History changes all the
time. What is good today can be considered
bad tomorrow. During the ten years of
Cultural Revolution, traditional opera was
banned by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, and
replaced by a new kind of art in which the
world was presented in a much simpler way:
all the good guys were farmers and
revolutionary soldiers, always singing and
dancing in the broad spotlight. All the bad
guys were landlords and anti
revolutionaries, who wore dark make-up and
were poorly lit. Pure propaganda told in
beautiful images and stories, in an
innovative way incorporating the most modern
techniques of cinematography, song, and
dance, thus becoming a new art form in
Chinese culture: Revolutionary model opera –
the Yang Ban Xi.
