Unfortunately, I did not get to attend a live performance. My fiancé and I both agree that the performance we watched would have been great live. I chose to watch a Chinese Dance-drama play called Confucius performed by the China National Opera and Dance-drama Theater. I haven't watched any dance dramas in my lifetime, so I had no idea what to expect. I tried to find subtitles because I thought the performance would be in a different language. Going into this though I thought I would not enjoy it at all. I dragged my fiancé in as well to see how she reacted to the performance. I must say she was not happy about this at first. Confucius did not seem like an interesting topic being that he was a philosopher. In the end, we both were pleasantly surprised.
This Dance-drama was directed and choreographed by Kong Dexin. The main Dancer of this Dance-drama was Hu Yang who portrayed Confucius. The character Nanzi was portrayed by the Dancer Tang Shiyi. The Dance-drama premiered in 2013 and the dance production has toured Asia, Europe, and Australia. In 2017 the drama was performed in New York at the Lincoln Center
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The Dance-drama looked to be set in an ancient Chinese setting. The period time was in BC. Time. According to the research I did Confucius lived from 551 BC to 479 BC. Which matched up with the look of this Dance-drama. The actors and actresses were dressed in traditional Chinese garbs. They usually offset the colors in the background with brightness while the background was more earth tone for most of the Dance-drama. It made me feel like I was looking at something from the past.
What made this different in my opinion is how there were no words, but It told a wonderful story nonetheless. If I were to go into this Dance-drama not knowing who Confucius this is how I would say the story played out. The main character Confucius has some sort of message or prophecy on a scroll. He attempts to give the message to the emperor but is denied by the emperor’s top advisor. Confucius was able to then get the scroll to the emperor’s daughter or wife. She then read the message and had the struggle to figure out if she wanted to give the message to the emperor. He then convinces her to let him read the message. The information on the scroll was very upsetting and caused the emperor to go crazy. At this time the emperor’s top advisor sees this and decides to overthrow the emperor and take his place. The new emperor then had people go after the daughter of the old emperor. She was captured and tied up. Confucius had gone off to be with the poor people while the new emperor attempted to find him. Once he found him Confucius did not pay him any mind the emperor toyed with the poor people which seemed to agitate Confucius. The emperor and his staff then went after Confucius and three of his followers. There was a fight between everyone and during this fight, Confucius's three followers were killed but he was able to get the emperor to leave. The death of his followers hurt him and sent him into a depression. He then had an enlightened dream that took him out of the depression. Confucius then decided to write his messages and share his message with a lot more people. During his travels, you can see different forms of Chinese culture through the dancing techniques and costumes such as the women's dance piece where they did graceful dancing dressed in blue dresses with very long sleeves. After this you see the prince again it appears, that she is in another area of China. I got the feeling of freedom when she danced. It was like she broke away from what she went through earlier in the play. The next part of the play showed an emperor rewarding Confucius with a sword which he cherished deeply. I think this was an accomplishment during his journey. The ending to me was kind of confusing. Confucius had a vision that looked like it took place in the past. In this vision,
you could see an emperor, who I believe was the same emperor who gave him the sword, kill a man. You could also see the emperor’s guards killing a homeless man. At the end of the vision, there was a breakthrough moment where it seemed like ancestors from the past guided him out of that darkness and put him back on the right path of helping people. Which you can see he did in the end.
I want to point out again that this Dance-drama surprised me. I was able to feel every emotion they portrayed without them saying a word. The thing I connected to the most is how Confucius keeps getting knocked down and getting back up better. This can be seen when the emperor killed his followers, but Confucius had a vision of prosperity and came back with a better message that helped even more people. I feel like this Dance-drama was more of a personal story of Confucius. It was confirmed that Kong Dexin is a descendant of Confucius thus having a more family influence on the story that we may have never known about. I think that is what made me enjoy this performance. It was not just an informative piece that you can find anywhere online. Going into this assignment I thought this was going to be the most dreadful experience because I did not want to go the Chinese action movie route. After finishing this performance my fiancé and I both agree that we must see this in person if they decide to do a tour again.
Work Cited
- “Chinese Dance-drama – Confucius” YouTube, uploaded by Duke of Qin, 5 April 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96wKZYOPR5A&t=3761s
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Drama Performance Analysis Essay.
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