Critical Stages (Dec 2018)
Between Tradition and the Contemporary: An Exploration of Chinese Scenic Designers
Abstract
In the past forty years, the development of Chinese scenic design has been influenced by many forms of scenography from around the world. As time has progressed, numerous plays have reflected Chinese scenic designers’ tendency to actively search for visual themes from traditional Chinese culture that suit contemporary aesthetic standards. In the process of this search, Chinese traditional culture has been restructured for application in contemporary scenic design. Questions regarding how scenic designers should, with originality, inherit and transform Chinese traditional culture within a contemporary aesthetic context and, within that process, how they should apply new theatre technologies, have come to the fore. The most representative works of Chinese scenic designers in the past decade often embody traditional Chinese aesthetics and temperaments in very expressive ways. Transforming the conceptual beauty of traditional Chinese culture into contemporary forms in scenic design, they are clearly influenced by Chinese aesthetics and philosophy.
