IB Theatre Research Project — Tradition and Convention Choice

I am choosing to research Peking/Beijing Opera as my theatre tradition, and the convention I want to focus on is the singing in Laosheng roles. This is a subtype of the male roles, Sheng, and is typically the leading role as well. I first picked Peking Opera as my tradition for a few reasons: I had heard of the tradition from a video game I used to play, I learned a lot of interesting facts just from the initial video, and  I am always excited to mix both singing and theatre practices. Although I had originally thought about picking the female role of Dan as my convention, I realized pretty quickly that the notes would be too high for me to realistically hit, and as the tradition has evolved, Dan roles are now only played by women. I also enjoyed researching about the Chou, or clown role, but his character seemed more about physicality and I didn’t want to have my presentation be too similar to my other classmates’. However, I am still very excited to learn more about the Laosheng, and I am very committed to making my presentation as respectful, accurate, and fun as possible! Some of the steps I plan on doing to achieve this include talking with Chinese students about their experience with Peking Opera (if they have any), going to Ms. G for practice with singing in an operatic style, and watching a lot of videos of performances in China.

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