Chinese Opera & Psychology

 

 

My book Alternative Watching/Listening: Brain Diseases and Voice Disorders in Performing Arts (Tsai, 2011) draws together medical and musical sources to make sense of the artistic depictions of disease manifestation in social and historical contexts. Whereas Zhe-Tzi-Xi (折子戲) can merely depict symptoms, Quan-Ben-Xi (全本戲) is able to cover socio-cultural issues and achieves a global viewpoint of pathology by shaping the protagonist with brain diseases. I discuss Monkey Xiqu from a perspective of Tourette syndrome and review Kunqu “Peony Pavilion”(牡丹亭) from a perspective of manic-depressive disorder. Witty, ticcy Ukong Sun (孫悟空) and romantic Liniang Du (杜麗娘), who are hero/heroine overcoming difficulty in the real world, exemplify how sufferers of brain diseases can contribute to the human community.

 Interestingly, my "psychological research" on Chinese opera led to my failure to achieve promotion to Associate Professor. An ethnomusicologist gave interesting comments that may reveal the nature of ethnomusicology constructed by White American:

 In a sharp contrast to these negative comments, another reviewer wrote:

I recorded audience’s skin conductance responses while they were watching Beijing opera Pong-Yin (捧印). It is found that changes in singing or gait, ending poses, and special facial/bodily expressions of the actor have a strong moving power (Tsai, 2014).

 

REFERENCES

Tsai, C.G. (2011). Alternative Watching/Listening: Brain Diseases and Voice Disorders in Performing Arts (in Chinese). Taipei: NTU Press.

Tsai, C.G. (2014). The emotional expressions and structure in Beijing opera Pong-Yin: combining performance analysis with audience’s physiological measures (in Chinese). Journal of Traditional Chinese Theater, 11, 125-161.

 

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2015© 蔡振家 Chen-Gia Tsai