Marriage of tradition and modernity

Due to financial problems and a lack of professional performers, many Chinese opera troupes in China today find it hard to continue and have to disband. The type of Chinese operas reduced sharply from 368 in 1950s to 267 in 2005.

Chinese operas, noted for slowness and elegance, can seem behind the times when life in the fast lane is the dominant theme of today’s people. In particular the younger generation is prone to chic modern entertainment ranging from TV series to films, computer games, and karaoke.

Where are the traditional Chinese operas going? How to arouse interest from the younger generation to prevent this artform from extinction? This has become a compelling concern for both top cultural officials and folk artists in the country.

Serveral years ago, Ren Xieyong, the vice president of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Hunan province, submitted a motion on how to save the highlight repertories of local operas at the forth session of the Tenth CPPCC National Committee. Meanwhile, China Association Promoting Democracy also submitted a similar motion to CPPCC. Ministry of Culture gave positive response to the two motions, saying local operas should keep pace with the times.

Under the guideline of the Ministry of Culture, in 2007, China Art Academy and a Hunan-based animation company initiated a project which aims at re-creating Chinese theatrical repertoires in the form of animated cartoons. They have a big plan. According to Zhang Lei, the director of digital art creation center of China Art Academy, the first part of the project includes 100 series, covering 54 types of Chinese operas.

Wang Wenzhang, the director of China Art Academy, maintains that the marriage between Chinese operas and animated cartoons does help in saving and developing Chinese operas which are on the verge of dying. What’s more, theatrical repertoires will offer inspiration for cartoon creation.

“As the adolescents can not easily accept the traditional Chinese operas, we suggest using the form of animated cartoons, which are popular among the young, to show the beauty of traditional theatrical repertoires. This way, our excellent traditional culture can be succeeded to the younger generation,” says Li Jianfeng, a CPPCC member of Hunan province.

The young students are keen to animation cartoon creation. It’s reported that primary students from Changsha, Hunan, contributed to the creation of animation cartoon “Mending Hollowware,” the first result of the project. The cartoon was created after a homonymous Hunan Flower and Drum Opera repertoire, telling the story of how the young girl Lanying and her lover--a hollowware repairer—persuaded Lanying’s mother to agree with their marriage. Altogether 101 primary students from Changsha were involved in creating the images in this product. The image of Lanying drawn by Shao Yidan, a fifth-grade student in Changsha, greatly touched the designers and was developed later into the final image in the cartoon “Mending Hollowware.”

The benefits of the project also go to China’s cartoon industry. Despite the government’s heavy support in recent years, China’s cartoon industry is still in its infancy and the market is dominated by Japanese, American and South Korean products.

In 2006, Thru the Moebius Strip, the first and most expensive animation movie ever made in China, crashed in the domestic box office after its public show. The three-dimensional movie took 400 artists from eight countries five years to make. Containing too much foreign flavor, this Chinese animation movie was severely criticized. Why not turn to the traditional Chinese culture for inspiration, people asked.

At the same time, overseas animation companies were eyeing traditional Chinese culture for new productions. Walt Disney animation hit Mulan was based on an ancient Chinese legend of Hua Mulan who takes her father's place to go to a war. Japan’s animation Houshin is based on Creation of the Gods, the most popular and one of the best Chinese classics of mythical literature.

According to the industry insiders, traditional Chinese culture, including Chinese operas, will be a bonanza for the country’s cartoon industry. Digging more deeply will pay a lot.

Despite the agreement that the project features a marriage between Chinese operas and cartoons it nevertheless will benefit both sides, though there are still financial obstacles on the way ahead. Production expenses of these animation cartoons is extremely high, as animated images, background and music have to be totally created based on correspondent operas. Li Jianfeng has called for more financial support from the government to ease the burden, and she thinks people adept at both Chinese operas and animation cartoons are in urgent need to produce high quality pieces.

A successful marriage or not? People will have to wait and see. Ideally reinjecting life back into a once vibrant art form and nurturing a more modern futuristic one like animation promises to be a fascinating mix for both consumers and producers of art.