Painted faces, extravagant costumes, and intricate dancingand miming all come together to create the interesting andintriguing art of Beijing Opera.

As the most famous type of preforming arts in China today,Beijing Opera has a long and tough history. It is difficult toimagine that hundreds of years ago, the well-dressed actorswere considered as some of the lowest in their social class.

Additionally, other challenges, such as access to highly limitedgreasepaint back in the day, had to be bravely tackled bythese performers. In China, there is a proverb that can bestdescribe a Beijing Opera actor’ s mindset hundreds of yearsago: “Ten minutes on the stage needs ten-year’ s practice.”Such an opinion was influenced by the historical reason andsocial environment.

About 225 years ago, many local opera organizations fromdifferent cities came to the capital of the Qing destiny to performfor the emperor. Without any hostility, the leaders of theseart groups started to talk about other advantages and combinedideas to create a new type of performing art,“ Beijing Opera” ,which was named according to where it originated. Beijing operais a product of combination, and had a great success and developmentin a very short time. During the period of the Republicof China, Beijing Opera reached a peak. During this time period,with their mature and artistic ways, most actors and actresseswere famous for their special style.

In Beijing opera, there are 4 main characters: Sheng, Dan,Jing, and Chou. Sheng is the male protagonist and Dan isthe woman, but hundreds of years ago, Dan was acted byman. Jing is the man with distinctive personality traits and apainted face. For the most part, the colors on Jing’ s face holddifferent meanings. For example, black means that the personin the play is very strict. Red always means loyalty, and whiteis treachery. The character Chou is always in charge of thefunniest parts as the clown. In many traditional plays, Chouacted as a person of greasiness.

A famous newspaper in the Republic of China used to letpeople vote for the four most famous Dan actors. At that time,Mei, Cheng, Shang and Xun stood out without any dispute.

Together, dignified Mei, poignant Cheng, brisk Shang, andcutesy Xun’ s special styles pushed Beijing Opera to a higherlevel. Behind the stage was their hard work and outstandingself-control. For plays that had opposite-sex characters,they needed to solve how to look more like their characterthrough intricate dances and even the smallest of movements.

In the early Republic of China, many people, especially rich people, suffered from drug addiction. These four famous actorsperformed for them and served as a way to prevent themfrom doing drugs as frequently. With their joyful and optimisticattitude, they created the foundation of Beijing Operaintroduced a new kind of Chinese culture.

Most Beijing opera plays are about Chinese history andtraditional custom. It is easy to learn another culture in such as pecial and joyful way. Art allows a means to present historyin an informative yet exciting manner