Over the next two decades, Zhao continued to perform Kunqu opera on stage — but quietly began reshaping the artform from within. Determined not to let it fade, she started adapting its stylized gestures for memory training, its slow rhythms for meditation, its language for digital classrooms.
tirsdag 24. juni 2025
Second Act: How a 500-Year-Old Chinese Opera Returned to Modern Life
Zhao Jinyu still remembers the time she gave away tickets to her Kunqu opera performance — and couldn’t find anyone who wanted them. “Too elegant,” her friends said. “Makes me sleepy.” That was 2005, just a few years after Kunqu opera — a 500-year-old form of Chinese opera known for its refined movement and lyrical verse — was added to UNESCO’s inaugural list of “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”
Over the next two decades, Zhao continued to perform Kunqu opera on stage — but quietly began reshaping the artform from within. Determined not to let it fade, she started adapting its stylized gestures for memory training, its slow rhythms for meditation, its language for digital classrooms.
Over the next two decades, Zhao continued to perform Kunqu opera on stage — but quietly began reshaping the artform from within. Determined not to let it fade, she started adapting its stylized gestures for memory training, its slow rhythms for meditation, its language for digital classrooms.
