Emptiness‐Substance: Xushi

Kuo, Jason C.

doi:10.1002/9781118885215.ch16

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The frame he chose rests on the dynamic of two classical Chinese concepts – xu and shi . This pair permeates nearly every aspect of Chinese life and art, but defies literal translation, for xu could mean ‘void, empty, unreal, absent, figurative, insubstantial or imaginary’, and shi ‘solid, full, real, present, concrete or substantial’ (Kuo 2015: 329). Their interplay, suggested in some of the Chinese elements Zhang merges into the film – performance, martial arts, literature, painting, Chan Buddhism and Confucianism (Zhongshengzhisheng 2021) – prevails in the overall visual design and action sequences of the film, as will be discussed below.…”

Section: White Snake’s Reconceptualization Of Xiqu Filmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transmediation, Transgression and Popularization: A Study of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

Feng

2023

European Review

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The preservation of declining xiqu heritage through remediation and transmediation has often been ineffective in attracting a wider audience. The Cantonese opera film White Snake (2021), with its unusual utilization of computer-generated technology and transgressive combination of various media, offers a fresh approach to popularizing xiqu among younger audiences. To overcome aesthetic differences between cinema and xiqu, the film transforms medium specificities and transmedial potentials of Song landscape paintings and martial-arts film, adapting them to a new scenic and choreographic setting. By altering the original play’s sensory and semiotic modalities, White Snake’s transmedia aspects blaze a new trail for popularizing xiqu heritage for a new generation.

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Section: White Snake’s Reconceptualization Of Xiqu Filmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transmediation, Transgression and Popularization: A Study of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

Feng

2023

European Review

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“… 4 4 Jason C. Kuo’s words on the issue of xu and shi in Chinese art are worth quotation: “Depending on the contexts in which these two terms appear, xu can mean void, empty, unreal, absent, figurative, insubstantial, or imaginary while shi can mean solid, full, real, present, concrete, or substantial. When joined in a compound, xushi , they often refer to the ways in which the artist deals with those things in a poem or painting that are real and present to the reader or viewer ( shi ) and those things that are absent and left to the imagination ( xu )” (Kuo, 2015, 329). …”

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confidence: 99%

Reframing nothingness in the kunju adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs

Feng

2021

Orbis Litterarum

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Practitioners of xiqu (traditional Chinese theater) have long appropriated Western plays and theatrical ideas to modernize Chinese tradition for new theatricalities. Primarily, plays driven by plot and characterization have been selected to highlight themes germane to Enlightenment modernity. Yet recently, there have been a few intercultural attempts to adapt the so‐called Absurdist drama with xiqu, in a deliberate deviation from metanarratives that have characterized modern Chinese theater for nearly a century, to reflect better the existential conditions of contemporary individuals. By investigating the actors’ reframing of nothingness in Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe’s adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs, this article argues that Ionesco’s original absence‐presence dynamic has been displaced and transformed in the Chinese context; his concern with frightening nothingness is replaced by kunju’s philosophical reflection on emptiness, which aims at a positive negativity. This adaptation also suggests a new path for Western modernist plays to communicate with classical Chinese culture.

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Contemporary flâneuses in late capitalism: the representation of urban space in two Hong Kong women artists’ works

Zeng

2020

Continuum

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Emptiness‐Substance: Xushi

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Transmediation, Transgression and Popularization: A Study of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

Transmediation, Transgression and Popularization: A Study of the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake

Reframing nothingness in the kunju adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s The Chairs

Contemporary flâneuses in late capitalism: the representation of urban space in two Hong Kong women artists’ works

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