Music in East Asian Theaters

CHINA

Beijing Opera

• Beijing Opera or Peking Opera is a form of traditional Chinese Theatre which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance, and acrobatics.

The Pear Garden

• The Pear Garden or Liyuan was the first known royal acting and musical academy in China. It was founded during the Tang Dynasty by Emperor Xuanzong.

The Pear Garden

• It may be the first institutional Academy of Music in the world. Actors were then known as Children of the Pear Gear.

Zaju

• Zaju is a genre of dramas that had its origins in the Song Dynasty. It has particularly been associated with the time of the Yuan Dynasty,

Zaju

• and remains important in terms of the historical study of the theater arts as well as Classical Chinese literature and poetry.

JAPAN

Noh Theater

• Noh —derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent"—is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century.

Kyogen Theater

• Kyōgen, literally "mad words" or "wild speech", is a form of traditional Japanese comic theater.

Kabuki Theater

• Kabuki is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.

Bunraku Theater

•Bunraku, is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in 1684.   

Bunraku Theater

•Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance: the Ningyōtsukai (puppeteers), the Tayū (chanters) and shamisen musicians.

KOREA

Pansori

• Pansori is a genre of Korean traditional music which employs storytelling and performed by a vocalist and a drummer.

Pansori• The music is usually performed

by one sorikkun (singer) and one gosu (a drummer playing a barrel drum). A full story (madang), sang and recited bye the singer, can take over eight hours to be performed without a break.

Pansori• During the performance, the

singer with a folding fan held in one hand and waves it to signal changes of scence. This is accompanied bye the gosu through the beats of the drum and a king of verbal response known as chuimsae.

Pansori• During the performance, the

singer with a folding fan held in one hand and waves it to signal changes of scence. This is accompanied bye the gosu through the beats of the drum and a king of verbal response known as chuimsae.

Pansori• Chuimsae is exclamation during

Korean traditional music. The audience makes exclamations like Eolsigu! or Jalhanda! which mean Yippee! and Good! in Korean.