Me, Myself & Opera

Aeh ah lo di eah.... eah ah lo di eah ah li do hai ya lo di hai yo.... Boatman song. Today, I asked Susan if she can teach my mum to do the boatman role. She said yes and came at 6:30pm today. She went through the script with my mum and brought us a cassette which has Ang reciting the script. I realised that Ang totally changed the whole script of the boatman part. What she recited in the tape is quite different from the script. So I typed out a whole new script of that part for my mum. Hahaha... The added script is so funny. My father felt that the script is funny and he asked if he can go to watch our rehearsal.

Yesterday, I was looking at my wig. I was thinking of how to create the hairstyle that Ang wants. When I look at it, I saw that the wig is really in a mess, especially at the sides and behind. I examined the wig closely and then I itchy hand, removed the hair pins holding the behind part. Slowly, I took off all the hairpins and the plaits behind the front buns all fell apart. Since the plaits fell apart, I start to remove all the rubber bands and retie everything. No chance to go TW to comb my wig. I might as well comb myself. La la la~ singing along while combing. I was afraid that I might mess up the whole thing so I took off the plaits one by one and retie them. Then I comb the buns in from retie them. After finishing plaiting 6 plaits, I pin the plaits to the back of the bun and voila! Done liao. It is not as nice as the professional but ok la. At least it is neater now... :D so happy. Done

Welcome to my first episode of Opera Special Skill entry. I am going to introduce some operatic special effects~ First special skill I introducing is Qiao Gong, 跷功, my favourite kind of special skill. I like it because I was amazed by it when I first saw it. Imagine walking on tiptoe throoughout the whole show. Those who don't know qiao gong must be puzzeled at what I am talking about. Qiao gong was invented to imitate the bound feet of women. In the past, all the women had bound feet but the opera actors are all men and they don't have bound feet. Hence they came up with an idea to imitate it. The actors will stand on tip toe with with a piece of wood to support their heels, then fit on the small shoes. Not long ago, I was watching a documentry on National Geographic and it was China's bound feet women. In it, they introduced qiao gong. A master was describing how to fit on the shoes and a student was demonstrating it. After that, the student demonstrated how to walk with ...

Mingde is still thinking whether the wusheng in the last photo of my previous entry landed on his back or on his feet. Well, to asisst him further, I have decided to upload a sequence of photos of that jump. I don't know if they are all taken from one jump but it looks like it. If so, then he must be using a camera which can take 2 shots in one second. hohoho... The first 2 seems to be taken together and the last 2 together... Erm.. Here is another set of photos taken when the actor is doing 'yao zi fan shen'. Lastly, a photo of a back flip.

Good photographers take photos with feel. It is very hard to capture the feel of actors performing live. However, I came across a group of photos with feel and they are very nice. The photo is almost alive! Good photos set you thinking. Gives you some questions... What is she thinking??? Thinking of a scheme? Shen Feng Yin. She is pretty, no? But only on certain angles. She looked upset in the photo above. What is she upset about? Very nice. Next time I want to imitate this photo. What is she peeking at? Mingde, this is CAO CAO! The first time I saw this photo, I wondered how he landed. Did he lend on his back? Or on his face? Or flat on his belly?

"Hee lay... Yi Yiieeaanggg ah.. (ang pronounce my name in a weird way)... lai qiu li eah gua... li hor... buey gao key la!" Last time, I cannot understand whatever HXY says. Her Taiwan accent is so strong! I cannot catch what she say and I don't know what she want during rehearsal.. That's why I kana abit of scolding during Meng li jun reherasals. Teacher: hee lay.. Yi Yiieeeanng ah. Li eah shui xiu.... dan chu ki... dan... (flip out) Me: (??? What is dan??) Teacher: eah.. yi yiieanng.. li eah kway1 xi3, mai gia do ban. (don't hold your fan upside down) Me: (??? do ban??) Teacher: bak jiu kei kei (shut your eyes) Me: (?? kei kei?? I stared at her with eyes wide open) Still got alot.. Can't think of it now. Next time I will post up again when I encounter anything like this. I think it is quite funny lor but now I start to understand what she is trying to say. That means lesser scoldings during rehearsals. Today, finally recieved the full script of TBH at CCK. R...

I SERIOUSLY HATE MY ROUND FACE GOD!!! TELL ME WHY??!!! WHY GIVE ME A ROUND FACE OF ALL THE FACE STRUCTURES???? WHY???? Suddenly I felt very frustrated and is fedup of my silly round face! Seriously, WHY?? Dammit. Why must heaven play such a joke on me. If I have money I will go plastic surgery. It totally sucks to have a round face. Sucks! I think dans look better with sharp faces but I was not blessed with one. I will be stuck with my stupid round face forever!!!!! PLEASE!!!! Anyone sponsor me for plastic surgery??? I will cut my hair tomorrow so that the fringe will fall at the sides of my face and cover the stupid round shape. To hell with my round face.

Today went to see 'Date Movie' with Locky and Mingde. The movie is crappy but funny. After the show, I went to buy the new album of Wang Li Hong. I wanted to buy it cuz I heard that he studied Kunqu and JingJu for this album. He added the elements of these 2 opera types into his song. So I want to know what he did. I picked up the CD at Carrefour and saw that the first song was titled, 在梅边. To those who never watch Kunqu before, these 3 words might mean nothing to you but 在梅边 is actually a line from Mu dan ting. 杜丽娘：他年得榜蟾宫客 不在梅边在柳边 Immediately, I realised that this title is related to Kunqu. Then I saw the second track, 花田错。 No need me to explain, all of you know that this is a famous opera piece. So I bought this album and I am listening to it now. The first song, 在梅边, has lyrics close to the original Mudanting script. 在梅边落花似雪纷纷绵绵谁人怜 在柳边风吹悬念生生死死随人愿, 千年的等待滋味酸酸楚楚两人怨, 牡丹亭上我眷恋日日年年未停歇 And this is very interesting: 科技发达好有效率 而生活的节奏比明朝的快速一万倍 怎样才能够满足 小朋友哪有时间坐在那里看牡丹亭 花十九个小时唱到所有观众老了 作火车...

Now that SL finished the performance and Ang is still in TW, I am really bored that there is no opera activities. Ang is coming back on Thursday and Richard and me will most probably go fetch her. Funny right?? hahaha... I don't think anyone has seen the above clip before. I found out some time ago that SL organised a Liyuanxi excerpts selection in 1994. The above clip was performed by Li hong from Quanzhou and I forgot where the sheng was from. I think she is a member of SL. Anyone know who she is? The excerpts in this 1994 performance were fantastic! I saw all of them and actually the major start that night was Zeng Jing Ping. She did Yi Chun Liu San, Di Deng, Duan Zhi Ji.. etc. Really nice. The last excerpt, kick ball, done by Singaporeans are not so goood though.... PS: SHarkle kok up again.. so my friend intro me to us Youtube. YOu see the clips i uploaded in SHarkle are not showing up in my blog.

Finally, after practicing the songs for so long, today the performance went smoothly but I didnt sing well. I don't know why my voice just didnt project today. It is like stuck in my throat. As I am one of those wearing a clip mic, any mistakes can be heard clearly. So I didn't dare to sing too loud. Actually it's my fault for not being more confident. When I sang alone at SL, Mei-E said that my singing is ok. Today, I watched Uncle Lim sing E Mao Xue. I like the song and I like the way he sing it. It is so nice. I was very touched. I was so engross in the song that I forgot to change my earrings, my earrings broke. Especially the part when he sang,"白玉钩当了，五花马宰了，来兴儿卖了..." The lyrics plus his singing plus his body language is so touching. Everyone's eyes were glued on him. He didn't do much movements, just a few basic flipping hands, walk around etc.. but it was simple yet so expressive. Goes to show that you don't have to do many movements to express yo...

Erm, I wanted to delete this entry but there are so many comments~ So i decide to keep it but delete the clips. The clips will be kept in Sharkle. Please ask me for the link. :D I don't want unauthorized ppl to see it, you see.. ~wink wink~

Recently, there has been a craze among my network for bloggers to add videos to their blog. I was encouraged to try out Sharkle but it didn't work on my IE. So i downloaded Firefox and it works on Firefox. Ok, I will try to upload this video which showcase the traditional movements of Liyuanxi.

华夏天声 Date: 18 March 2006 Time: 7.45pm Venue: Tian Hock Keng Admission: Free This performance will be based on Nanyin. The show will be divided into 3 parts, Tang, Qing and modern. The Tang part is the longest part, consisting of about3-4 pieces. We will be wearing some Tang style costumes. I will be dancing and singing but fortunately in a group, not alone. The Qing part will have a music playing and singing piece, named Wu Shao Fang Xian. Nanyin used to be palace music. The musicians in the palace wanted to go back to their hometown but they do not dare to tell the emperor. So, they sang a piece to the emperor expressing their desire to go home. Then we will sing a medley of 4 songs for the modern part wearing Qipao. These songs were written by Ding Ma Cheng. This is a group singing, so I not so stress... This time most of the nanyin pieces will be played by Chinese orchestra instead of the usual 4 nanyin instruments. The orchestra made nanyin more dynamic. Some traditional piec...

This is the 100th post for my Opera blog!!! Yeah~ My mikolah blog is also approaching 100 posts. Hxy is going back to Tw so I am going to learn my songs from her tonight. 6 verses of Do Ma~ Good luck to me! Liyuanxi has alot of gestures which are unique to Liyuanxi and other opera types do not use this gestures. Unless they copy the gestures. I already saw some GZX copying these gestures. I myself sometimes use these gestures in GZX but I alter them abit to match GZX more. The most important hand gesture is Pang Xie Shou (螃蟹手). Pang Xie Shou is used very often and it replace the normal Lan Hua Shou in other opera types. In the picture below, the left hand of the actress uses Pang xie shou. Important notes for this hand gesture, the index finger and thumb must form a triangle, not a circle or oval. The other 3 fingers must bend backwards, like an arc. Uncle Lim told me if my fingers can't bend backwards, then I will have to bend them everyday until they can form this nice arc. A few...

Yah, recently, a Dutch designer contacted me through a forum for some quotes on opera and I wrote him a rather long email about it. I think I will post the email here. I was not borned with an interest in chinese opera. Iused to think that Chinese opera is irritating withall those noisy percussion and high pitched screechingvoice. Initially I took up opera just to know how I look likewith the make up and costume but I do not have theslightest interest in it. However, after one performance, I start to miss thescreeching voice and the noisy percussion. Now, Opera is part of my life. My teacher once told me,"You are so crazy,I think youmust be an opera actress in your previous life." Chinese opera is so beautiful. each movement, eachgesture, each note sang is a beautiful artwork nuturedby the rich culture of China. My friend also told me," I am so happy to know someoneso passionate about her own form of art." You know, being an amateur opera actress makes youdifferent ...

Today, I was sleeping sweetly when my phone ring... ~ tra la la~ I didn't pick it up cuz in case it is a call from some company and I don't want them to hear my sleepy voice. After awhile, I look at the missed call and saw that it is Teacher Ang. Hmmm.. so early. So I kicked my blanket aside and called her back .. while lying on bed. ~ ring ring ~ Ang : Yu Ying ah~!!! Me : Yes? Ang : I tell you hor, I got problems with my computer. I wrote out the script of TangBoHu already but I can't print it out cuz I am using my laptop. I want to transfer the file to wanxin com but I can't. Me : Just copy over using a diskette..... Ang : I can't CO over the script. Got problem. ( so funny.. she said Co over instead of copy over.) Me : Email over? Ang : I got problem with connecting to internet cuz i think I applied the singnet with my another house's phoneline. Me : Errr..... Ang : Are you working today? Me : No, but got interview later. Ang : Can you come over later? Me : e...

Yesterday we had a crazy KTV session with the opera ppl. It's really crazy the way some of them sing and dance...... The KTV started at 2pm. I stayed until 4:20pm and left as I have a training session at Mediacorp. Kinda sad to miss the fun. Unfortunately, You can see Zhen xuan's face in the photo... Hee hee... My mum is singing a duet with Tian. Tian kept tugging her to look at the camera but my mum just concentrated on the song and keep singing and singing....... I was abit tired after the training session but I went back to the KTV as it will end only at 11pm. Imagine from 2pm-11pm!! hee hee... anyway, i went back and took more photos. At this time, Teacher was singing a duet with Zheng Qin~!!!! :P Ta dah.. They are singing the Huangmei diao, Xi Feng, together. It is very funny to see this combination and teacher, who is normally a sheng, sang the girl's part. There was a part where the girl will say"Bie hu shuo, kuai qu sao di." But under teacher's distor...

Yup, finally I am going to blog about my sucky performance last night. It is going to be quite a long blog i think. My first scene in the show is scene 3. It went fine but my mic has no sound because the mic is broken. I don't know how the hell that can happen when we already test and rehearsed with the mic in the afternoon. And of all people, I am the only one with a broken mic. Except for the mic problem, this scene went rather well. After that scene, the technician came in and say,"Where is Mic 8???" Mic 8 is me. He took my mic and changed the battery. I then changed my costumes and stuff my 'yuan bao' into my belt. After that, I went to standby at the side but there was an interval so I just stood there. Yilan told the mic control guy to test my mic. After testing, the guy said no sound. ... What the hell, already changed batteries and yet still no sound. Yilan said," You cannot play me out like that leh. You give me a spoilt mic and somemore you give the...