China and Indonesia!

I love the opera tradition. I have been to about three operas and I just can just never get enough. Because of this, I got excited about jingju or Beijing Opera. After watching the videos in class, I decided I wanted to know more about the costumes and masks that each performer wore as it fascinated me. 

Costumes

Due to the scarcity of props, costumes are of huge importance in Beijing opera. Costumes function to establish the rank of the character being played. Each character, depending on their rank or age, are given different colored robes to wear.

Emperors and their families normally wear yellow robes and high-ranking officials wear purple. The typical robe worn by these two groups is called a mang or python robe. The python robe features brilliant colors and rich embroidery that are often in the design of a dragon. People of high virtue wore red while the lower ranked people tended to wear blue. Children wore white, the old, wore white, brown or olive while everyone else wore black.

On formal occasions, the lower ranked officials may wear the kuan yi, a simple gown with embroidery patches on both the front and back. On informal occasions, all other characters wear the chezi, a basic gown with varying levels of embroidery. Those typically did not have jade girdles to denote rank. Every gown or robe have water sleeves that are attached to facilitate emotive gestures. The characters who are least important or of no rank wear simple clothing with the absence of embroidery. Hats are intended to blend in with the rest of the costume and will have a matching level of embroidery. 

Mask color and meanings

Red: positive character

• Prosperity
• Loyalty
• Courage

Purple: substitute for red

·         Justice

·         Sophistication

Black: neutral Character

·         Impartiality

·         Integrity

Blue: neutral character

• Stubbornness

Green

•   Violent
• Impulsive

Yellow- cruel character

•   Evil
• Ambitious
• Sly

White- evil character

·         Hypocritical

Gold and Silver- Demon or seen as mystery

·         Ghost

·         Spirit

Indonesia

Kecak was a dance I did not quite understand but I decided to look more into it as it was very interesting. Some of the other musical concepts were interesting but the kecak really stood out to me because it was something I had never seen before. I wanted to, essentially, know more about the tradition and where it came from. Here is what I found.

Kecak is a form of Balinese Hindu dance and music drama that was developed in Bali, Indonesia in the 1930’s. It has been performed primarily by males until 2006 when the first women’s kecak was created. The dance is based on the story of the Ramayana and was traditionally performed in temples and villages across Bali. The dance is performed by 150 performers who wear checkered clothes around their waists. They chant ‘chak” while moving their arms and hands. The dance typically depicts a battle in which the monkey-like, varanas, helps prince Rama fight the evil king Ravana. The dance also has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance. The duration of a typical kecak is around an hour and they are performed in the evening daily (around 6 PM Bali time). The dancers are either the chanters or the main Ramayana dancers who play the bigger roles.

I am attaching a video of the Kecak being performed by women. I think it’s neat that women have the same tradition, so I want to share it with all of you. 

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She rose to fame from her performance on the first season of the iQiyi television show The Rap of China. Her song “My new Swag” was featured in the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians.