Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang's Chinese Montage: Modernizing Peking Opera Through Recomposition

Abstract

Abstract: This paper examines the efforts of Qi Rushang and Mei Lanfang to transform the traditional Beijing opera into a new art form for the modern audience during the 1930s. The method of Chinese montage they used, which they named as "recomposition," is essentially a technique that deconstructs and reassembles the elements of traditional opera, such as gestures and mise-en-scene, while keeping intact its traditional essence. This paper hopes to interpret the connections between Eisenstein, Brecht, and Peking Opera, so as to explore the strong correlations between artistic forms and montage across borders in the 1930s. It highlights the fact that while the concept of recomposition was noted in the West by such figures as Eisenstein, the form of Chinese montage was not derived from the European or Eisensteinian montage. Instead, it served the purpose of tackling local issues and specific aesthetic problems. This paper concludes that Mei Lanfang and Qi Rushan's legacy lies not so much in preserving the traditional repertoire, as in transforming Peking opera into an art form that is simultaneously the most modern and the most traditional.

Key words: Chinese montage, recomposition, modernism, Peking opera

Zhao Tingting. Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang's Chinese Montage: Modernizing Peking Opera Through Recomposition[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(6): 130-137.

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