- Date 2002-04-20
- Venue National Theater
The Feast of Han Xizai
The Han-Tang Yuefu Ensemble
Comments on the Finalist
A still painting is successfully endowed with life on the stage of The Feast of Han Xi-Zai. Combining traditional Nan-Guan music and Li-Yuan dance with its vaguely dramatic plot, The Feast of Han Xi-Zai allows its performers to enact their roles intermittently and less dramatically and therefore visualizes the unfolding of a painting scroll in process.
Heavy wooden stage and colorful costume demonstrate a stylized visual representation and gradation of The Feast of Han Xi-Zai, making a new territory of total theater beyond traditional Nan-Guan performances.
Artwork Introduction
‘The Feast of Han Xizai’is the Han-Tang Yuefu 20th new production. The painting depicts the late Tang bon vivant Han Xizei who live on in degradation escaped the troubled times. This musical drama is excellent showcases of both the subtle and simple classical Nankuan music and the elegant and sophisticated dance of the Pear Orchard tradition.
The handscroll, “ The Feast of Han Xizai “ employs ancient techniques of pictorial narrative to present isolated yet connected scenes of different moods. The artist Gu Hong-zhong deploys fine yet voluptuous lines and colours to depict the form and expression of the characters within the painting, using his brush to unfold the luxurious life of opulence and splendour of aristocrats and officials during their night revels, threading together the episodes in exquisite detail.
About the Artist
The Han-Tang Yuefu Music Ensemble was founded in 1983 by Miss Chen Mei-o of Nankuan ("Southern Winds") fame. Its purpose was to confirm the major role of Nankuan in the history of Chinese music, to trace the origins to its earliest sources, and to train singers and instrumentalists in the proper art of performing Nankuan music and, while energizing the lifeblood of this ancient tradition, rescue it from the brink of oblivion. Productions of the Han Tang Yuefu are marked by clearly defined scholarly goals, a spirit of in-depth cultural probing, distinctive ethnic characteristics, rich legacies in classical art, and highly polished performance techniques. These have together contributed to their refined and superior elegance. For more than ten years as they performed this ancient music at centres of higher learning the worldwide, Han-Tang Yuefu have earned international renown and admiration at various art festivals in Europe and Asia, winning high praise everywhere.
Mei-o Chen
Ms. Chen began her Nankuan study at the NanSheng organization in 1975. Thereafter, she visited many famous Nankuan masters throughout Taiwan, Southeast Asia (including the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) and Mainland China to perfect her Nankuan skills, especially in Nankuan singing and pipa (lute) playing techniques. In 1983, Ms. Chen founded Han Tang Yuefu in Taipei.
Her classical choreographed musical theatre pieces include Yange Xing (Sumptuous Feasting Song) - Liyuan Dance & Music, and Introduction to Nankuan Music commissioned by the Cultural Commission. This work won two Golden Tripod Awards for Best Record and Best Performance from the Government Information Office of the Executive Yuan. In 1996 she completed the Sequel to The Complete Nankuan Instrumental Music and Project for the Transmission and Preservation of Liyuan Musical Theatre, created the large-scale musical theatre Musical Dances Ancient and Modern. In 1997 she won the Global Chinese Culture and Art Award for Ethnic Music. Her new academic works include "Draft of Central China Classical Music", and the essay, "Research on Chin-Son Three Tones and Nankuan."
David JIANG
Born in Shanghai, Dr Jiang graduated from the Shanghai Theatre Academy. He worked in the theatre in China from late 1960s to 1989. During this period, he was a professional actor and director in both theatre and television. During 1980s, he also taught at the Shanghai Theatre Academy as a lecturer and then an associate professor. In 1989, he was awarded a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) to observe theatre activities and university-college teaching at Yale and New York University. He went on to be a visiting scholar in Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University until 1991.
From 1992 to 1995 and from 1996 to 1997, he was a foundation research fellow and teaching fellow respectively in Theatre Studies and East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds, England. He received his PhD there in 1997. After teaching at the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei as Associate Professor for one year, Dr Jiang returned to New York in 1998 and became a full-time visiting Professor the Barnard College, Columbia University until 2000. Since then, he has been working as a director/actor in the UK, China and Taiwan. His main works as a director include: "Miss X", "Amadeus", "The Wilderness", "Pravda", "Return from Utopia", "An Ordinary Day", "Macbeth" and "Much Ado about Nothing".
Production Team
roduction Company： The Han-Tang Yuefu Ensemble
Director : David Jiang
Script Writer : Wang, Ren-jie
Choreography : Chen Mei-O, Hsiao Ho-Wen
Background music : Chen Mei-O
Wardrobe, Staging : Yip Kam-tim
Lighting Designer : Lin Keh-hua
Actors : Chen Shaw-chi, Hsiao Ho-wen, Lee Yi-hsiu, Lu Ya-ting, Lee Yu-shan etc.
