Hello everyone. So, here’s where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks. My deepest gratitude to all the wonderful guest posters who kept the machine running smoothly over here while Jackie and I were tripping around Beijing and Shanghai. This is for you…
Alright, I can’t fight with Flickr’s slideshow anymore. Please click the photo above to see some select pics from the big China trip.
Simon Ogden 
Welcome back to Canada Simon. Great photos!
Were you able to get a sense of what’s happening with theatre in China?
Thanks Ian. I think I did somewhat, but I certainly didn’t get near enough of a chance to really explore Chinese theatre like I wanted to. Big country for a short trip, that China.
The big stage there is still the opera, it’s a proud part of their cultural heritage that the government is working hard to preserve. The smaller theatre, the medium-stage stuff seems to be a lot of stylized pantomime-like plays, heavy makeup and masks, overwrought performances, that kind of thing.
Interestingly, for a country with a iron-fist government, contemporary art is absolutely booming there, and this extends to the theatre as well, and the government seems content to allow a certain amount of sanctioned dissent within the professional arts as long as it maintains its current profitability. (Ironic works concerning Mao are even left alone.) So in some artsy areas there is some contemporary message theatre being done in a realistic manner, although they don’t seem to have much of a tradition of realism like we have here. It’s hard to find though, you have to be able to do some exploring into the arts community to find it.