Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak

The Languages of Jingju (Beijing/Peking “opera”): Thought, Feeling, and Identity in Visual and Aural Stylization

Jingju, a performing art of over 200 years, is regarded as possibly the highest artistic expression of the rich culture and tradition of China. Combining singing, speaking, martial art forms and abstract movement, Jingju is not only an artistic treasure, but also an archive of China’s history as told by the extensive repertoire performed. The patterns of physical and vocal stylization, percussion, and melody, tempo, and rhythm that characterize Jingju create a rich aesthetic world.

Yang Family Women Generals in Hawaii

The ongoing exchange program between the Jiangsu Province Jingju Company and the University of Hawaii is over 25 years old, and is currently training and mounting its sixth production of English-language Jingju—the widely popular 1960s play Women Generals of the Yang Family. How are Jingju plays chosen for University of Hawaii training and production? How are the scripts and music, the movement and combat, adapted for American college performers? How is training conducted, and what is the design process for these cross-cultural exchanges?

Taking Jingju (京剧 Peking Opera) to China

Last November, the China Seminar heard three Chinese jingju artists discuss and demonstrate jingju roles attendant to the performance of “Judge Bao and the Case of Qin Xianglian” in Honolulu in February of this year. Professor Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, who directed the play and accompanied the artists, then took the opera to a triumphant tour of China in May. She returns to the China Seminar to give an account of “taking Peking opera to Peking.