A Chengdu Field research report - The lively 'Torch Troupes' of Sichuan"Opera

Catherine Capdeville-Zeng (1)

1 ASIES EA 4512 - ASIES

Sichuan opera, although relatively ‘young’, is widely viewed as one of China’s most prominent theatre traditions. A lively genre with a lot of on stage improvisation, it employs a small chorus, and an impressive battery of percussion instruments. The author repeatedly visited Chengdu the capital of Sichuan Province in 2001and 2002, and was struck by the contrast between the existing official opera troupes, who were little active at the time, and a number of independently operating, far more succesful companies, who called themselves ‘torch troupes’(huoba jujuan) . The name designates underground troupes of that name which secretly performed traditional plays during the Cultural Revolution.The present report describes one of the torch troupes visited in 2001-2002, the Wangjiang troupe, in some detail. This study was carried out more than a decade ago, but it provides telling snapshots of Sichuan opera in recent history.

Mots clés: Sichuan opera; torch troupe; improvisation; field research report

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Musique, musicologie et arts de la scène

Catherine Capdeville-Zeng. A Chengdu Field research report - The lively 'Torch Troupes' of Sichuan"Opera. CHIME, 2015, 20, pp.69-84. ⟨hal-01356773⟩