JUNE 16 & 17 - 7:30pm
(Music/Dance)  SCENES FROM KUNQU:  China's Classical Theatre
	
Frederic Wood Theatre, University of British Columbia

Show Tickets $20 (service charges and taxes extra) at www.ticketmaster.ca 

Full Details at: www.vanscpa.com

Vancouver Premiere



UBC and the Vancouver Society for the Chinese Performing Arts present world-class Kunqu performers 
Liang Guyin, Ji Zhenhua and Liu Yilong.  They bring this UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible 
Heritage of Humanity to the stage.  Scenes from Kunqu presents five scenes of the classical repertoire over 
two days, including excerpts from such renowned works as The Peony Pavilion (1598) and The Palace of 
Long Life (late 17th Century).  Visiting performers from Shanghai collaborate with members of the 
Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble as well as New York-based flautist Wang Zhensheng and 
percussionist Huang Shirong. 

Kunqu is the oldest and most literary style of traditional Chinese theatre performed today. 
Stylized movements and gestures accompany each phrase that is sung, with strict rules of style and 
execution, much like classical ballet.  Even casual gestures are precisely executed and timed to coordinate 
with the music and percussion. Refinement of movement is further enhanced with stylized costumes that 
also serve as simple props. An accomplished Kunqu performer must master special styles of singing and 
dance to convey the meaning. 

Once so popular that a troupe resided in the Forbidden Palace, Kunqu's literary refinement and high 
technical standards led to its decline in late imperial and modern times. Through Smithsonian Institution 
funding, Washington D.C. will be hosting two Kunqu performances in June 2008. This North American trip 
provides a rare opportunity to bring Kunqu to Vancouver without bringing actors or crew from overseas. 

Though Vancouver has a vibrant Cantonese opera scene and has hosted Peking Opera in the past, 
this will mark the first time that Kunqu is performed here.  

The eighty-minute program on the 16th consists of three selections from famous operas. "Pursuing the Dream" 
from The Peony Pavilion, shows the desperate attempts of a girl to recover a vanished illusion of love. 
"Sweeping under the Pines" from The Lute Song tells of a tragic morality and an abandoned wife. 
An ambitious woman demands that her impoverished husband grant her freedom in "A Reluctant Divorce" 
from Lanke Mountain.

On the 17th, the same actors will present two long scenes for a seventy-minute show. "The Storyteller" from 
The Palace of Eternal Youth deals with the doomed love between an emperor and his favourite concubine, 
set against the fall of the Tang Dynasty. And a wily husband sends an emissary to test his wife's fidelity in 
"A Marriage Proposal and its Response" from The Butterfly Dream.