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WEEK TWO: MUSIC, DANCE, GENDER, AND THEATER
• SHADOW PLAY
1. Karagöz: Turkey
• Explanation of shadow plays
• The puppeteer and his assistant
• The  main characters
• On the origins of the Karagöz
• Other Karagöz characters
• Social Commentary, Slapstick Humor, Inversion of Logic
2. Bujlud: Moroccan Street Masquerades
• The Bujlud Characters
• The parallels with the Karagöz
• Excerpts from Hammoudi on the Bujlud
• CHINA
• Historical Overview
• Twentieth Century Chinese History
• Movie: To Live
• Chinese Classical Music Instruments
• Chinese Programmatic Music
• Music and Ethics: Confucius, Ethos, and Chinese Music
• Beijing Opera: Jingju or Jingxi
• Baishe Zhuan (The White Snake)
• Duan Qiao, "By the Broken Bridge," from Baishe Zhuan
• Excerpts from Colin Mackerras on the Beijing Opera
• Four Main Roles
• Ensemble:
• Wenchang Instruments
• Wuchang Instruments

Shadow Plays

1.  Karagöz: Turkey

• Shadow Plays are known in several world cultures, such as Turkey (including the Balkans), India, China, Indonesia (Java and Bali)
• In Turkey, this genre is on its decline and is quite rare today
• Turkish shadow play, known as the Karagöz, developed in the 16th century
• According to MEtin And (1987), the name Karagöz and the term kukla, 'puppet', first appeared oin the 17th century
• It existed in Bosnia until the late 19th century (see Hadziosmanovic 1987) -- in the late 1960s or the early 1970s Television Sarajevo produced a short lived series entitled Karadjoz
• Karagöz is also known to have been practiced in Greece (I am not sure what its current situation is)
• The structure of the Karagöz consists of three parts:
• Mukaddeme - Prologue
• Muhavere - Dialogue
• Fasil - Main Plot
• The Karagöz was usually and especially performed in the nights of Ramazan, the month of fasting
• Leather Puppets:
• Kukla, lit. 'puppet'
• Also Hayal, lit. 'imagination', i.e. puppet
• Göstermelik - a set figure, usually a house or a tree (in Java the Tree of Life), with which the play and the first scene opens
• The puppets are flat, clean-cut silhouettes in various colors
• The puppets are usually made of the camel skin
• The skin is well rubbed and soaked in a special solution containing bran to remove its oily properties and to make it softer
• The skin is dried under the sun during the months of July and August. It is smoothed out and treated until it is almost transparent: the hair is removed from the skin by scrapping it with a piece of broken glass. Finally it is rubbed and polished.
• The outline is drawn by applying a pattern and cut out. The cut-out is then stained with translucent vegetable dyes
• Moveable Limbs: legs, torso, head
• Each puppet has either one or two holes, into which the manipulating rods are inserted
• The main hole is located somewhere in the upper part of its body, usually in the neck. In this case, the puppet itself has two moveable parts: the head, and the rest of the body, below the neck, made in one piece. The body of this type of puppet can make a complete somersault with a twist of the rod
• The second rod-hole is usually inserted in one arm
• The holes are reinforced by a double leather piece resembling a socket into which a manipulating rod is inserted from either side
• Realism of the Puppets
• Screen
• Oil Lamp - Electric Bulb
• Projection of Puppets Shadows on the Screen

• Hayalci, lit. 'puppeteer' (compare this with the Javanese dalang)
• Manipulating the puppets
• In Turkey, the puppeteer holds his rod horizontally (in Java, they are held
• Narration
• Voice Inflections: Imitation of Various Voices
• Singing
• The is a so-called "signature tune" with which the puppeteer introduces each puppet/character
• Playing Musical Instruments: Zili Def (tambourine or frame-drum with the zil-s, small cymbals, inserted in its frame), Cymbals - for dramatic accents and emphasis
• A Type of a Reed Instrument (?): buzzing sound

• One of the most popular Turkish accounts about the origin of the Karagöz Shadow Play relates:

    During the reign of the second Ottoman Sultan Orhan (r. 1324-1359) -- the son of the progenitor of Ottoman Empire, Sultan Osman (1281-1324) -- a mosque, known as the Ulu Cami, was being built in the then Ottoman capital, Bursa. Hacivat was a mason and Karagöz a blacksmith. In their humorous conversations at the site of construction, Karagöz and Hacivat entertained other workers so that the work on the building of the mosque slowed down and eventually ceased. After hearing about this, the sultan got angry and ordered that the two be hanged. However, he later felt a remorse for doing this, so that, in order to console the sultan, one of his retainers, named Seyh Küteri, invented a shadow play, with puppets representing Karagöz and Hacivat, and with stories revolving around this incident. 
• See Metin And, Karagöz: Turkish Shadow Theater. Third ed. Istanbul: Dost Yayinlari, 1987, pp. 32-33.


Video:

• Karagöz -- Kusic: "Turkey 1991" (Tape 7, Cut 2 - 1:18-1:30)
• Public performance recorded in the premises of the Istanbul ARIT (American Research Institute in Turkey), on February 18, 1991.

• Women - Zenne
• Ladies, fully dressed
• Courtesans, fully dressed but with their breasts exposed for all to see
• Dandy - Çelebi
• A young, educated man, nicely dressed, sometimes holding a flower in his hand, and sometimes with his half erect penis (phallus) made visible through his transparent trousers
• Hermaphrodite -- sometimes showing both sex the vagina and the penis, the latter being sometimes displaced and put on the puppet's chest
• Karagöz With Penis, usually of great and exaggerated proportions
• The Arab - Arap: speaks with accents and is often foolish
• The Jew - Yahudi: speaks with accent and is stingy
• Drunkard - Matiz (a Greek slang word)
• Dwarfs - Beberuhi
• European - Frenk
• Bok Ana - Gypsy woman, lit. 'the shit mother'

    In the modern plays, this gentleman [Karagöz] always belongs to the opposition. He is either the scoffer of the middle-classes or a man of the people whose common sense finds something to criticise in the acts of the lesser authorities. When police regulations, for the first time, decreed that after nightfall no one should go out without a lantern, Karagöz made his appearance with a lantern, suspended in an unusual manner, imprudently jeering at the authorities because in the regulations did not say that there must be a candle in the lantern. When he was arrested by the police and released again after it had been ascertained that he was in the right, he appeared once more with a lantern containing a candle that he had neglected to light... Karagöz is allowed freedom of speech; he always defies the rod, the sabre and the rope.
(Quoted in Metin And. Karagöz: The Turkish Shadow Theatre: p. 69. Third edition. Istanbul: Dost Yayinlari, 1987).

2. Bujlud: Moroccan Street Masquerades

• Old Man -- Ba Shikh -- and His Wife
• Effeminate Darling
• The Judge -- Qadi
• The Jew and His Wife
• Negress
• Thief

• Inverted Logic
• Sexuality
• Religious Puns, including even the Holy Book, Qur'an

    These 'masks' represent ten characters: Ba-Shikh or Old Man Papa, who for Mouliéras is equivalent to Carnival; his wife; the Ass; the Negress; the Jew and his wife the Jewess; the Qadi (Muslim judge); the Qa'id (governor); and the Guards. Ba-Shikh is a horny old man with a white beard, dressed in "sordid rags" wearing a "goatskin in the form of a hat" and counting a rosary of snailshells. His genitals are prominent: "A strip of woolly sheepskin and two eggplants between his legs serve as his reproductive organs." An "effeminate darling" in disguise plays his wife, with a hollow gourd for a female face and two others for breasts; last, a pot of tar "represents the perfumes of the Djebalian woman." The person playing the ass wears on his head a "veritable ass's skull, bleached and dried out and displaying formidable jaws and teeth." Two large stones sewn into two sacks and a club blackened with tar serve as his genitals. The Jew is dressed in a filthy and disgusting burnoose; he wears the distinctive skullcap, and two cows' tails serve as the "temporal locks of the children of Israel." He must constantly dodge the blows sent his way, and he weeps and carries on. His wife protects him. She wears two gourds for breasts, and her body and face are painted with whitewash. The judge, on the contrary, is majestic with his enormous turban, which is maintained by a complex system of cords, and his rosary of snailshells. Under his arm a block of cork represents the holy Koran, which he uses to pronounce judgments that invariably contradict the most elemental common sense. The governor's face is bearded and "hideous." He wears a long red cap and keeps brandishing his saber ferociously. A complete set of pots and pans is at his feet. Finally, there are his guards: "saber drawn, their faces menacing and full of hatred, disguised like their chief the qa'id, they wait for a word or a glance from their master to hurl themselves on their chosen victim."
    The negress and the thief are supernumeraries in the episodes performed by these characters. Here as well the scenes are of two main types: a satire on local mores, and scenes that turn the norms of ordinary life upside down...
    The governor sets his guards upon the victims he pressures. His favorite pastimes are prevarication and food. The old satyr Ba-Shikh is obsessed with his declining sexual prowess and is ready for action at a moment's notice. His wife drags him before the judge, who pronounces the divorce decree and, in the same session, reads out the act of his own marriage to her! The husband then proposes a compromise: they will share her: "One heads, one tails!" The negress kneads mud to make bread and fixes couscous; as for the thief, he incessantly tries his tricks and, invariably caught and thrown into jail, he is at it again the moment he is released.
    Like Ba-Shikh, the Jew is a repulsive old man, protected but also abused by his wife, who berates him for his impotence. They both speak Arabic with the accent and vocabulary of Moroccan Jews, pronouncing s as sh. The wife drags her spouse before the judge. Complaint: "His soul is dead" (he is impotent). The magistrate condemns the poor fellow "to mount her ten times a night" on pain of jail! Meanwhile, Ba-Shikh, still obsessed, mounts his wife. He is unsuccessful and begs her to guide him. She opens a sack into which he disappears; he comes out crying with fright, "That's not a vagina! It's a well, and I'm afraid of drowning and getting stuck in there!"
    These are the scenes that can be classed as satire. The use of inversion can be seen in the prayers [namaz, salah], which are transformed from top to bottom. Everyone gathers to pray, except for the Jewish couple and the thief. Ba-Shikh makes his [ritual] ablutions on his wife's face and the other faithful wash the ass's head. They turn their backs to Mecca [opposite from the kible, qiblah]. The words of the judge who leads the prayer are gross and obscene instead of coming from the holy Book [kiraat, qiraah]. Everything is done backward, and even people's hands, ordinarily joined for the invocation, are turned outward.
(Abdellah Hammoudi.  The Victim and Its Masques: pp. 17-18. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993).

Video

• Karagöz: Continued -- Kusic: "Turkey 1991" (Tape 17, Cut 2 - 1:30)

Public performance recorded in the premises of the Istanbul ARIT (American Research Institute in Turkey), on February 18, 1991.

China

Introduction

Chronology of Some Important Chinese Dynasties

• Han: 256 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.
• Tang: 618-906 C.E.
• Sung: 960-1279
• Yuan: 1260-1368
• Ming: 1368-1644
• Qing: 1644-1911

Twentieth Century Chinese History

• 1911: The last Chinese dynasty abolished. Republic of China (R.O.C.), based on the Western type of democracy, established
• 1920s: Shanghai, one of the largest Chinese ports and cities, becomes the center of the new emerging Chinese bourgeois society, accompanied by the emergence of the Shanghai Mafia, the new types of entertainment and high-life in Night Clubs
• 1931: Japan occupies Manchuria
• 1932: Japan sets up the puppet state of Manchukoku in Manchuria
• 1949: People's Republic of China (P.R.O.C.) established.
• The communist regime (still in power in China)
• Established by the Supreme-Chairman Mao Ze Dung (d. 1976)
• 1950s: The process of heavy industrialization of China.
• The economic "Great Leap Forward." The Chinese communists intend to surpass the West not only ideologically, as a more just society based on the principles of Marxism, but also economically.
• Enforced mass-collection of scrap metal for Chinese industrial furnaces
• 1966-1976: Cultural Revolution
• Led by a group of radicals known as the Gang of Four
• The main ideologue and the Gang's leader was Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, a former actress especially interested in "purifying" the Chinese theater, its role and mission in the communist society
• Ideologically and dogmatically enforced policy of distancing from the old aristocratic values of Chinese history, and the bourgeois values of the West
• Cleansing of art and music
• Traditional values and art deemed as backward and as a detriment to the Chinese "Great Leap Forward" into Communism
• These values are to be dispensed with, discarded, and thrown on the "dustbin of history"
• Early 1970s: American president Nixon visits Beijing. China begins to open towards the West.
• 1976: Mao Ze Dung dies
• Cultural Revolution ends
• Mao's widow, Jiang Qing, and three other radicals from the Gang of Four arrested and publicly tried
• 1976-1989: Democratization of Economy
• The new force behind the Chinese political screen, Deng Xiaoping, advocates the new policy
"Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend"
• China democratizes its economy and makes experiments with more economic freedom of its citizens
• 1989: Tienanmen Student Demonstrations
• In the spring of 1989, the Chinese students gather at the largest square in Beijing, Tienanmen, asking for further democratization of society and more freedom
• On June 4, the Chinese army intervenes and the demonstration are put down
• The West shows complete disapproval and indignation with this forceful put down
• 1997: July, the British return Hong Kong to China

Movie
• To Live
• Chinese movie directed by Zhang Yimou, 1994. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Cast: Ge You, Gong Li. 135 min.
• Depicting the life history of a Chinese shadow play puppeteer and his family during the turbulent years of 20^th Chinese history, spanning from the pre-communist China in the 1940s and the war between the Nationalists and the Communists, then the Communist victory and takeover of power in 1949, through the early Communist period of industrialization in the 1950s, the decade of Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), to the present
• The first half of the movie contains excellent excerpts from traditional Pi Ying Xi, Chinese Shadow Play.

The second half contains scenes with communist Mass Songs, accompanied by the Western type of brass ensemble (trombones, tubas, trumpets) and occasionally an accordion, with Western harmonies.

Chinese Classical Music Instruments

• Dizi-- bamboo flute held transversally, like European flute
• Pipa -- short-necked plucked lute with pear-shaped body, and with frets extending on the body.  Very often, this instrument is used for virtuoso playing
• Erhu -- two-stringed fiddle
• Yangqin -- dulcimer, beaten with a pair of thin and small wooden mallets
• Qin -- zither with seven strings
• Zheng -- zither with sixteen, twenty-one or twenty-six strings.  Each string has a moveable bridges for pitch adjustment.  The fingers of the right hand usually pluck the strings, while the left hand fingers press the strings down, changing its pitch and timbre, thus creating a special sound quality.  However, a harp-like style may be also used in playing the zheng, in which case the player plays with both hands to the right from the bridges, in arpeggio style.
• Sheng -- mouth organ

Video:
• JVC: "China 1" -- "Han People" -- Cuts 1-5:
1. Dizi with ensemble (0:30-4.20)
2. Pipa solo (4:20-11:10)
3. Erhu with Yangqin (11:10-16:45)
4. Zheng solo (16:50-20:20)
5. Instrumental ensemble (20:20-26.10)
• Seventh MACSEM (Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology), UMBC, 1988.  Concert at UMBC, Recital Hall, Fine Arts Building: "Music of China, India and Turkey"
Cheng Te-Yuan: Zheng

Programmatic Music

• Positive and Negative values in music
• Depicting extra-musical elements, such as the beauty of nature, of the blossoming plum tree, the snow-covered mountain peaks, the flowing river, etc., with music

Music and Ethics -- Ethos

• Confucian ideas of ethos and positive values in music
• Good and Bad Music

• Plato's ideas of ethics and positive music: Plato's dialogues Republic and Laws
• Plato's ideas on education of the Greek youth (mostly male -- young soldiers as defenders of the Polis, the ancient Greek City-State)
• Two types of musical modes:
1. those that cause brave, manly, soldierly feelings
2. those that cause lascivious, effeminate and debaucherous feelings
 
Audio Cassette:
• Chinese Zither Music, "Sea Gull" Concerto -- Cheng Te-Yuan's Works for the zheng
• "Peacock's South-East Flight" -- Zheng Duet.  First zheng: Cheng Te-Yuan; Second zheng: W.Y. Seh.  Side A, Cut 3
• Duet composed in 1981 for the 21- and 26-stringed zheng-s.  Based on a tale from a poem of the Han Dynasty, describing a young woman maltreated by her mother-in-law, who sends her back to her home town, where she is forced to marry another man.  After hearing about the death of her (first) husband, the young woman kills herself.

 
Video:
• "Number 17 Cotton Mill Shanghai Blues: Music in China" -- Qin music (at the end of the tape)

Directed by Jeremy Marre, A Harcourt Films Production, 1984.

Beijing Opera: Jingju or Jingxi

• Jingju: jing, capital, and ju, theater -- The "Capital Theater, i.e. the Theater of the Capital City, Beijing
• Jingxi: jing, capital, and xi, drama, The "Capital Drama," i.e. the Drama of the Capital City, Beijing
• Beijing: bei, north, and jing, capital -- The "Northern Capital"

Introduction

• Theater for masses
• Reached the peak of its popularity in the second half of the 19^th century
• Syncretic art involving the following elements:
• music
• singing: arias and recitative -- narration
• ensemble playing
• rhuthmic patterns
• dance
• acrobatics
• masks, head-dresses and face painting
• elaborate costumes

• Originally, an 18^th century anonymous kunqu drama under the title Leifeng ta (Leifeng Pagoda)
• Tian Han adapted its story as a Beijing opera, and gave it the title Baishe Zhuan (The White Snake)

• The story is taken from the program notes for "An Afternoon of Chinese Opera," a performance of the Han Sheng Chinese Opera Institute, Washington, D.C., produced by David T. Lee, and held on December 6, 1987, in the Baird Auditorium, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.
• Cast:
• Qingshe (Blue Snake)
• Baishe (White Snake)
• Xu Sien, a young man

 

 
 
 

    The story is set in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 C.E.) and the principle characters are Baishe (White Snake) and her companion Qingshe (Blue Snake).  As the story begins these two serpent women are magically transformed into humans.  One day, as they come down from their mountain home at the place called Duan Qiao, "Broken Bridge," in the famous resort known as West Lake, there is a sudden spring shower.  The women meet a handsome young man, who comes to their aid with an umbrella.  he escorts them to a ferry crossing West Lake and accompanies them home.  The young man's name is Xu Sien, and he and Baishe fall in love at first sight.
    Xu Sien visits Bai in her home. Qingshe becomes a matchmaker and soon arranges for their wedding.  However, Fa Hai, a high ranking Buddhist monk, discovers that Bai is not a human but a snake, and he fears that a match between the two will end in tragedy.  Because of his concern, Fa Hai travels from his monastery on Gold Mountain to tell Xu Sien this unfortunate truth.  Xu Sien refuses to believe the monk's story.  Thereupon, the monk suggests that Xu Sien discover the truth for himself by inducing Bai to drink a cup of drugged wine on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival.
    Bai drinks the drugged wine.  She immediately becomes ill and runs into her bedchamber to recover.  There she is suddenly transformed into a serpent.  Xu Sien rushes into the room to bring his wife a reviving cup of tea and is transfixed with horror to see his wife change into an enormous white snake.  He collapses on the floor and nearly dies from the shock.
    White Snake, Baishe, is unable to revive her husband and she undertakes a long, arduous journey to her home on Mount O-Mei to obtain a magical herb which grows there.  After much difficulty she obtains the herb and returns to give it to her husband.
    Grateful for his recovery, Xu Sien travels to the monastery on Gold Mountain to offer thanks to the Lord Buddha for his regained health.  Once there, he is induced by the monk Fa Hai to become a monk himself, and to remain at the monastery.  Bai and Qing soon realize that Xu Sien has deserted them and they proceed to the monastery to demand his return.  Fa Hai refuses to release the young husband and a violent fight ensues.  despite the assistance of a number of supernatural beings, Bai is defeated and is forced to leave the monastery.
    It is at this point that the excerpt "By the Broken Bridge" begins.  Bai has been defeated.  She is pregnant and her beloved Xu Sien is gone.  Sad and exhausted, Bai and Qing rest at Duan Qiao, Broken Bridge, at West Lake, where they first met Xu Sien.  Bai thinks back to happier days.  Qing is furious at Xu's faithlessness.  She determines to kill him on sight.
    Meanwhile, Xu Sien leaves the monastery to find his wife, Bai.  He comes upon her and Qing at the bridge.  he asks their forgiveness.  Qing attempts to kill him, but Bai restrains her from this action.  However, she reproaches her husband for his faithless conduct.  Then, giving in to his pleading declarations of love. Baishe, White Snake, finally forgives him and they are happily reconciled.
    The opera continues as Baishe gives a birth to a baby boy.  At a feast given in honor of this happy event, the monk Fa Hai appears and casts a spell upon Baishe.  She is confined in a pagoda by the shoe of West Lake.  Xu Sien is forced to live with the monk at the monastery.  The son is left to be raised by Qingshe.  After many years, Baishe's son grows to young manhood.  He attempts to visit his mother at the pagoda.  The god of that place, learning of this sad story, takes pity on them all and releases Baishe.  Mother and son are finally reunited.
 

Video:
• "Duan Qiao" ("By the Broken Bridge") -- an excerpt from a Beijing opera The White Snake.  Kusic -- Peking Opera 1, Cut 3 -- Baishe and Qingshe are on the stage -- Xu Sien enters
• Recorded on December 6, 1987.  "An Afternoon of Chinese Opera," a performance of the Han Sheng Chinese Opera Institute, Washington, D.C.  David T. Lee, producer.  Baird Auditorium, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.
• Excerpts from Colin Mackerras, Chinese Theater: From Its Origins to the Present Day:
    As far as the records tells us, all the most important performers of this early period [in the development of the Beijing opera] were dan [female role], that is to say, male actors who impersonated women on the stage.  Wei Changsheng had belonged to this category and was noted for devising a technique for imitating the gait of a woman's bound feet...  Gao Langting, the best-known actor of the early Anhui companies [the late eighteenth century], was also a dan.
    In the last years of the eighteenth century a custom grew up that provided a large supply of dan actors to the Beijing stage and, for a while, kept the dan art dominant.  This was the purchase of little boys in the southern provinces, especially Jingsu and Anhui, to be trained and put on the stage in Beijing.  Specially employed managers were sent to selected cities in southern China to seek willing parents, mainly those whose poverty gave them very little chance to reject any offer of an agreement which would profit them financially.  A typical contract stipulated the return of the child after a given period, but in fact, the parents had no way whatever of ensuring fulfillment.  Even more powerless was the boy himself.  Once in Beijing he joined a training school that was itself attached to one of the major companies of Beijing, especially the Four Great Anhui Companies.  Although their treatment there was harsh, including severe corporal punishment for minor omissions or mistakes, those boys who did well achieved a reasonably high standard of living and sometimes even wealth and fame.
    These boys fulfilled another function besides that of actor.  Wei Changsheng had been a homosexual lover to several eminent men in Beijing, including Heshen (1750-1799), the most powerful minister of the day.  The little boys who followed him enjoyed less choice in such matters, and many of them became boy courtesans.  Although homosexuality among actors had been common since long before the rise of the Beijing opera -- the poet Yuan Mei (1716-1798) was only one among many men to have love affairs with young actors -- it appears to have become unusually prevalent in nineteenth-century Beijing...
    The fact that the young actors were substituting for women, both in social life and on the stage, carried an important implication for the themes of the dramas they performed.  As long as dan actors dominated the stage, the Beijing operas were largely civilian; very few were military...
    In about the third decade of the nineteenth century the themes began to change.  Military scenes based on novels... reasserted themselves.  Heroism replaced love as the dominant force of the Beijing stage.  Acrobatics came back with a vengeance.
    What made all this possible was the rise of the sheng [male character] actors, who were mature and performed the parts of men, including ministers, generals, and various heroes....  The second half of the nineteenth century was the real heyday of the Beijing opera.
(Colin Mackerras, "The Drama of the Qing Dynasty," Chapter Four of Chinese Theater: From Its Origins to the Present Day: 102-105.  Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983)

Video:

• "Number 17 Cotton Mill Shanghai Blues: Music in China" -- A story about a boy training in a Shangai opera troupe (towards the end of the tape, before the qin section).  Directed by Jeremy Marre, A Harcourt Films Production, 1984.
Video: 
• Taiwanese Television Production -- Programs on Chinese Opera
• Training (0:00-16:35)

Four Main Roles

1. Sheng -- Male
• Laosheng: Older Man
• lao, older, and sheng, male
• Wulaosheng: Older Warrior, General
• wu, war, lao, odler, and sheng, male
• Xiaosheng: Young Man
• xiao, small, young, and sheng, male
2. Dan -- Female
• Laodan: Older Woman
• lao, older, and dan, female
3. Chou -- Comic
4. Jing -- Painted Face
 
Video: 
• Taiwanese Television Production -- Programs on Chinese Opera
• Roles (16:40-)
1. Sheng - Male Roles
• Laosheng - Older Man (16:40-17:10)
• Wulaosheng - Older Warrior or General (17:10-18:30)
• Xiaosheng - Young Man (19:25-20:50)
• Wuxiosheng - Young Warrior (20:50-21:40)
2. Dan - Female (21:40-25:00)
• Male-Female Group (25:00-28:10)
3. Jing - Painted Face (28:10-31:10)
• Jing and Dan (33:20-34:20)
4. Chou - Comic male (34:20-37:15)
Chou and Dan (37:15-38:00)

Ensemble

1. Wenchang -- Melodic Ensemble
2. Wuchang -- Percussion Ensemble

1.  Wenchang Instruments

• erhu -- Chinese two-stringed fiddle with hexagonal body, covered with snake-skin
• jinghu -- high-pitched erhu
• yueqin -- four-stringed plucked lute with a round body (sound box, like in banjo).  Because of its round body, this instrument was also known in English as "Moon Guitar"
• sanxian -- three-stringed plucked long-necked lute, with small rounded body, covered with snake-skin
• dizi -- flute
• suona -- oboe type of instrument with the funnel-shaped ending and a mouth piece, made of reed and inserted in the opposite side of the instrument
• sheng -- mouth organ
Video: 
• Taiwanese Television Production -- Programs on Chinese Opera
• Wenchang: -- "Civil Ensemble," i.e. Melodic Instruments (38:25-41:40)
• Jinghu -- the high pitched, i.e. the "soprano" Erhu (39:15-39-45)
• Erhu - fiddle (39:50-40:32)
• Bass Erhu (40:32-40:50)
• Yueqin - the "Moon Guitar," a short-necked plucked lute similar to the banjo (40:50-41:10)
• Sanxian - (41:10-41:40)
• With the male arias (41:40-43:03)
• With the female arias (43:03-43:50)
• Dizi (43:50-44:50)
• Suona (44:50-46:05)
• All wenchang instruments (46:05-51:15)

2.  Wuchang Instruments

• gu -- "bass" drum
• danpigu -- small single-headed drum, seated on frame holder, beaten with a pair of slim wooden mallets
• ban -- a pair of clappers made of two slabs of wood, connected on one side with a string and struck against each other
• daluo -- big gong that produces a falling pitch; it is held suspended on a string in one hand, usually left, and struck with a wooden stick in the right hand
• xiaoluo -- small gong produces a rising pitch
• naoba -- small pair of cymbals
Video: 
• Taiwanese Television Production -- Programs on Chinese Opera
• Wuchang -- "Military Ensemble," i.e. Percussions  (41:40-)
• Gu (51:15-52:00)
• Danpigu (52:15-52:30)
• Ban (52:30-52:52)
• Daluo (52:52-53:00)
• Xiaoluo
• Naoba (53:00-53:10)
• All wuchang instruments (53:10-54:50)
• Bells (54:50-55:15)
• The whole wuchang ensemble again (55:17-)