An American lady's unbelievable journey of Peking Opera
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E-mail Xinhua, December 30, 2018
Joe Sinicki would have mistaken Carrie Feyerabend as a Chinese performer, had he not watched on the spot her presentation of an excerpt of song and dance from Peking Opera classic The Heavenly Maid Scatters Blossoms at a recent show in the State University of New York at Buffalo.
"She did pretty well. If I didn't see her, I thought she was maybe a Chinese girl," said Sinicki, who is a fan of the most influential Chinese drama form, in an interview with Xinhua.
In the story of The Heavenly Maid Scatters Blossoms, the Buddha orders the heavenly maid to scatter blossoms in Vimalakirti Nirdesa's room in order to test his faith. The heavenly maid scatters the blossoms in front of him and proclaims the Buddha's words before she returns to the west.
"It was cool. I like it. It's very abstract. There's a lot of symbolism," said Sinicki, who was enthralled by Feyerabend's superb dance with Shuixiu, literally Water Sleeves, one of the most skillful stunts in Peking Opera.
Shuixiu refers to the extra-long dancing sleeves attached to the cuffs of a costume, which are used to perform various movements. There are hundreds of gesticulations in Shuixiu dancing, such as sleeves quivering, throwing and wigwagging.
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