An American lady's unbelievable journey of Peking Opera
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E-mail Xinhua, December 30, 2018
Passion for mutual understanding
"CICO is the one and only Confucius Institute named after Peking Opera among its over 100 counterparts in the U.S.," said CICO director Chen Zuyan. "Our courses are fully integrated into the university's academic system."
"That helps us be able to take American students who wouldn't otherwise know about this culture or anything it has to offer," Feyerabend added. "So then they can come to appreciate it in a more organic way as they grow up in an environment that's already inclusive and accepting of that culture."
All of CICO's courses are offered for college credits. Such courses cover Chinese culture, Peking Opera, Chinese musical instruments, and Chinese Opera Stage Combat.
Justina Baez, a biology sophomore who chose Peking Opera face painting course, told Xinhua that she was "caught off guard" the moment her Monkey King mask painting was complete.
"Oh my God, like my face just transformed. How did that happen?" Baez said with a laugh. "It definitely takes you into another culture and I think that's really cool. Being able to embrace a culture that's not really yours through face painting, I really like it."
The real significance of such classes, Feyerabend believes, lies in the fact that "they can fuel passion and also help mutual understanding develop."
"So people aren't bigoted by the fact that they don't know," she noted. "To be able to foster those with the Confucius Institute, it's really great."
CICO also holds outreach events throughout the year in large shopping malls and schools in other states, including Peking Opera shows, interactive workshops and exhibitions.
"What I always like to do is to have our teachers do the face painting and the hair (for Peking Opera performers) out in the open before they can do the performance," Feyerabend said. "People can really see the whole process, because it takes a long time."
In a recent exhibition CICO did at a local high school in the state of Montana, where they interacted with a group of theater students and then extended the event from one hour to two.
The feedback of the local students impressed Feyerabend. "Some of the feedback we got from the students was if you think something is weird to begin with, still try it, because it's probably going to be fine. So they really enjoyed that," she said.
Some of the students told her they would share the new skills with their parents. "So it's a good way to inter-generationally share the culture and a more organic way than just sitting in a classroom."
Actually, CICO regularly holds workshops at neighboring high schools in a bid to inspire more teenagers to "set their own goal to have something similar happened to them."
"If they put in hard work, then it can happen. So I think it's a really special thing for them to be able to look at this and to say okay that's achievable, I can do this too," she said.
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