The Confucius Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) delivered a lecture on Chinese opera at Classroom 5.316 of Humanities Building on the evening of February 15, 2012 with great success which invited Mr. Peng Jingquan, a famous Chinese performance artist, to introduce traditional Chinese opera. Nearly a hundred Chinese opera amateurs from universities and local communities and students majored in arts attended this excellent lecture.

Mr. Peng is a famous performance artist, playwright and director of films and TV plays in China. Once worked at Hunan Huagu Opera Troupe, Mr. Peng became a performance artist of martial role in Peking opera. Featured by a fine sense of humor and demonstration performances, his lecture won rounds of applauds from the audience. He started from the composition and internal meaning of the two Chinese characters that form the Chinese word for opera, types and performance characteristics of opera and shed light on Hunan Huagu opera and Peking opera’s origin, roles, figures, list of plays, phonology and music, facial makeups and costumes, essential techniques and performance forms, as well as performance customs. He also analyzed the feelings of delight, anger, sorrow, joy, shock, fear and grief and the differences of good and evil, beauty and ugliness of figures from both theoretical and pragmatic perspectives. By combining the aria and performance, Mr. Peng distinguished and explained sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted-face roles), and chou (clowns). This vivid lecture enabled the audience to understand basic knowledge on the one hand, and enjoy the lively performance on the other.

Director Peng, on his 3-week visit to the Confucius Institute, will join hands with the Art and Performance Department of the School of Arts and Humanities at UTD in studying on performing arts. Besides that, he has also arranged three lectures and cultural events.