Somersault Skills of Chinese Opera

Editor:at0086 | Resource:AT0086.com

Tan-tuz-kung or mat-work acrobatics, is practiced entirely on mats or a thick carpet, hence the name tan-tzu(literally carpet). Training includes somersaults, rolls, falls, leaps and vaults which are practiced on mats or carpets for the students' protection, much as gymnastic training on mats in the West. In Chinese Opera, the actors use highly practiced techniques, graceful and lively movements to express a host of thrilling dramatic emotions from mid-air movements, scurrying and leaping from roof-tops, vaulting over walls, falls and tumbles in battle-scenes, tripping and falling during journeys, riding winds and clouds, to the marvelous effects of the Monkey King, Sun Wu-kung, who traverses a hundred-and-eight-thousand li in a single somersault. The variety of such movements, their basic forms, are all rooted in fundamental movements. And yet often the actors develop myriad variations as a result of their particular physical endowments and hard work. And to serve the demands of the play, actors often sharpen the comical effects, exaggerate the sense of peril, in order to entice the audience who in turn return to watch the performances again and again. For this reasons these special techniques have assumed major importance in Chinese Opera. Not only plays of martial tales, but those of civil servants or romances too, rely much on them, hence mat-work acrobatics forms an important part of the curriculum.

Acrobatic work requires boldness tempered by caution, and physical agility. In practicing them from simple to complex steps, the curriculum assigns movements each week which conform to particular levels of difficulty. Only upon their satisfactory mastery can a student advance to the next grade level. Instructors must note the physical type and ability of each student and instruct accordingly; he must furthermore explain in detail the particular principles of each movement. In this way a systematic plan of progress may be followed. The traditional vice of withholding vital technical "secrets" from students is not to be tolerated in the new national academies.

Full recourse to theories and principles of physical exercise must be deployed in the process of training, in order to develop the students' potentials to the full. One must not be blindly excessive in one's demands and cause injuries to the students. As to the so-called special techniques and great stunts in the dramas, these should be demonstrated personally by the instructor, step by step, and arrived at through long-term practice. To force the students into form by way of cruel physical punishments is decidedly counter-productive and impermissible. Recent modern educational and teaching methods as well as scientific implements all help improve the training effect. We must make full use of such aids and aim to build the students' foundation first, and then expect development in skill and new variations in techniques. Once the student can fully grasp the emotional content of the dramas, and bring to them the results of his mat-work acrobatics in well-rounded performances, eliciting excitement and appreciation of the audience, we shall have made an enormous contribution to the development of traditional opera in modern China. In planning the eight-year curriculum in mat-work acrobatics, we have taken full cognizance of this point.

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