The Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute

Greater Washington, DC is rich with Chinese Opera, but few outside the Chinese-American community know about it.  The Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute (WCSCOI) is a local non-profit arts organization that presents the finest professional performances of Chinese Opera and is dedicated to bringing this multidisciplinary cultural art form to the widest audience possible. Local presenting organizations and excellent educational programs are essential to this mission.

In its first decade, WCSCOI has proven its ability to develop and present programs in collaboration with community-based educational and arts presenting organizations in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  By working directly with local organizers, the institute can offer programs specially designed to reach out to new audiences made up of people outside the Chinese community. 

At the same time, WCSCOI continues to serve the Chinese American community and has a reputation throughout the Mid-Atlantic region for the excellent quality of Chinese opera performances involving US-resident and overseas professional actors and musicians, as well as for the serious training of performers in each of the multiple artistic disciplines that are the composite of Chinese opera theater (singing, movement, character acting, musical instrumentation, and makeup artistry), and in other areas of the traditional performing arts.

WCSCOI performance venues have included the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Strathmore Arts Center, the Library of Congress, United States Department of the Interior, the U.S. Geological Survey Auditorium in Reston, Virginia, and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.  Local universities—including Georgetown University, American University, George Mason University, the University of Maryland, and Mount Saint Mary’s College—have benefited from WCSCOI workshops.  WCSCOI has participated in the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Washington, DC Government Asian Pacific Festival, Saturday Morning at the National Theater, the Delaware Asian Culture Festival in Annapolis, First Night—New Year’s Eve Celebration of the Arts, and parades in Gaithersburg and Rockville, Maryland.

Education, Research, Performance

Education is basic to all goals of WCSCOI.  To expose the larger community to Chinese opera, the artists have made hundreds of appearances at area schools, public libraries, and local special events.  WCSCOI reaches out to new audiences through performances, lecture demonstrations, and workshops to assist teachers as they integrate Chinese performing arts lessons into the curriculum.  WCSCOI supplements performance with cultural interpretation by specialists, camera or text ready program notes, and “super title” slide-projected English (and Chinese character) translations of the opera arias and dialogues.  In addition to educational outreach, WCSCOI also focuses on training.  For extensive training in the traditional Chinese performing arts, there are performing arts classes held year-round at local area Chinese-language schools.  During the summer, there is an intensive Chinese performing arts training program, which ends with a major production in which students perform side-by-side with professional actors.  WCSCOI has trained over 150 students, who not only develop an appreciation for opera, but cultivate in themselves a sense of self-confidence that carries over into other aspects of their lives.

WCSCOI is able to accomplish its educational and artistic goals because at the core of WCSCOI are highly committed artistic masters.  Working in support of these masters is a large body of volunteers.  Among them are a former director of a major Chinese opera academy, celebrated professional actors and musicians, ethnomusicologists, arts management interns, program and outreach specialists, and supportive leaders of the Chinese-American community.  Together they are able to research, develop and implement programs well-suited to both Chinese and non-Chinese audiences.

It is customary for companies to carefully edit and stage operas to highlight an actor’s skills and accommodate the needs of audiences.  In the United States, the WCSCOI strives to strike a balance between adapting Chinese opera to its new social and economic environment and maintaining the integrity of Chinese aesthetics and values.  Performances are based upon selections of operas that best represent the genre.  Like other Chinese opera companies in the United States, a performance may be designed to present one or two scenes from different operas. WCSCOI has ventured beyond standard practice by also presenting complete opera, an enormous endeavor, but one that is truly appreciated by Chinese opera audiences in the United States.

Professional Artistic Excellence

The Founding Directors of the Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute, Chu Shan ZHU and Judy HUANG, graduated from the Shanghai School of Music and the Performing Arts and early in their careers were nationally recognized performing artists of Chinese opera.  After immigrating to the United States, Mr. ZHU and Mrs. HUANG performed with Greater Washington, DC local Chinese opera companies. Besides giving countless fine performances with Chinese-American Peking opera companies, they helped raise local performance standards through actor training.  In 1992, they founded the Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute in order to preserve, expand, enhance, and research Chinese opera in the United States.

Mr. ZHU has over 30 years of experience in professional Chinese opera. He was the Director of the Experimental Chinese Opera Theatre of the Shanghai Traditional Opera College and the Director, Script Writer, and Artistic Manager of the Shanghai Beijing Opera Theatre. He has produced over 60 operas, and has won libretto revision awards from the China Department of Education.  He starred in the 1984 Chinese film, “Murder in the White Foggy Street.”  Ms. HUANG was a leading performer at the Shanghai Chinese Opera Institute, and played a starring role in the television series, “Emperor Qianlong Visits Jiangnan.”  For her work with WCSCOI, in 1994 and 1996 she was awarded a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artists Award.  Ms. HUANG’s father, Mr. HUANG Zheng Qin, is a gold medallist of the Eastern China Regional Chinese Opera Performers Competition.  He is also a film star who has performed with the legendary Chinese opera artist, Mei Lanfang.  He is closely involved in the WCSCOI as he writes adaptations for operas and frequently participates in performances and presentations.

In addition to the core professional artists, the institute has successfully mobilized an active body of volunteers for its activities.  There are dozens of guest actors, musicians, and experienced back stage artists, as well as front office staff who devote countless hours to Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute projects.  Among these volunteers are Dr. Nora YEH, an ethnomusicologist; Dr. Patricia CHOU, a program development specialist; and Shirley CHOW and Po-Ching SHEN, who serve as cultural translators.  Overall, there are too many volunteers and supporters from the Chinese-American community to mention by name.  The qualifications and dedication of the large number of volunteers from the greater Washington, DC community is a testimony to the fine reputation Chu Shan ZHU and Judy HUANG have built while developing WCSCOI educational programs and staging highly successful artistic productions.

WCSCOI has received grant support and assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, Montgomery County, Fairfax County, and local Chinese business associations.  WCSCOI actively seeks public, private, and corporate support for upcoming and future projects and organizational development, and hopes to collaborate with presenters and local arts agencies with common goals for audience outreach.

In particular, WCSCOI has established a relationship with the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.  We hope that this relationship will be mutually beneficial, fruitful, and long lasting.  The first series of activities are scheduled for spring and fall 2002.  In the spring, workshops will expose students to aspects of Chinese opera and traditional performing arts, and, in September 2002, there will be major performances of “Sun Wu Kong” and “Farewell My Concubine.” These operas are significant for the demands in singing, movement, and makeup artistry, as well as for the literary histories they portray.  These works will provide a good introduction of Chinese opera to Western audiences.  Finally, there are also plans for an academic symposium, with the topic likely to be focused on how the resonance between Brecht’s theory of performance and aesthetic theories of performance for traditional Chinese operatic theater produced mutual understanding and room for symbiotic artistic development in the East and the West.

As a result of these educational, artistic, and academic activities, we hope that the WCSCOI will gain greater visibility among mainstream American communities throughout the United States and enhance its capacity to serve as catalyst and nexus for the continuation and advancement of research and practice of the traditional Chinese performing arts.

For More Information Please Call:                                Or Write to: Washington Chu Shan

or Patricia Chou (301) 443-5013                                                    Chinese Opera Institute

or Michelle Meade (703) 400-8927                                               2022 Seattle Ave.

                                                                                                         Silver Spring, MD 20905