•Introduction

•About Chinese Opera

•Traditions

•Characters

•Performance

•Musical Accompaniment

•Gestures & Props

•Glossary

Chinese Opera uses four distinct role types:

• Male (Sheng)
• Female (Dan)
• Painted face (gods and warriors, also demons) (Jing)
• Clowns (Chou).

Each color symbolizes a certain characteristic:

• Red: loyalty and uprightness
• Black: rough, stern or honest nature
• Yellow: rashness, fierceness
• White: cunning and deceitful character
• Gold and silver: gods and demons.

Mask coloring activity (can relate to art curriculum)
You need pictures of the character types; sheets of life-sized face outline; pencils and coloring pens; scissors and string.

• Look at the pictures with the students and discuss the makeup and costumes of male, female, painted face and clown characters. Talk about the colors that are used.
  
  
• Discuss and compare the Chinese Opera clownís face to the more familiar red-nosed rosy-cheeked clown western children are used to seeing.
  
  
• Give each child a face outline. Ask the children either to choose a character or to invent one and color it according to the pictures you've discussed together. Pay particular attention to how students draw a Chinese Opera clown.
  
• Color the mask of the Monkey Emperor.

Movement and music activity
You need tumbling mats, a variety of percussion instruments, and a wary eye for aspiring acrobats!

• Put the children into groups of about four.
  
  
• Have each group choose a few percussion instruments or collect their own sound makers. Separate each group into halves, with one half to serve as performers and the other to be musicians.
  
  
• Demonstrate the concept of matching a specific sound (e.g., cymbals or clappers) with a specific movement (e.g., jumping or forward roll). Also demonstrate the concept of controlled movement.
  
  
• Allow the groups time to work independently to create a sequence of moves, in which each move is accompanied by a specific musical sound (one half of the group moves to the sounds created by the other half). Strongly encourage the groups to keep their movements slow and carefully controlled.
  
  
• Let each group perform their sequence for the rest of the class.

Musical characters activity
You need a selection of percussion instruments and a CD of Chinese Opera music (optional).

• Discuss which types of percussion instruments and sounds would traditionally be most suitable for male, female, clown and warrior roles. For example, a female character might be accompanied by wooden clappers, lightly played; a male role might be accompanied by a deeper, firmer drum or gong.
  
  
• Sit in a circle and give each student a percussion instrument. Ask each student to make suggestions about the kind of character their instrument might best represent and to demonstrate their ideas.
  
  
• Have the students put their instruments down and stand up in the circle. Start the CD and have the students move around the circle. When the music stops, the students stop and sit down in front of a new instrument. Repeat the description process.

• One child at time goes behind the screen (or you could send them in twos or threes if you have a large group).
  
  
• The student or students behind the screen play music on a percussion instrument in order to portray a character. (If in a group, the students must be sure to confer quietly, so as not to give away their character identity.)
  
  
• The children in the audience must try to guess which character is being portrayed.
  
  
• The student guessing correctly then gets to take his or her turn behind the screen. If the same students repeatedly guess correctly, you may wish to change to a simple rotation system to ensure that everyone gets a chance to create a character.
  
  
• If students are going behind the screen in groups, you may allow the correct guesser to choose their group members, or you may wish to select group members yourself to avoid reinforcing cliques.