The Kunming Free-Opera Experience
Presents
"A Wise Man, A Evil Man, A Princess, A Clown And A Dragon"

An opera/performance together with 20 retired Chinese musicians and dancers between the age 60 to 90,
performing traditional Chinese music at a local park in Kunming called “The Green Lake Park”.
This project is connecting the old and the young and it is examining their way of thinking
and the concept of being creative.
In Kunming there is a big tradition of singing, dancing and performing in the parks,
this is a social gathering where it is more important to get together then to make a perfect performance.
After being in the park filming, playing and talking with different performers
we selected one group we wanted to collaborate with.

While visiting a local drawing class for children between the age 3-14 years old,
we asked them to draw 5 different characters they would like to see in a Beijing opera,
we also asked them to make a drawing how they experienced Kunming.
This drawing class fascinated us because it had a very unique and different
approach to learning then other Chinese schools.
It is common for both art-schools and other schools in China to learn
technique by copying (in art-schools, the Old Masters)
and not use your own imagination and creativity. But this class was different,
here the students was encouraged to be creative and use their imagination.
The childrens drawings became an inspiration for us when we designed the scenography
and the 5 different masks to be worn by the retired dancers in the opera.
We later invited the retired musicians from the park to make a performance together with us,
we asked them to use our scenography and the masks and characters
we had created based on the children s drawings
and with their own imagination create their own story.
This proved to be quite difficult in the beginning,
the Chinese retired performers came from a different generation
and was not used to be given this much freedom to use their own imagination
but after a couple of practise's they really started to enjoy themselves and in the end they put together a two hour long opera/performance mixing Chinese traditional music and dance with their own story they created based on the scenography and the masks.

Collaboration with Bettina Hvidevold Hystad

Thanks to: Sha Yurong, Liu Lifen, Dong Sheng Art Group and 943 Studio, Kunming China