Zhou Dan and Ping Opera performer Liu Yabin sing an episode from Sister Jiang at a concert commemorating Zhou’s teacher Han Shaoyun (1931-2003).

 

Zhou Dan, born in 1970 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, is the national inheritor of Pingju Opera. Zhou’s connection with the opera began very early. She was sent to the countryside when she was a child and was brought up by her grandparents. The carefree life in the village formed her sincere character. Endowed with a beautiful voice, she usually practiced singing among the hills.

She was first captivated by the charm of the art when she watched a Pingju Opera film The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid at the village. She still remembers her fascination with the performers’ singing as well as their graceful posture.
 

After she moved to the city again, she had no chance to watch the opera, until in 1984,  when, at the age of 15, she passed the necessary examinations and was admitted to an art school in Shenyang.
 

Zhou’s teacher at the school happened to be a pupil of Han Shaoyun, a distinguished Pingju Opera artist and the founder of the Han school of the opera, so Zhou had chances to receive valuable instructions from Han. The first lesson Zhou learned from Han was in the play Third Sister Yang Goes To Court. The leading role, Third Sister Yang, born a village girl, was simple and straightforward, quite different from her previous role as Lin Daiyu in A Dream in Red Mansions. Han instructed her to switch between the two styles. Zhou discovered that only when you throw yourself in the play and feel the role in your heart can you make the role come alive on the stage. 
 

Upon graduation from the art school, Zhou became the last disciple to Han. As Zhou’s acting matured, she went to a conservatory of music to learn to sing folk styles to enhance her artistic abilities. But her career after finishing study in 1999 was not smooth. She had few chances to perform Pingju Opera and made a living only through folk performances. She was tempted to give up opera but eventually managed to hold out.

Her persistence paid off later, when she starred in Sister Jiang, My Wife is a Princess and other classical Pingju Opera plays, and her career climaxed when she won the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese theater in 2011.
 

However, she felt more pressure than joy after receiving the award. She started to think about how to spread and pass on this art. Zhou said inheritance is the basis for innovation of the opera, adding that she shifted her focus to tracking down traditional plays and putting them on stage again. Zhou gives lectures in schools and personally trains new performers.