Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 1, 2024

“Mutual Learning” between Civilizations and Conceptual “Replacement”—An Investigation Centered on the Aesthetics of Opera Performance

(Abstract)

Zou Yuanjiang

Cross-cultural research tends to include two modes: “mutual learning” between civilizations and conceptual “replacement.” In cross-cultural research and exchange between Chinese and Western theatre, “mutual learning” between civilizations is often neglected or distorted as conceptual “replacement” becomes the main way of thinking. We need to ponder the fact that for more than a hundred years, the performance aesthetic of traditional Chinese opera has been unsettled by Western thinking on drama and Stanislavski’s psychological experience-guided system of performance. In the past forty years, “modern opera” with the core concept of “plot integrity” has implicitly “replaced” the aesthetic concepts of traditional Chinese operatic art. As a result, the traditional opera mode has changed in three respects: the textual structure of the performance, the expression of feelings through gesture and the audience’s reception of images, and they have diverted the aesthetic taste of Chinese operas. Operatic scholars and performers urgently need to explore the possibilities of mutual learning between civilizations in the creation of contemporary operatic art.