THE SPECIFIC TYPES OF THEATER 1.0 Introduction of Chinese Theater Theatre or drama as referred to in Chinese as xi and ju.

The terms are orignally covered with a range of activities which includes plays, games and acrobatics. In Chinese performing arts too, the dance and theater are tied to records to religious beliefs and customs. In a traditional Chinese theater it was characterized by a highly stylized roles and the stage movements such as pantomine- the gestures and makeup, by a unique combination of recitation, song, dance, acrobatics and as well as music. Chinese theater is widely known and recongized as a unique and a supreme total theater which are manifested with or through stylized performance with the elements of operatic singing, acting, speech and movements. The four primarily skills involve in Chinese theater are the voice, dance, song and acrobats whereby the actors or performers are supposed to master all the four primarily skills as mention and by mastering the four primarily skills the performers as considered as part and parcel of the Chinese theater. As the four skills have been masterd by the performers of a certain act enables the performers or actors to dance along with acting and combat as part of the acrobatics performance. In the early age of the dynaties and during the agrarian society majority of the people in China were iliterate and used the theater as a mean of education and moral instruction as well as entertaiment. Theater taught the society during the early eras about history and the exploits famous individuals and instiled traditional cultural values or firmly establish in the mind of the societies about loyalty, fidelity meaning loyalty to a person concern, chastity by practising of abstaining from extramarital and justice. Music plays an important role too in the Chinese theater. The instrument is played on instrument which is so called as jinghu. Jinghu has two small strings with a high pitched spike fiddle. Ruan a pluked lute which is a stringed instrument with a long neck and circular body. The performance begins with stern beating of drums which are known as Xialuo and Daluo in China and in the performance of Chinese theater. The three classifications of melodies being played are known as aria, erhuang and xipi is used to express more loud expression.

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THE SPECIFIC TYPES OF THEATER 1.1. Background of Chinese Theater China is a big country or giant country which has its own cultural continuity of several Millennia or beliefs. China has countless different forms and types of performing arts. The most basic elements of Chinese theater are poetry, music, dance and martial arts which are known to have flourished during the first millennium BC. Involvement of the early genres in theater is approximately over 1000 AD. The early genres of that millieum have intermingled or move around and engage with each other and to evolved or developed gradually towards a sung theater form with fixed role of categories. It was also characterised by a tendency to combine dance with movements which emphasis of the beauty of movements from martial arts with a sung text. The origins of the theatrical art in China normally lies on the early religious rituals and most probably in shamanistic rites which influence in and having an access in the world of good and evil spirits. Exceptionally in the history of China there is a conscious culture found or in other words we could mention that the people of China are very aware of its own cultures and knowledges. For example, the Chinese system of writing was invented in the early years. Thus this brought a relatively substantial amount of written evidence of theatical traditions which has exists from the early periods or eras. The wonder of the written evidence gives enlightening as well as fragmentary the information about the development of early performance tradititions of the Chinese theater as in the West the Chinese theater is call Chinese opera. According to the history of China the theatical arts was known during the Shang Dynasty (c.1766 -1066 BC). During the Shang Dynasty hunting dances and imitating animals dances were performed. The dances imitating animals are called animal movement which is commonly found in most of other cultures. Infact, nowadays animal moement dances are still form in an integral part of many martial arts, dances and theater traditions which are still been practised. During the Zhou Dynasty (Chou) (c.1066-221 BC) the so-called chorus dances were very popular. The performers or dancers are divided into two groups. The male dancers performed the wu dances and while the female dancers performed the xi (hsi) dances, besides the religious rituals during the Zhou Dynasty, less ceremonial rituals are perform

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THE SPECIFIC TYPES OF THEATER that time are mainly or mostly on comic numbers which are perform by the clown and dwarfs and also on the displays of acrobatic skills. The demonstrations or shows on martial arts were popular and well known in Asia especially in China which emphasis on the beauty of movements which employed by the dances are originated from the martial art techniques and movements. It is most probably the early martial art systems are formed which the basis is from the rich Chinese traditions of martial operas and acrobatic fighting which has developed the 20th century gongfu (kung-fu) movies. As a customary at the court and the public festivities an organise grand-scale spectacles called a hundred entertaiments or hundred game circus where variety of shows are featured likes mime, jugglers, magicians, acrobats, song musical recitals and even martial art demonstrations are held. They also featured dancing girls or females wearing dresses with long sleeves, fluttering silk sleeves. The female characters elegantly operate their extra long white silk sleeves which is the so-called water sleeves whereby their dances have been the predecessors of the opera scenes. Besides the textual sources, there was a great deal of existent of visual evidence of early theatrical forms. Contemporaneous terracotta tomb statuettes are found which include hundreds of lively depictions of different kinds of performers which shows mime actors displaying character or emotion by gestures and movement as a form of theatrical py performance, acrobat, jugglers, musicians, even whole orchestras and the dancing girls with The female statuettes seem to indicate the aesthetics of female dances which are concerned with the beauty which are still dominated today in China with its linear beauty created by sleeves, ribbons and scarves undulating in the air which has an extensive history indeed. In Chinese theatrical arts early plays or early dramas are the combination of mime, stylised movement and a chorus. The chorus described the action which was enacted or act out by dancer-actor. Most well known play during the early era was a play called Daimian (tai-mien) or Masks which features a prince who is so soft and he was obliged to wear a terriying mask in a battle in order to scare the enemy.

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THE SPECIFIC TYPES OF THEATER The play scripts of those early dance plays seem to combine sung passages through the sources from the Tang Period (618-907). The fighting scenes appear in a play mainly originate in the early martial arts systems where as the female movement vocabulary has retained the use of the long sleeves in later operas which dominate the female dancing tomb figurines. The themes of the early plays have continued to be essential for such as filial piety and other themes related to feudal with ethical codes Speculation of early plays has been mentioned were actually performed based on textual and visual sources. During the coommunist regime has consistenly destroyed forms of culture which are regarded as feudalistic, where there is no existent of archaic theatrical forms after the communists take whole of China

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