parents and husband and loyalty to one’s master and
elder brother or sister were virtues inculcated in play after play. Spiritualism and magic powers, derived from Daoism,
are themes of some dramas, but by and large Chinese drama is ethical rather than religious in direction. Plays were
intended to uphold virtuous conduct and to point out the dire consequences of evil. The Western tragic view, which
holds that the individual cannot understand or control the unseen forces of the universe, has no place in Chinese
drama; the typical play concludes on a note of poetic justice with virtue rewarded and evil punished, thus showing the
proper way of human conduct in a social world.

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