Under the spotlight of the dressing room, actors are wearing their makeups and colorful head-dresses. Makeup artists are putting foundation makeup, applying oil paint, painting eyes, wrapping up hair with veil and pasting hairpiece on faces for characters of Dan (female role) who will soon be on stage.
Shenyang North Market Peking Opera Group, a non profit group founded in 2012, consists of more than 50 Peking Opera lovers. The group organizes more than 100 benefit performances a year for the general public. Shenyang Heping Cultural Center provides them with a spacious venue for rehearsal and Shenyang Laobeishi Theater across the street is where they perform. Laobeishi Theater enjoys a long history, and masters of Peking Opera like Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, and Xun Huisheng have all once performed here.
Among opera lovers who often come here for rehearsal are retired performers, disciples of master Sun Yumin of Xun School, and for most of the time, a group of amateurs. A bunch of little fans only beginning to learn opera attract most attention. They learn, fall in love with, and inherit Peking Opera at this very place.
7-year-old Shen Chuhan is the youngest opera fan at Shenyang North Market Opera Group. She has just learned opera for about 3 months, but her performance is rather impressive. She played Mu Guiying, a character of Dan, at the time. After dressing up with the help of the makeup artist, she began to practice orchid fingers and sleeve movements in front of the mirror while looking at the demonstration by her coach Li Jing. She folded up her sleeve with a thumb up, crooked it towards the fold, and pushed her index finger to toss up the sleeve.
“I officially began to learn Peking Opera at the ‘Opera at Campus’ event. But a lesson of 40 minutes per week was not enough for me at that time. Therefore，I would take extra classes here from Ms. Li Jing,” Shen Chuhan laughed, “I bought the costume of Mu Guiying myself. I am planning to start growing my hair in preparation for making a hairpiece.”
13-year-old Ma Yuanye，who is learning to play Laosheng, the elderly male role, once played Huang Zhong in Dingjun Mountain at school. He changed his blue costume into a yellow one and listened to Zhao Baoyi, the leader of the group. “The character in the blue costume is Wang Yun in The Banquet, what you play now is Dong Gaogong in Wenzhao Pass,” he pointed at the one playing Wu Zixu, “in Wenzhao Pass, Dong Gaogong saved Wu Zixu.” Zhao Baoyi corrected Ma Yuanye’s action of holding the fan while telling him the storyline.
“During my rehearsal at the opera group, I always admired the seniors’ passion for opera. They not only taught us the opera, but also told us the characters’ stories, as well as the origin and development of Peking Opera to help beginners understand it more deeply,” said Ma Yuanye, “I will be entering junior high school after this summer. However, I will keep on learning and inheriting Peking Opera to allow more people to perceive its beauty.”
