New Year's Opera & Puppets

New Year’s Opera & Puppets

9 February 2008 - Saturday

The Chinese New Year celebrations last for about 14 days after New Year’s Day (Feb 7), so there are lots of things going on around the city. Now that we live so far away from the main venues, I have not been as good at enjoying the celebrations as I was last year. But today I decided I needed to get out.

I had read in the paper about a performance by The Sichuan Opera & Huge Puppet Troupe of China. The location was on the southwest side of HK Island, so just getting there took some effort. I studied the map & got onto the bus web site & mapped my way over. I had planned to take one of the Red Minibuses, which I don’t normally take. The regular bus companies do not run them & they don’t really have a regular route, they are basically very confusing. BUT the reason I wanted to try it was because the past few days as I stood waiting for the bus for 20 minutes, about 10 red minibuses went by, so I was very curious where they were going. But of course today, the bus to HK Island came before a red minibus, so I hoped on. I had to change buses to get to where I wanted, but I had my trusty map book & it all went very smoothly.

The performance took place in the atrium of a mall. It consisted of several short performances. The first was called fighting the eye of Buddha (that’s the 3rd eye in the middle of the forehead). This was part of the opera group, but fortunately no singing was involved, just music. A man dressed in very elaborate costume was the main character & he did a very stylized dance. Two younger men who did a lot of acrobatics were also involved. The costume was great, down to the curly tipped, flat-bottomed shoes & the hat that had huge long extensions that ended in red fuzzy balls.

The next performance was the lady in red. It was one of the huge puppets. The puppet is a life-sized figure set onto a long pole that the puppeteer holds, so that the puppet is over his head. There are 2 more poles at the puppet’s wrists & the puppeteer holds these in one hand and works the arms with them. The puppet’s costume has long flowing sleeves that are probably 20 feet long & as the puppeteer moves the puppets arms, the sleeves flow in long circles. It is amazing how he could get the sleeves twirling using just the one hand controlling the arms while he moved the puppet around above his head holding it up with his other hand. As the puppet danced so did the puppeteer, sort of acting as an extension to the puppet, almost like it’s legs.

The next act was a man who had upset his wife for doing something wrong, so he was being punished by having to do stunts with a bowl on his head that contained a burning wick. The wife & husband bantered back & forth & had great expressions. Everyone was laughing at them. The guy went under 2 benches, then stood on top of them while lifting one leg over his head (all with the lit lamp). A very amusing, but skillful act.

Then there were 4 huge puppets that were supposed to be butterflies. Again long flowing wings attached to the arms that the puppeteers maneuvered with one hand. There were smaller puppets, but still with the poles that were a father & daughter on their first trip to Tibet. She carried flowers & he a pipe that he twirled around. Then was a long haired guitar player & flower child puppets that played a sort of Chinese rock & roll song. The flower child puppet did some great chest shaking & shimmying. There were 3 hula dancing puppets who did a good deal of hip gyrating & shimmying as well. These were all the same huge puppets on the poles. Very clever.

Another opera act was a woman who was supposed to be a mermaid discovering the wonders of being outside of the ocean. There was that squeaky high pitched Chinese opera singing in this performance, so I was glad when it was over. The final act was a combination of 3 huge puppets & 2 of the opera actors. It was the famous face-changing act (I’d never heard of it, but from the reaction of the crowd, it was very popular). The puppets & actors all had very dramatic looking masks on their faces. They danced around & they would stomp there foot & suddenly the mask on their face would change to a completely different mask. I couldn’t figure out how the did it. There obviously were several layers of different masks as each character changed masks many times, but it was instantaneous & they didn’t even turn away, it just flashed into a new mask. At one point the actors went to their real faces, only to change to another mask at the end. It was pretty impressive I must say.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to catch a Lion & Dragon Dance performance. These are the traditional New Year’s performances & take place all over for the 2 weeks following New Year’s Day. They usually have very loud drums accompanying them. I must have missed one this morning on the beach, because I could hear the drumming from the apartment. When I went out for my walk they were packing up the drums. I think they were accompanying a swimming event on the beach. When I got to the beach for my walk there were lots of people getting out of the water, kids & adults. Lucky for them it was a sunny day today. There was a table covered with trophies, so obviously a competition. They are brave souls, it’s still been in the 50, so I guess the water might feel warm in comparison, maybe I’ll have to give it a try!