Meeting of the Eyes: Invented Gesture, Cinematic Choreography, and Mei Lanfang's Kun Opera Film
Overview
This article by Xinyu Dong examines Mei Lanfang's pioneering work in adapting traditional Kun opera to cinema, focusing on his innovative use of gesture and body language as a female impersonator. The paper analyzes the transition from traditional stage performance to cinematic adaptation, exploring how Mei's collaboration with scriptwriter Qi Rushen helped revitalize and internationalize Kun opera through film. Dong argues that cinema's visual techniques—camera angles, editing, and framing—enhanced the expressivity of classical Chinese opera.
What this research paper covers
- Introduction to Mei Lanfang's life and career in Kun opera and his role in Dream of the Garden
- Analysis of the transition from traditional Kun opera to Peking opera and cinematic adaptation
- Examination of Mei's signature performance techniques and mastery of gesture as a female impersonator
- Comparison of cinematic effects versus traditional stage performance using visual analysis and figures
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Article Review: Meeting of the Eyes: Invented Gesture, Cinematic Choreography, and Mei Lanfang's Kun Opera Film
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Article Review: Meeting of the Eyes: Invented Gesture, Cinematic Choreography, and Mei Lanfang's Kun Opera Film
This article was written by Xinyu Dong from the University of Chicago in the year 2010. The article revolves around the professional life of Mei Liefang, a male actor who best-impersonated females before he died in 1961. He played a significant role in the film Dream of the Garden, which is an excerpt from The Peony Pavillion, a Kun opera classic's play. Dong used this article to focus on the life and success of Mei in his artwork. He says Mei started his artwork in Kun Opera Classic and lived forty years active in his profession which ended while he was still in Kun opera classic. Mei's professional life brings in another aspect in theatres and generally in the art, which is the transition from Kun opera to Peking opera as well as evaluating the role of cinematic effects. Dong says "Yet this very coincidence calls our attention to the special affinity between the rich legacy of Kun opera and the new medium of cinema, and between the distinct expressivity of The Peony Pavilion and inter-medial adaptation, if only through Mei's practices as a pioneering reformer and an operatic cinephile" (Dong 2010). This expands the scope of the article from Mei's art life to the transitions of art from the traditional ways.