Dressed in a red-and-white warrior costume, Peking opera actress Zhang Wanting balances on one foot on the narrow handle of a rosewood chair. She bends forward, lifts her other leg high and grasps the two long pheasant plumes on her helmet to strike a pose like a flying swallow.
From more than 100 spectators in a modern Beijing theater, cheers and applause rise.
It is a Sunday afternoon in early September, and Zhang is leading "The Masked Heroine,β a signature play from the Song School of Peking opera, founded in the early 20th century as part of a Chinese tradition centuries old. It is the 30-year-old actressβs first time starring in the role in a full production, but also the fruit of over a decade of hard work that begins when she was a child.
"Ever since I first started learning this play," she says, "Iβve always dreamed of performing it in full.β
Growing up in Chinaβs
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