How can elements of Drama Therapy be used to help relieve psychogenic insomnia?

[1] Aristotle (1996). Poetics. Beijing, The Commercial Press 

[2] China Sleep Association (2021), 2021 Exercise and Sleep White Paper 

[3] Russell, F. And Neil, S. 2022(19 July). How to sleep better, Lecture. Museum of home 

[4] Robert, J.Landy(2021), The recliner and the stage: language and action in the psyche, Shanghai, East China Normal University Press 

[5] Zhou Xianbao, & Zhao Qian. (2013). From mask to reality – An exploration of drama therapy theory and practice. Theatre Arts, (5), 18-25. 

[6] Hao, Willy. (2015). From ancient healing rituals to contemporary drama therapy. Fujian Forum (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 1. 

[7] Wu, Zong-Hui, Xu, W.S., & Xu, Y.N.. (2019). Current status and development prospects of Chinese and Western drama therapy research. Journal of Tonghua Normal College, 40(5), 110-116. 

[8] Li, Yaxuan. (2020). Drama therapy: A new model of social work case intervention. Society and the Common Good. 

[9] Lin, Yixuan. (2008). Art therapists are also art creators – A discussion on the professionalism of drama therapists. Taiwan Arts Drama Journal, (4), 17-29. 

[10] Landy, R. J., & Lee, B.L.. (1998). Drama therapy: Concepts, theory and practice. 

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[12] He, Changzhu (2011). Expressive arts therapy 15 lectures. Five South Book Publishing 

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[15] Zhou, Xin. (2010). Art therapy in psychotherapy. Youthful years, 20 

Shakespeare and his works are one of the most important cultural symbols of Britain, and it has gained worldwide popularity as a benchmark for the world of theatre. It is worth noting that for centuries, beginning with the 1597 production of Henry IV (Part 1) in UK, Shakespeare’s classic plays have been staged across Britain without interruption. In particular, Shakespeare has been actively performed in the UK since the turn of the century and It is still a popular staple of British theatre productions. So I think such case is worth researching and learning from in depth.

In my explorations, I have found that the spread of Shakespeare was driven by two main levels, one at the national level and the other at the social level.

National level

• Much of Shakespeare’s life was spent during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The period gave rise to many fine poets, and playwrights and Shakespeare is one of these representatives. In addition, the popularity of English was an important reason for the wide dissemination of Shakespeare. The development of Shakespeare enriched English as a language, while the global spread of the English language contributed to the spread of Shakespearean play.

• Shakespeare flourished in Britain not only because of the British tradition of academic and artistic creative freedom, but also because of the good cultural management mechanisms of the British government, which supported the development of Shakespeare. For example, The UK government’s three-tier system of cultural governance and England’s Council funding management.

• In addition to strong support for professional theatre practitioners, the UK government also places great importance on the development of young theatre talent. The government also places great emphasis on the development of young theatre talent. Drama In Education is very common in the UK, from primary and secondary schools to universities, and even adult and special education. The UK Department for Education has not only given drama the status of a separate subject, but has also given detailed instructions on the aims and approaches to drama education at different stages. This has played a crucial role in the spread of Shakespeare among young people.

• Spreading Shakespearean culture through the power of public diplomacy. Examples include Shakespeare at the London Olympics, the worldwide Shakespeare Festival, and the Shakespeare exhibition at the British Library.

Social Level

• While supportive government policies have provided a solid backing for the preservation and development of Shakespeare, it is a number of private related institutions that actually put the policies into practice and carry out the actual operation of the dissemination of Shakespeare. The private sector organisations working on Shakespeare can be divided into a number of categories: firstly, general institutions such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Foundation and the British Shakespeare Association; secondly, Shakespeare-centred theatre organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre; and thirdly, departments within academic and publishing institutions specialising in Shakespearean studies such as the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, the Stratford-upon-Avon College, Cambridge University Press, and the Shakespeare Research Centres set up in countless universities. centres in countless universities.

The gradual decline of traditional Chinese opera is due to a number of factors.

• The stories of traditional Chinese opera have not kept pace with the times. Most of the plays in Chinese opera depict stories related to the nobility of the imperial palace during the ancient feudal period and are far removed from the lives of ordinary people. At the same time, it expresses values that are not in line with modern thinking. For example, polygamy.
• The tempo of Chinese opera music is too slow. In this era of gradually accelerating pace of life, people are more prone to restlessness. The slow rhythms and cadences of traditional Chinese opera hardly resonate with audiences.
• The demise of some dialects has also led to the decline of traditional Chinese opera. There are many dialect-based genres in Chinese opera, but nowadays, due to the popularity of Mandarin, many young people no longer understand the dialect, which is a major reason why Chinese opera has lost its young audience.
• The development of modern media has enriched people’s lives and diverted audiences from Chinese opera. The popularity of film, television and the Internet has made it possible to provide more ways of entertainment. But it is worth reflecting on why operas and musicals continue to be sold out in Western countries where the media is more developed, especially in theatres on Broadway in New York and in London’s West End.
• Traditional Chinese opera is visually incompatible with the aesthetics of young people. The make-up and costumes in Chinese opera, as well as the stage sets, often give young people an outdated and scary visual impression, which discourages many young people.

Feedback from the tutorial on 9 May 2022

• Must follow the “What, Why, How, What if” format for my presentation.
• In the “Why” section, I can explore social and personal factors.
• In the “How” section, I need to clarify the methodology and add more details.
• The section on stakeholders needs to be more specific, e.g. children, their parents, and Chinese Opera artists. And how can I use the feedback from my stakeholders as part of the research.
• For the intervention part, there is a need to think about what I should do next. Keep it up or extending it?
• In the “What”section, I need more clarity as well as more detail.

Foshan City, Guangdong Province is home to one of the traditional Chinese operas– Cantonese Opera. Today I have invited Alice and Elaine, students from Xishan Primary School and Huancheng Primary School in Foshan, Guangdong Province, to participate in my online traditional Chinese opera workshop. Alice said that when she was in kindergarten, a teacher had explained to her about traditional Chinese opera, but she was not interested at the time, while Elaine said she had never been exposed to this traditional culture at school.

At the end of the workshop, they expressed their desire to design their own school uniform about traditional Chinese Opera and said with great anticipation, “It would be great if I could really wear this to school!”

Meanwhile, I conducted a short interview with their parents.

Q： Is your child usually exposed to traditional Chinese opera at school?

A： It depends on their teachers, especially the Chinese teachers, who, if they knew anything about Chinese Opera, might have given them a brief introduction in class. But the school does not offer such a course.

B：To be honest, I’m not really sure, because I’ve never heard my children tell me

Q： Does your city government have a relevant platform for children to learn traditional Chinese Opera?

A：Yes! For example, there are free Chinese Opera classes at the Children’s Palace, which children can attend every week if they are interested. However, the problem is that most young people do not understand or are not interested in this traditional culture, like my daughter who thinks it is very old-fashioned. I really want her to learn it, but how can I get her interested? Maybe this type of traditional culture needs to be combined with something fashionable to get the attention of young people.

B： I agree with her that there is a weekly public performance of traditional Chinese Opera in a park near us, but the enthusiasts are usually more elderly, as many young people, even of my age, do not appreciate it.

Mingyang Ke
Graduated from the Shanghai Theatre Academy with a degree in traditional Chinese Opera directing. He has been studying traditional Chinese Opera since he was a child and is a comprehensive creative talent integrating scriptwriting, directing and acting. Exchange study at the Department of Theatre Studies, Taipei National University of the Arts in 2019. Since graduation, he has been working in traditional Chinese Opera education and in Chinese Opera writing, directing and performance. he has extensive experience in traditional Chinese Opera stage performance and practice.

Q： At what age did you start learning traditional Chinese Opera?

A： I started learning to sing traditional Chinese Opera when I was seven years old, but traditional Chinese opera is a comprehensive art and singing is only the most basic part of it, so I didn’t officially enter into the systematic study of traditional Chinese Opera until I was 12 years old.

Q： What kind of opportunity brought you to Chinese Opera and how did you develop a love for it?

A：In my hometown of Zhanjiang, Guangdong, there is a very strong traditional Chinese Opera atmosphere. The local people are very keen on opera singing. Although they are not professional Chinese Opera singers and do not wear fancy opera costumes, they will gather in their spare time, their stage may be in a corner of a park or in someone’s home, and some of them sing and some of them play traditional folk music. My aunt used to take me to such gatherings when I was a child, and those beautiful songs sung in Cantonese, those beautiful notes played on ancient instruments, remained with me throughout my childhood. Since then, traditional Chinese Opera has been buried in my heart like a seed, and today, it has become my passion.

Q： Are there any stories you can share that stand out to you from your study or practice of opera?

A：I mentioned earlier that singing is the basis of performance in traditional Chinese opera, so a good voice is vital for opera learners. But it is well known that adolescent boys go through a period of voice change, a stage that is like a sudden elimination race. Some go through the post-vocal change period with their voices as if they had been kissed by God, while others have to change the roles they are learning because of the sudden change in their voices or even never be able to perform in Chinese Opera again. I was studying male roles and my voice became very awkward, often breaking in the high notes, a perfectionist, I would never allow such flaws, so I practiced a lot to find my own way of singing, and eventually I found that I could master the male roles as well as the female roles. It was an amazing experience, and perhaps it is a testament to the old adage – When God closes this door, he will open another door for you.

Q： Nowadays, traditional Chinese Opera’s main audience is still concentrated on the elderly. Based on your years of study and experience in traditional Chinese Opera, what do you think are the main reasons why it is not so popular among the younger age group?

A： In my opinion, there are three general reasons for the failure to catch on with the younger demographic.

• Traditional Chinese Opera cannot adapt to the pace of contemporary youth. What they need are cultural products that they can easily access without leaving their homes, such as a song or a short video, whereas opera is an art of the theatre, and one has to go into the theatre to experience its charm. Sometimes young people go into the theatre, but the long singing passages or the slow pace of the performance make them doze off.
• The profound cultural heritage of traditional Chinese Opera is a deterrent to the youth of today. Chinese Opera has a long history and the content involved, including classical Chinese poetry and historical knowledge, is very esoteric and all too distant from the lives of modern youth groups, and mastering them is not an easy task and requires long-term accumulation, which has led many young people to report that they cannot understand traditional opera.
• There is currently a single way to disseminate Chinese Opera, and young people of today have too little access to it. In this age of information explosion, the dissemination of Chinese Opera is as important as its heritage, and to a certain extent even more urgent. At present, “Chinese Opera in schools” is an effective way for Chinese Opera troupes to cultivate an audience of young people in recent years. It is clear that this means of communication is too limited and not very effective.

Q： Have you ever reached out to young people in your Chinese Opera education? Based on your experience, what do you think are the best ways or suggestions to make traditional Chinese Opera culture more popular or spread among young people?

A： In the traditional Chinese opera education that I am involved in, I often have to deal with groups of young people. If we are to do something to popularise and disseminate Chinese Opera in response to their current situation, we need to integrate elements of Chinese opera into their daily lives.

For example, firstly, with the help of short video-based new media platforms, young people can be quickly introduced to the charm of opera in a short period of time; secondly, developing opera-based mobile apps, such as game software with Chinese Opera elements as the theme, comic book-based software that tells opera stories, and photo filter software for opera make-up, etc.; thirdly, forming a live-streaming team of opera performers, through which young audiences can Young viewers can show their approval through live-streaming, paying and so on, and they can also communicate with each other and the Chinese Opera performers through linking mikes and so on, further bringing themselves closer to Chinese Opera.

What

Theme： How can I achieve 1+1>2 in the transmission of traditional Chinese Opera culture?

The precise question: How do I help pass on the art of traditional Chinese Opera (Xi Qu) to a younger audience?

Main Stakeholders: Youth and Chinese Opera artists

Why

Traditional Chinese Opera is unique in the world of theatre arts, and it has many branches and varieties. But due to neglect, especially by young people, some of the smaller kinds are facing the crisis of disappearing. I hope that more young people will take notice of this type of traditional artistic wealth.

How

My initial idea was to combine elements of traditional Chinese Opera with modern products to bring it into the lives of young people in a more modern form.

The main research methods include:

• The Documentary Research, in which the literature on traditional Chinese Opera is reviewed to find the current crisis facing the culture.
• The Survey, in which the respondents are mainly traditional Chinese Opera artists and young people, aims to analyse the reasons for the crisis.
• The Interdisciplinary Approach, an approach that helps me to explore the areas in which traditional Chinese Opera culture can be better integrated to produce a 1+1>2 effect.
• The Practical Approach，in which main purpose of Stakeholders as Youth is to test whether the options I have explored can be effectively put into practice.

What if

If this can be achieved, there are three main advantages：

• For traditional Chinese Opera artists, we can help them to find better ways to disseminate their traditional art in order to alleviate the crisis of its disappearance.
• For product producers, we can help them to find new and innovative ways of making their products.
• For young people, there are better ways to engage with traditional Chinese Opera culture

Five girls from the Shanghai Theatre Academy born after 2000: Bian Jingting, Yang Xi, Zhu Jiayin, Zhu Huan Cheng and Cheng Xiaochen. Integrating Beijing opera singing into modern music, they have interpreted the songs in a refreshing way, giving new life to the traditional Chinese Opera culture. At present, the cumulative number of likes for their Peking Opera-related videos has exceeded 20 million. The song “Exploring the Window” alone has a total of over 50 million plays and over 2.5 million likes on short video platforms. Many young netizens have taken the initiative to learn about Peking Opera after watching the video.

https://youtu.be/VRRW2BwcL-U

Original version of the song Visiting Window

I was inspired by the intervention of these five young girls who added a new dynamic to traditional art in their own way. I have been thinking about the balance between heritage and innovation in traditional art. Today’s Chinese youth, they grow up with little exposure to traditional arts, let alone love for them. Therefore, for the transmission of traditional art, we, as purveyors of art, need to have a ‘contemporary aesthetic’ and take the initiative to find new ways of integrating traditional art into the modern world.

Introduction

If Shakespeare is a piece of warm sunshine in the history of Western theatre, then Tang Xianzu [1] is a jewel in the history of traditional Eastern opera. I once went to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre during my studies in England. These works, written hundreds of years ago, are still alive and well on the stage. I took a good look at the audience and was struck by the fact that these ‘Ancient’ plays are still very popular with young people and even children. After leaving the theatre, I began to ponder.

“Xi Qu” is a unique term for traditional Chinese opera, dating back to the Qin Dynasty. It originated from the primitive song and dance and is a comprehensive stage art style with a long history. As it is known around the world, Beijing opera is one of the most popular forms of opera. In addition to Beijing opera, there are also the “Guangdong Cantonese opera”, “Sichuan opera” and “Shanghai opera”, depending on the musical melody, voice and local dialect. The tragedies and comedies of ancient Greece, Traditional Chinese opera(Xi Qu) and Indian Sanskrit drama are known as the three oldest theatre cultures in the world.

Video Link： One of the categories of Xi Qu：Beijing Opera

But such a valuable cultural heritage, in today’s China, for various reasons [2], does not receive the attention and love of young people. As a result, the heritage of opera culture is in crisis. How can I bring traditional opera culture into the lives of young people, so that traditional culture can be brought to the attention of young people and at the same time make it a vehicle for young people to express their individuality, achieving the effect of 1+1>2, this is the change I want to see. This also inspired me to combine Chinese opera culture with school uniforms.

About one of the elements of Xi Qu – Face Painting

Opera face painting, which refers to the painting of the faces of traditional Chinese opera performers, is the art of make-up modelling during stage performances. One of the most important features of face painting is that the different colours represent the different personalities of the characters.

For example

Red Face: Symbol of fidelity and valour. Representative figure: Guan Yu

Black face: Symbol of integrity, selflessness. Representative figure: The Lord of Pao

White Face: Symbol of insidiousness, cunning. Representative figure: Cao Cao

Yellow Face: Symbol of fierceness, brutality. Representative figure: Dian Wei

Blue Face: Symbol of untamedness and valour. Representative figure: Dourton

Gold Face and Silver Face: Symbols of mythological figures such as demons and monsters. Representative figure: Sun Wukong (Monkey King)

How can I incorporate traditional Chinese opera elements into the lives of young people? I have made the following assumptions.

About Chinese School Uniforms

Unlike the uniforms of Japanese, Korean and some Western schools, the first impression of Chinese primary and secondary school uniforms is that they are often “ugly” and “rigid”.

One of the main factors is that Chinese education administrators want students to focus more on their studies by standardising student grooming. For example, by requiring girls to cut their hair uniformly short in order to reduce the time taken to style it. By asking students to all wear loose-fitting school uniforms, to cover up the differences in their body shapes, thus reducing the body anxiety of certain students, etc. While there are some advantages to such a uniform approach, it also hinders the development of young people’s individuality.

In Harry Potter, the magical robes of different colleges have different colours and totems, representing the personalities of the students of the different colleges.

• Gryffindor： Bravery, energy and chivalry.
• Ravenclaw： Quick-witted, witty and knowledgeable
• Hufflepuff： Integrity, loyalty, honesty, not afraid of hardship, low profile
• Slytherin：Loyal to friends, proud, elegant, strict, intelligent

Like Hogwarts, the colours and totems of the traditional Chinese Opera face symbolise different characteristics, so could it also be combined with these ‘featureless’ Chinese school uniforms to allow young people to express their own individuality at school? To this end, I have developed some hypotheses.

1.Combine traditional Chinese Opera Face painting with the film characters that young people love.[3]

2. Add these New Faces to the school uniform (it can be designed by the students themselves, and let them show their individuality, the following pictures are only an assumption.)

For example: