Download Dr. Maya Ursula Tångeberg- Grischin, Karl-Marx-Platz 15, D

Dr. Maya Ursula Tångeberg- Grischin,
Karl-Marx-Platz 15, D- 12043 Berlin-Neukölln
[email protected] Tel. +49 151 2238 6694
IFTR CONFERENCE STOCKHOLM 13.- 17. 06. 2016
(Asian Theatre Working Group)
Female Impersonation in Chinese Opera and Other Theatre Forms
In the Light of ”Universal” Physical Acting Techniques
1. Introduction
In the classical Asian Theatre – as in Chinese xiqu, the Indian kathakali and in the Japanese Kabuki, female
characters are fictive women. They are altogether stunning; imagined and artificial dramatic products. This
was also the opinion of Sergei Mikhailovich Eiszenstein (1898-1948) when he tagged Mei Lanfang’s
impersonation of female characters in Moscow 1935, “as stylized, aesthetically abstract image of women,
altogether unrealistic.”
The term impersonation denotes usually to play a role of the opposite gender. Nowadays, in daily life,
woman- not only European- wear often pants and have rather gender neutral movement patterns. An Asian
actress today, who performs a classical female character (an idealized woman from bygone days) could also
be called “impersonator”.
With a closer look at female impersonation, one understands that it is a highly technical occupation. I analyse
and discuss in the following these techniques of female impersonation, and some of their backgrounds and
theoretical bases. I start with a round-up of the most important physical acting techniques.
According to my findings, some of these stage techniques and physical behaviour patterns are universal or
at least have strong affinities with each other1. The reason is simple: we share the biological base of the
human species, skeleton, limbs and brain functions.
On the European stage, the inner world of the actor seems to be considered more important than the outer
form2. The actor and actress move according to the character’s inner psychological aims, thoughts and
1
Tångeberg-Grischin, Maya,” The Techniques of Gesture Language”, PHD in theatre arts, University of the Arts,
Helsinki, Finland 2011.
2
We could say there is an “outer space” of the actor, as 1) his body movements, 2) his movements interacting with his
partner(s) and 3) his movement on the space of the stage. The outer space is connected with the” inner or mental
1
emotions in a creative and individual way. The inner world of the character, as the actor sees it, “dictates”
movement (and European theatre movement has hardly any rules). There is an unwritten paradigm in
European theatre: If the actor on stage really feels the situation and emotions3 of his character, the audience
will understand when he performs. But lack of form –achieved by physical techniques- creates weather
dramatic clarity nor beauty on stage.
In Europe, many theatre people see the natural as the beautiful. Is the natural artistic? Apple trees have to
be pruned to give good fruit. The body of the theatre artist has to be pruned as well.
There were many attempts to successfully brake the realist patterns since the last 100 years. In Europe,
Francois Delsarte reflected on rules of physical expression just before realism became the craze in the end of
the 19th century. In the first half of the 20th century foremost Edward Gordon Craig (The actor as “Uebermarionette”), Wsevolod Meyerhold, (biomechanics) Oskar Schlemmer and Etienne Decroux (corporeal
mime). Decroux, tagged as ”father of modern mime”, worked with the isolation of body parts (each body
part moves independently from another). These isolations become separation and analytic segmentation of
the body also in the arts (Schlemmer4 at the Bauhaus). Decroux realised Craig’s Uebermarionette. But a
synthesis of technique and “inner acting” did not take part. The body- a doll with broken members. But at
least, these analytic, mechanical techniques caused an interesting consciousness of body and movement .
When I first saw kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ, jingju and onnagata (female impersonators in Kabuki) by, 2 Tamasaburo, I
understood that these Asian actors are “their own marionette players”. Their movement is not constructed
analytically, but based on refined tradition and observation and stylization of life. The result is “ganzheitlich”.
Jacques Lecoq and Eugenio Barba created their “movement systems” and experimented with a more defined
and stylized, extra-daily, non-realistic body5. But this body as seen by them is definitely a masculine or gender
neutral body. This inspired me to work on the female acting techniques.
space” of the actor: the inner life of the character and his aims to reach in a scene, as well as all thoughts along with
movement.
3
Emotions and feelings: Emotions are the basic emotions as love, wonder, pride, laughter, anger, fear, sorrow, disgust
and eventually peace. These basic 8 or 9 basic emotions or sthāyibhāvas, are already mentioned in the Indian treatise
of theatre, the nāṭyaśāstra 200 BCE- 200 ACE. Feelings (sañcāribhāvas) are the fleeting variations of emotions and
develop them further (Example: I wait for my lover. Love is the basic emotion of the scene. He does not immediately
arrive. I stay and think. I am anxious, then with fear something has happened, thereafter jealous, then disappointed,
longing for him; all these fleeting feelings as variations of love). These 33 and more feelings are described in the
Nāṭyaśāstra as fleeting emotions, sañcāribhāvas. The basic emotions have their precise physical facial techniques in
Indian classical theatre and dance.
4
Oskar Schlemmer, ”Idealist der Form“, 1990.
5
Meyerhold seems to have been inspired by Russian folk theatre but also by Mei Lanfang; Decroux by Japanese
theatre and classical ballet; Oskar Schlemmer by modernism in architecture (the Bauhaus movement).
2
2. The Basic Physical Rules of Acting and Some of Their Backgrounds
In my practical research in European mime, Indian classical dance, kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ and kathakali (Kerala, India),
as well as in my more than 3 years practical research at NACTA (National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts
in Beijing, I realized that there is a set of affinities of physical acting techniques, a kind of “universal” rules of
acting, of movement of the actor. Some of these rules are known since a long time for the practitioners of
mime and physical theatre in Asia and in Europe. I will mention but a few of them here. They are also the
basis for the female character’s movement.
1. There is the purely physical law of movement: each movement starts with a counter movement, his
opposite, “the arsis” and each movement has three phases: arsis, traject (the movement phase from point
a) to point b) and end phase or stop. (Meyerhold called the three otkas, posyl and stoika in his system of
“biomechanics”6 and Barba calls the arsis for “sats”). I consider the artistically emphasized rule of arsis to
enhance and clarify movement. It was used in earlier European theatre; in the Baroque theatre as well as in
the French White Pantomime of the 19th century. In the movement patterns of Chinese movement culture
(in kungfu, taichi and xiqu) it is always there, and so it is in kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ and kathakali as a further example.
2. The law of opposition is based on opposite body parts as shoulder and hips, elbow and knee, hands and
foot; also legs- torso, torso and head. Example: right arm high, left arm deep; or r leg in front, l arm in front.
Opposition leads not only to aesthetic connection of body parts, but creates physical and visual
counterbalance and aesthetic plasticity.) These laws are extensively used in Indian dance, especially in
(restored) contemporary Bharatanāṭyaṃ.
3. Alternation as spacial or rhythmical opposition (After a quick sequence a slow one etc.)
4. Isolation is artistic reduction of movement to the essential. It is the art of the marionette. The body is not
reacting totally on an impulse or stimulus, but with specific, isolated parts of the body only. This “pars pro
toto7” rule is mentioned in Vilayanoor Ramachandran’s neuro-aesthetics8 as one of the famous “eight laws
of artistic expression”. In practice, it is a well-known feature especially in Chinese opera. When a female
Chinese actress looks at something, she will not use her whole body, but move only her torso (yao) and head
sideways ever so slightly. Etienne Decroux9 created a training system to move body parts as lower torso,
upper torso, head and neck etc. isolated from each other. He parts spine movements in to four different
types, as sideways movement, front- back movement, twists and translations to the side. These movements
6
Meyerhold, in opposition to Stanislavski, created a rather rigid and mechanical system of movement.
“Pars pro toto”, means in Latin a part that represents a totality.
8
Vilayanoor, Ramachandran S. and Hirstein, William, ”The Science of Art. A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic
Experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No 6-7,1999.
9
Etienne Decroux, 1889- 1991
7
3
are daily trained and combined. Through isolation of movement, interesting and subtle expression of body
angles can be shown. This principle is constantly used in movements of the “flower woman”, the young girl
(huadan) as well as of the “noble woman” (jingyi) in xiqu and appears also in onnagata characters. The trained
actor is able to express anything with total control of the body as the puppeteer controls the movements of
his puppet10.This total control of the body marks who is professional in physical dramatic art. Isolation
creates focus on the essential.
5. Roundness engenders artistic movement. Roundness of arm movement seems to be signs of an artistically,
aesthetically developed forms of movement culture. Roundness is used to express the feminine. The actor’s
arm movements in theatre forms as ballet, the Indian naṅṅyārkūṭṭu, kathakali, strīveṣaṃ, laodan (the old
woman of xiqu), the huadan (young, vivacious girl) and especially the jingyi (noble woman of xiqu and
especially kūnqu) and the kabuki onnagata are generous, round and beautiful and in the same time (or
therefore) dramatically effective11. There are also round wrist movements not only for beauty, but for the
better comprehension of hand-gestures (in India called mudras) on stage. Round movement creates more
focus, because it is of longer duration and more pleasant for the eye to follow and therefore better
”readable” (also found in classical ballet, white pantomime, kathakali, kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ, kabuki and xiqu), than
straight movement. In xiqu the principle of roundness is extensive and built on Taoist ways to conceive the
world, non- duality of Yin and Yang, duality in non-duality. Movement is interlinked, flowing, developing
naturally, if the body parts are in right position and have the right tension (relaxation). There is a constant
flow of forward and backward, right and left, upward and downward, outside and inside, inhalation and
exhalation movements, sometimes in micro shape; in a flowing stream, as moving poses and pose in
movement. There are the dynamics of swelling, like water flowing over a stone.
Wave movements produce sinuous curves. The natural ondulation, is the counterpart of the more mechanical
isolation. Wave movements are the development of a movement being the natural effect of a previous
movement. On could say, Jacques Lecoq built his “movement system” on the two opposite wave movements.
The natural wave movements (ondulation naturelle and ondulation enverse12) are the moving body that
immediately compensates weight. These serpentine movements are also an important feature of onnagata.
10
Body pose and movement can very precisely be defined in space. When it comes to actors who study these
Decrousian techniques, most of them are later on stage stuck in technique because Decroux did not really combine
them into acting system, but a movement system. The body cannot more react on a stimulus but in a very artificial
way. I was therefore searching for a technique that stimulates the actor’s creativity; and that was definitely the
method of Jacques Lecoq.
12
The counterpart of the natural wave is the opposite wave, that starts from the head, reaches thereafter solar plexus,
hips and knees) Lecoq called it also the”intellectual” wave movement.
4
The three most important dynamic theatrical movements of the human body are 1) the mechanical,
constructed isolations and 2) the wave movements and 3) the pendulum movement, the chuzuppu. It is only
found in Kerala performing arts: in kathakali and in Mohiniyattam, the classical dance of Kerala. The chuzuppu
is a pendulum movement with the backbone as fulcrum, combined with of bends and twists of the spine13. It
is a very effective and beautiful movement and functions also as extended arsis (preparation) for showing
mudras in kathakali.
Arrested wave-movements sideways lead by compensation of weight to what in Oḍīssī dance is called
“Tribhangi”-positions14 .
6. Space regulation: It deals with the development and maintenance of dramatic tension between partners
on stage:
a) Weight shifts: A new thought or idea of a character is a new mental direction. The actor has to
communicate this change of mental direction through his body. He is urged to shift his body weight and/or
his body position.
b) Before the character addresses a partner, he has to regulate space distance: he moves closer or farer away
from his partner according to the situation, or he changes also his body posture (body posture seen spatially).
A new thought of a character, a decision, an opinion or even an emotion need always to be articulated in the
body by a change in space. In this way, dramatic tension is created, maintained and made clear for the
audience15.
7. Passus scenicus: The next rule deals with the way the actor enters and leaves the stage. In European
theatre, actors usually enter the stage as characters, in a short and effective way. Franciscus Lang16, a theatre
director of Baroque literati theatre, called the entry of the actor “Passus scenicus”. Entry was a salient
feature. The character enters by rounding the stage in circles or serpentine lines and stops and poses in a
specific spot. The actor shows the character he plays, but also himself. The play seems shortly interrupted as
13
There are about seven different chuzuppus.
Tribhangi, skr. “Threefold beauty”: the body is shown in a sideways serpentine curve, for example hips to the r,
chest to the left, head to the r. The same phenomenon is found in medieval sculpture, of the so called “schöne
14
Madonnen” in the beginning of the 12th century. There are about 10 different basic steps that use trībhangi- positions
in Oḍīssī dance.
15
A foreign theatre group worked a few weeks ago at NACTA. They did exercises on improvisation and partner contact
in stage, by always taking just one step or two forward or backward before answering the partner. The result was
mechanical, clumsy and boring. (It is not a question of forward and backward, but to create dramatic tension in space,
using body postures changes as well as changes of space relation). In a rehearsal of the jingju bravour-piece ”Dang
ma”, I could see the subtle use of the rule to adjust the tension in space with changes of distance and space position
and body movement and position.
16
Franciscus Lang, (Dissertatio de actione scenica) 1727.
5
the actor is received by the audience. Also before the exit, the Baroque actor leaves the stage (starting with
a specific step with arsis) in a round or serpentine line heading to the exit. Before he exits, he turns round
towards the audience, poses again, turns and disappears. Exit and entry set a precise mark of the actor’s
presence on stage. This stage behaviour is well known in Chinese Opera; as well as also the habit to pose
after a virtuoso movement or a song and to receive applauds as an actor. The actor “leaves” his character for
a very short movement.
8. The floating walk: there is the following exciting feature seen in classical ballet and in Chinese opera. When
one or several characters enter the stage (with passus scenicus, described above) or move from one spot to
another, they “float” quickly over the stage- (in Ballet on pointe, In Chinese Opera (with minced or quick or
slow steps17) as a “kind of dramatic ghosts”. Is like a wind that blows them onto the stage! They seem to
announce themselves as beings from another, fictive world, where everything is possible to happen. Their
feet seem not to touch the earth, they are non-physical, fictive heroes- or sometimes ghosts.18 (Technically,
the lift their centre weight and proceed with quick steps).
All these rules are effective for dramatic expression and are found in various physical theatre styles all over
Asia and also in European Classical styles. In the Baroque theatre of the royal and princely European courts,
the seductive, beauty and decorum became the norm patterns for all characters. In the Rococo period, upper
class behaviour displayed males in life and on stage in a way we today would call effeminate. Lace, ribbons
and silks ruffs underlined round, graceful wrist movements. Their stance was asymmetric, with a tended leg
and an extended foot to display refinement. Female characters kept knees together, walked with small
minced steps, did not move their arms and hands below the hips and over the head and also not too far away
from the body. Hips were enlarged by the costume to the side (or later behind). Women were not supposed
to look openly around but to keep their glances under control- as a secret weapon. This types of female
characters could be seen on European stage to the end of the 19th century.
These eight basic rules are effective for physical dramatic expression and the basis for all physical acting.
They are largely used by all classical Asian theatre styles. They apply also for the acting of female characters.
In addition, another set of rules is applied.
In Indian classical theatre, as in kathakali, considered in this paper, techniques were always orally
transmitted from guru to shisya. Scholars knew the theoretical bases of theatre and dance: the Nāṭyasāstra,
(200 BC- 200 AC), and for kathakali-gesture especially the Hastalakṣaṇadīpikā from the 15th century.
17
18
Male characters, often rows of soldiers or servants, move in quick steps.
Also in the ballet “Swanlake”
6
The Indian Classical Theatre Arts as kathakali and kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ (as well as Indian bharatanāṭyaṃ, oḍīssī and
Mohiniyattam) focus on rhythm, hand-gesture, movement of the limbs and facial expression. There is
something exiting and archaic in Indian movement arts: the use of intrinsic rhythm, hand-gesture and
exaggerated facial expression of the nine basic emotions (sthāyibhāvaḥ) and cognited feelings
Sañcāribhāvah. Kathakali strīveṣaṃ (female roles) keep a basic stance with feet kept together. (The other
stance, with legs wide apart, knees turned out and deeply bent, is only possible because the legs are hidden
under the foot-long skirt). Arm movements are always round, the elbow does not touch the body. The mudras
(hand gestures) are smaller than the male character’s mudras. Chest wave movements, to express emotions,
are frequent19. The Indian classical actress of kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ, the naṅṅyār, is a specialist in eye movement. Eye
training is a very important feature of her artistic education from the very beginning. This applies also for all
characters in kathakali. Eye and face movement reveal emotions. In the Abhinayadarpaṇa20, Nandikeśvara
paraphrases as verse of Bharata21 and says: “Yato hasta stato dṛṣṭir yato dṛṣṭi stato manaḥ/ yato mana stato
bhāvo yato bhāva stato rasaḥ//”22. (Where the hand goes, there the eyes should go, where the eyes go, there
the mind should go, where the mind goes, there will be emotional expression and audience approval).
Nandikeśvara tells here about the total focus the actor should have. To control physical technique is one
thing, but the most important is to control the mental state of the character expressed through movement.
And this, only accomplished actors can do fully.
In China, written theoretical bases are not much more older than 250 years old: The Origin of the PearGarden23, Random Talks on the Performance Art of Jingju24 and Performance Art of Jingju’s Vivacious Female
Role 25(the Hua Dan).There is the concept of of gongfu (the bases, the disciplinated skills of the actor) as si
gong wu fa (four skills and five canons). The 4 skills are chang (singing), nian (speaking), zuo (dancing-acting,
miming and pantomiming) and da (combatting); the five canons are kou(mouth), shou(hand), yan(eye),
19
There are 9 stylized emotions with codified expressions shown with the face.
Nandikeśvara
21
NŚ 11:48 : In the sūtra ”Where (the) foot (moves), there the hand (should follow) and where the hand (moves)
there the entire body (follows) as translated by M.M. Gosh, Bharata advices the actor/dancer the connection of feet,
hands and body to total physical involvement of the dancer.
20
Rajendra 2007, xvi, in the introduction to the Abhinayadarpaṇa translates the Śloka as “Where the hand goes,
there goes the glance; where the glance goes, there goes the mind, where the mind goes, there goes the mood; where
is the mood, there develops the Rasa”. According to Zarilli, a translation by an active verb is misleading. He sees the
Śloka as the static condition of the master actor. Zarilli, Phillip 2000, 92 in: Kathakaḷi. I consider the Śloka as the
expression of an ideal state to be reached in performance. Not only a master, each actor has to be able to involve
mentally and psycho-physically in a situation. There is no automatic coordination between hand, eye and mind ever
established. This coordination is also trained in a long study process and has to be worked for anew in each
performance.
23
Compiled by Huang Fanchuo, a kun actor in the 18th century
24
By Quian Baosen from the 19th century, 2 generations, book I and II.
25
By Xiao Cuihua ( Yu Lianqan)
22
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shen(body) and bu(steps). The Qi (the vital force, manifested by the breath) produces jin(energy, strength)
and by qi and jin, the actor acquires shen, (the correct appearance of the role type of the play).
In the classrooms at NACTA26, I heard often in female shenduan27 classes that a movement has to be
beautiful28. During my 3 years studies of female characters in xiqu I encountered a much developed
movement system, especially in kūnju, were the spine is highly involved- mixing subtle weight shifts, bends
and twists, like Oḍīssī –poses but further developed and considering diagonals and flow of movement
creating beauty of movement and beauty of pose.
Movements and poses of the nandan, the female impersonator in xiqu, are built for a specific purpose: to
give the male body female appearance. The diagonal hip and asymmetric leg position with the weight on one
leg, and specially the frequent twists and bends of the torso, (the yao), with arm- and head movements in
opposition, are both beautiful and reduce visually the mass of the male body. Wrist movement and gracious
finger positions also make a hand optically smaller. Arms away from the body detach the figure from badly
lit stage backgrounds and display the costume better. (Frequent weight-shifts enhance the dramatic: each
weight shift is also a shift in the expression of a thought, as explained above). With the abolishment of the
qao, female actresses developed their own style of walking (with very minced steps, an always flexed foot,
floating quickly over the stage). So the nandan polished female styles to suit their own purposes- up to the
moment when women “took over” the female roles in xiqu. During the last seventy years actresses developed
these female characters created by nandan further to the perfect state they are in today. Lee Ruru describes
this learning process of her famous mother Li Yoru in “The Soul of Beijing Opera”. Both men and women
have shaped and created the female characters on stage, not male or female imagination alone. I found
therefore female stage movement- and behaviour patterns in xiqu more perfect than movement of their
male counterparts. It would be more than an interesting experiment for actresses to take over male roles for
longer time and to develop them further-as the male seen through the female (This happens in yuequ, were
woman play men’s parts).
26
27
28
National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing.
Body skills
In Western theatre, there is a dichotomy between the beautiful and the dramatic. In Europe you seldom hear in theatre circles
about a scene or an actor’s movement” it is beautiful”, but you hear perhaps “it is true, or “it’s natural” or maybe “impressive”. I
always felt there does not need to be any contradiction between beauty and truth: beautiful movement can be dramatic and dramatic
movement could be beautiful as in most Asian classical theatre. “The beautiful” is nature tamed and rearranged.
8
In Japan, kabuki, ka (song) bu (dance) ki (accomplishment) technique developed in competition with the
joruri puppet plays (Bunraku). Dramatists as Chikamatsu Montzaemon 1653-1724) wrote for bunraku (joruri)
and for Kabuki.
Kabuki characters movement patterns developed in competition with the very popular joruri, the puppet
theatre. Joruri plays were adapted to kabuki and kabuki actors imitated the puppet’s movements. In this way
very extreme and complicated movement techniques developed. The actors started to do physical features
that only puppets were able to perform- the actors moved like human puppets.
Most on female impersonation is found in the Geidan, memoirs of actors on their craft, as in Sadoshima nikki
(Sadoshima’s diary), and especially in the Shosha no hiden (The Secret Tradition of the Kabuki dance29). The
costume was developed to conceal both body, sex and age of the actor of the onnagata30. The use of long
sleeves (probably imported from Chinese theatre) and the long kimono were the reason for wave like
movements in a slow, controlled rhythm. To mention also are bukkaeri, a quick costume change, were
threads on the upper costume are released, and the “new” costume falls over and especially hikinuki, where
the upper kimono is quickly taken off by a stage assistant.
In Japanese classical theatre, all female characters bend slightly forward and turn their feet inside! Even the
female characters created by the legendary Buto artist Tazumi Hijikata31 bent their knees deeply, kept them
together and walked in a kind of eternal submission to men.
Important also Ichikawa Danjuro IX’s crave for haragei (acting from the inner soul), in contrast to the
external stylization in kabuki tradition towards the end of the 19th century.
When I studied and analysed the videos of the onnagata-star Tamasaburo, I could observe a further
development on the focus on spine movements –combined bends, twist and translations in counteraction of
arms, hands and head.
The most developed female impersonation techniques everywhere are found in the techniques for the noble
characters32. In xiqu- jingyi and in kabuki-onnagata in female techniques, all body parts are combined into
gracious moving sculptures (their counterparts, male characters, don’t walk, they strut like cranes and
peacocks and move more” block-wise”). Chinese and Japanese female characters move floating and posing
mostly in diagonals and counter diagonals in always changing angles of the body.
29
Only available in Japanese.
The hakama trousers, so says the legend, go back to Okuni who performed in Portuguese trousers.
31
1928-1986.
32
Also the noble characters of the commedia dell’arte, the innamorati (lovers) moved in a dance –like way.
30
9
Female characters were in India and China dashingly impersonated by adolescent boys or young men and in
Japan by adult men. These characters were designed to please a mostly male audience of connoisseurs,
scholars and common men, womanizers and homosexuals. Today, the audiences have changed, in China
mostly woman play female roles; but nandan traditions have come back, even at NACTA, but the techniques
of female characters in classical theatre have not changed much. The onnagata star Tamasaburo, over 60,
and also the famous kathakali female impersonator late Kottakal Sivaraman were at their best only over 40.
But still, at NACTA, boys are not encouraged to specialize in Nanda-roles, because “there is no dorm for them
available”. In the Kerala Kalāmaṇḍalaṃ, girls are not admitted to study kathakali “because there are no
facilities for girls”.
3. What are the Technical Patterns for the Impersonation of Female Characters?
(This super- “feminine”, imagined and idealized female body is more or less in all Eurasian (?) cultures
considered as being smaller, shorter, rounder, softer, gracious and sinuous and non- expansive in space.
Movement patterns to study are artificial or very stylized.
Female Characters can be impersonated in the 3 following ways:
Parody
Imitation
Representation
The gender
Is fully recognizable
Submerges fully
Is ambiguous, and
Of the performer
(In European farce and In
comedy)
the
(yuequ)and
character so
often
is
the
character
in (onnagata, strīveṣaṃ)
xiqu)
The female character
Exaggeration of the
Is shown by
Physical
features
Full imitation
(as Of the specific physical
Means of specific
Techniques of physical
breast, hair etc.) of the
Features and
features and traditional
Character and by its
Behaviour patterns
behaviour patterns and
Behaviour patterns
style.
In the following, I sum up six striking characteristics of Eurasian female/ male movement:
1. Body positions:
male characters are more often shown frontally to show
impressive body mass; female characters mostly shown diagonal
and often with feet crossed (stage foot in front)
2. Leg positions-and movements:
male characters stand in T-stance or a large stance, feet apart.
They lift knees and legs high, female characters have narrow
10
stances33, not lifting their feet very high34and rather bound to
the earth. (Hichikata’s women, mentioned above). Leg
movements are often concealed under wide skirts or trousers,
as strīveṣaṃ, naṅṅyārkūṭṭu and onnagata.
3. Walks:
male characters walk with expansive steps often lifting the feet,
strutting; female characters with narrow steps, not lifting the
knees and feet high, floating and earthbound.
4. Arm movements:
of male characters movement are often direct and expansive in
space; of female characters smaller and more gracious and
change direction more often
5. Hand-positions and - movements:
the male character’s fingers are often fully extended and the
thumb is extended as well; female character’s hands have
delicate finger positions, the thumb under the fingers, “orchid
hands” (yanhua zhang) with gracious wrist movements.
6. Head-and neck movements:
Male characters move with free head and neck-movements,
female characters move the head and neck with small and
subtle turns, bends and translations, often only with the neck.
7. Eye movements:
In kabuki, some male characters move the head round together
with eye movements and freeze in the end- giving accents to
emotional states (mié). The female character’s eyes follow
always gracefully the movement of the hand(s).
8. Glance:
Female characters often with sidelong, indirect glances, male
characters look straight and direct.
The costume is the outer skin of the body and has together with hand props an important role to accentuate
and extend movement and the expression of emotion.
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Compare with the dramatic dances of Bali: Male characters have a wide basic stance (agem) and female characters
a narrow one, but graciously bent to the side. Female movement is considered soft and sweet (manis) and male
movement vigorous (kras).Indian dance separates male movement and female movement into tandava and lasya.
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Mythology tells about a dance contest between the god Siva and his consort Parvati, won by Siva. Lord Siva danced
and lifted his legs higher and higher. Parvati danced and stopped, because decorum did not allow her to lift the leg so
high…The Chinese wudan, the warrior woman, may lift her legs high.
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4. Body Extensions of Female Characters
In kathakali, the bulky skirts, wooden breasts and the heavy eye makeup of the actor extend, transform the
male body into a female body.
For huadan and jingyi, as well as for onnagata, props as body extensions are frequent. Certain props as
handkerchiefs, ribbons, round or folding fans etc. and parts of the costume as hats, ribbons on the costume,
headdresses, water-sleeves, long trousers etc. are used to underline and to amplify movement and to express
emotions.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the practice to bind the feet was abolished throughout China. Therefore,
also the nandan Yang Yaoquing performed 1909 Shisan Mei, the famous errant female knight, without qiao35
and caused enormous controversy. The qiao had already become such a strong symbol of female beauty on
stage! Jingju actresses trained at Peking Theatre School 1930-41 took directly over the female impersonation
from their male teachers (the qiao inclusive), the famous nandans of the time. So did Li Yoru who studied
with Mei Lanfang and Xun Huisheng. But in the 1930ties, scholars urged that the practice of qiao was cruel
and ethically wrong. The quiao was 1950 finally banned as feudal. The small steps of woman with bound feet
had to be shown in another way: by the actual female stage walk with very quick, minced step, rolling the
feet from the heel. I consider this type of walk to be much more beautiful than the walk on the qiao. Since
some years, there is a renaissance of the quiao (Li Yanyan). Many other specific acting skills got lost during
the cultural revolution, where female characters should not use ”the signs of upper class repression” as”
yanhua zhang” (orchid hands) and minced steps”. They had in the model plays to use the hand positions and
the t-steps of male characters.
But most of the typical female skills as the use of different fans and water-sleeves got a renaissance. Wang
Shi Ying, now 80, collected female skills all over China and published 2002, together with a younger college,
the Xiqu Dan Hang Shen Duan Gong, a book that is today a basis of female skills studied throughout China.
In the 21 century, all the local operas, more than 300, are promoted. The xiqu performer’s technique is
standardized and its level raised.
Water sleeves in different lengths, from 30 cm to 150 cm long, amplify arm movements of the female
character (mostly for jingyi). There are specific techniques to learn to it. With water-sleeves, also emotions
can be expressed effectively, because facial expression has always to show decorum and is therefore
reduced. Also the work with the round fan, the folding fan and the duster are subtle and complicated female
acting skills.
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Quiao: wooden shoe, used by the actor to simulate “lotus-feet”(bound feet)
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5. Conclusion
Usha Nangyar, outstanding female kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ and naṅṅyārkūttu (female branch of kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ) performer
from Kerala, puts female acting into following terms: “Male characters have expansive movements. As an
actress I move in a smaller space with maybe less force, but with more concentration and subtlety. I sustain
acting more from the inside”.
According to my conclusion, acting is to connect the outer word, the choreographed, the given, the character
and his social word, with the inner world of the character, the individual, the imagined by the actor. To keep
this tension in performance turns acting into dramatic art36.
The principles of these techniques, not the movements proper can give the contemporary physical theatre
and mime new and fresh ideas.
All in all, I detected 16 specific physical features of female impersonation techniques:
Basic energy
Soft(always gentle and round) as floating in water(kunju)
Basic stance
Narrow, (feet parallel and together, samam in India), heels close, tabu position(xiqu)
frequent diagonal stances (optically to reduce body mass) and to detach well from the
background of the stage, to enhance plasticity and beauty(xiqu)
Knees
Kept together (as in dun-position (xiqu), “deep sitting” (deeply bent knees, as
Hichikata-women in Butoh), bending and stretching knees “in softness” (in all Asean
styles. Exception: In kathakali, the actor’s knees are wide apart, ”deep sitting” (but
with the legs hidden under the bulky skirt!)
Weight shifts
Frequent, soft and subtle, with arm movements in opposition in all styles
Maintenance of Deviance from the vertical axis (bhangi, tribhangi in Indian Classical dance) through
verticality
rotations, bends, translations and ondulations in strīveṣaṃ, kūnju, xijqu. Most
developed in onnagata.
Rotations (spine Twists and counter rotations of spine and head in all styles (very subtle in kūnju),
twists) and
combined with weight shifts.
Counter-
Turns in all styles, yaozi fansheng (“eagle turns”) in xiqu.
rotations
and full turns
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This impression I got by the work of my teacher Li Yanhua laoshi at NACTA and after the demonstration of the wellknown kunju actress Liang Gu Yin.
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Spine bends
Most side bends in xiqu and onnagata, in kathakali as chuzhuppu (described above) as
translations in an “upper half-circle”(xiju, kathakali); as hyper-extension of the back
(kabuki, xiqu, but rarely found in kathakali)
Ondulations
Of the chest in all styles. Slow ondulations of the entire body frequent in onnagata.
walks
Feet and knees kept together, small or minced steps, both quick (yuan chang) and very
slow for qinyi- and huadan- characters in xiqu; use of qiao (simulation of “lily feet”)
gliding steps(onnagata), soft “knee-dips” with swinging arms (strīveṣaṃ) .
Arm movements
Round and reduced (shanban/yunshou in xiqu) bent(rounded) elbows, strīveṣaṃ
elbows kept close to the body(onnagata), movement radius of arm-movements only
from the waist to the height of the occiput (strīveṣaṃ)
Wrist
Frequent Inside and outside movements of the wrists and soft waves ( in all styles,
movements
especially subtle in kūnju)
Fingers
Fingers not in line, place to reduce volume and size of the hand, thumb not spread
(kabuki, xiju ”yanhua zhang”, (orchid hand; hand often half-hidden in the sleeve
(onnagata, kūnju)
Head and neck Frequent subtle bends, rotations and counter rotations and bends of the neck only, in
movements
all styles; in kathakali gracious sideways-translations of the head)
Facial expression Frequently smiling (all styles) brūkutti, (graceful vibrations of the eyebrows in kathakali
only), soft non- expressivity of the face (the character suppresses feelings (kūnju,
onnagata); in kathakali with much facial expression (the expressions of anger, disgust,
heroic and laughter are reduced, the expressions have to be beautiful).
Glances
Frequent sidelong glances (kathakali, kūṭiyāṭṭaṃ, kutiyattam, xiqu) and turning the
head in shyness (neck bend sideways or down) as well as graceful, slow eye movements
in all styles.
Female
skills The use of handkerchiefs, round (huadan) and folding fans (qinyi and onnagata), duster
Body extensions) (qinyi), hats, shawls, ribbons (onnagata); water- sleeves(xiqu, kūnqu) and kimonosleeves (onnagata) to indicate and to express actions and emotions.
MTG at NACTA, Beijing, 19. 04. 2015 / and Berlin, 30. 04. 2016
This paper is the extension of a previous paper, presented at the International Symposium of Intercultural
Communication at Peking University, PkU, 27.-29.Maj 2015 at Fragrant Hills Hotel, Beijing
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