Thanks for this Armand. I sat and watched the whole thing through. I was engaged on a lot of levels. I hardly know where to begin.
Snif…it was so inspiring. I confess my former political deviancy and respectfully request to receive re-education through labor.
Flecktarn, are they still staging Chiang Ching's Red Operas in Beijing? I thought the Cultural Revolution had been denounced and renounced as a mis-guided time of troubles for China. Chiang Ching got purged a long time ago.
Back when this movie and Nixon's trip to China were current events and I was serious about a career in performing arts, I studied world theater, Chinese theater, Red Operas and the Cultural Revolution, all in a clueless American teenage way. I've never before gotten to watch a complete performance of a Red Opera, so that was a treat.
When I saw the Shen Yun Chinese Opera road show this spring, I noticed that the modern acts, even though they had anti-Communist themes, nonetheless used techniques that Chiang Ching had pioneered, when she applied Socialist Realism to classical Chinese music and dance. I was able to show my wife what I'd been talking about from this video.
That was truly bodacious dance-fighting. Dancing With Hand Grenades was great. Defeating the Puppet Troops With Big Swords was even better. The dancers' complete lack of muzzle discipline gave me the willies at first when they danced with firearms, but after a while I got over them sweeping everyone onstage…I consciously reminded myself that their guns were toys.
I liked that the boy soldiers all wore long pants while the girls soldiers showed their pretty knees off in shorts. Also, it looked like they worked an 'ethnic' Hainanese folk dance into the Peoples' Army And People Are One Rejoicing sequence. Someone who knows, am I right about that? If Chiang Ching knew anything, she knew show business.
has been watching some documentaries lately set in the Western Desert, and was inspired to create this...
