Kunqu baizhong, Dashi shuoxi (One hundred pieces of Kunqu, Master performers talk about their scenes): A Review Essay

Abstract

At the core of the project that is the subject of this review, hereafter referred to as Dashi shuoxi, is a set of 110 video lectures, each between one and two hours long, by 29 “master” performers of Kunqu 崑曲, most of whom were aged around 70 at the time of recording. While Kunqu once denoted a style of music and singing, it also has come to refer to stage performance that makes use of that musical style. Theater sung to Kunqu was dominant into the 19th century and has returned to a level of prominence since it was listed as “a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity” by UNESCO in 2001. Dashi shuoxi is not the first project to attempt to document how Kunqu is, was, or “should be” performed, but it is certainly the most ambitious, both in terms of scale and its (problematic) attempt to present a definitive Kunqu repertoire within a highly systematized framework. For the researcher, it contains valuable information on the recent transmission histories