What is a theatrical moment?
The precious moments drive us to explore the tension and inspiring life, which are relatively challenging to verbalize as those matters are beyond words.
SCENERY. Why is Landscape Beautiful? “Does everyone have the same ‘charming place’ in mind? […], the outcome is doubtless highly individual[…]”3 Charming is a sense of seducing for an individual which is developing from our collective or personal recollection.4 As we construct the self through an unchangeable structure: time. What is a theatrical moment? Time as a structure, which constructs our memory. As a whole body, as an agency which considers as self. The event that we ate becomes recollection. We immerse in the combination through time, the now with the past as a yummy pie. The world opens different drawers of perception through individuals, different ocean, different backgrounds, schedule, cultures, educations, bodies and eyes.
I am looking for the theatrical moments in my daily experience. As a viewer, I approach moments, which accompanies me to find the charming landscape. The artworks should see their specific authorities and know the difference in kind5 in the audience. As a maker, the centre point of my practice would be: To discover the form of one medium6. What specific perspective does it own now, in this year, or this world? Never take the existence of one medium for granted.
Traditional Chinese opera has always played a significant role in contemporary Chinese Theatre. With the rapidly growing amount of new theatrical works in China for the past few years, this ancient performing art has been widely used in experimental theatres. This thesis is inspired by my creating process of costume design on project Kun Opera "Duanchang Poems”; which I deconstructed the form of Kun Opera, and incorporated with contemporary dance. Building from this case, I will explore from the costume designer’s
perspective, the new possibilities of transforming traditional characters in ancient performing arts, into contemporary experimental theatre works.
The introduction of Chapter One mainly discusses the background differences between western and eastern contemporary theatre, as well as the innovation and inheritance of traditional genres. I will then explicate both how western and eastern classical, historical characters’ costumes are newly represented in contemporary theaters. And by showing these successful examples, I will showcase why traditional costume could serve as a great element to new innovative performance art, and within the framework of experimental theatre, the results would be revolutionary.
The second chapter mainly focuses on the conception changes which are the space of contemporary theaters and the impact of the actor-audience relationships on traditional costume design. To match this, the costume design has also been refined and sublimated from the traditional design. The costume design of the Duanchang Poems has been radically transformed from their traditional counterparts. This elevation has been characterized by experimentation, refinement, innovation, and expressionism.
The third chapter mainly analyzes how to extract aesthetic characteristics from the traditional genre and apply them into new theatrical works. How to deal with traditional genre play to meet the historical and performance requirements of Kun opera, as well as the overall style of the play and the personal style
should be emphasized by the artist.