Keeping the Curtain Open for Peking Opera
By Yee Heng Yeh
July 2024 FEATURE
“WHAT’S MOST IMPRESSIVE is that their physicality isn’t diminished at all, but in fact stands out as their strongest weapon,” Ling Tang exclaimed. “It’s like an intense 45-minute action movie right in front of you!”You might have thought that the Artistic Director of George Town Festival (GTF) 2024 was referring to circus acrobats, or some high-wire act—but Ling was talking about Peking Opera, or jīng jù (京劇).Last September, she had seen a few performances staged by GuoGuang Opera Company, Taiwan’s...
Yee Heng Yeh
is a writer and Mandarin-to-English translator whose work has been featured in The KITA! Podcast, adda, Strange Horizons, NutMag, Nashville Review and Guernica. You can find him on Twitter at @ HengYeh42.
