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| Project Details |
| Funding Scheme : | General Research Fund | ||||||||||||||||
| Project Number : | 18403414 | ||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(English) : | The Nature of Creativity in Cantonese Opera: Perceptions of Artists, Connoisseurs and Beginners and their interaction | ||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(Chinese) : | 粵劇創意之本質：藝術家、鑑賞家和初學者的視角及其相互關係 | ||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(English) : | Prof Leung, Bo Wah | ||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : | |||||||||||||||||
| Department : | Department of Cultural and Creative Arts | ||||||||||||||||
| Institution : | The Education University of Hong Kong | ||||||||||||||||
| E-mail Address : | bwleung@eduhk.hk | ||||||||||||||||
| Tel : | 29487063 | ||||||||||||||||
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
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| Panel : | Humanities, Social Sciences | ||||||||||||||||
| Subject Area : | Humanities and Arts | ||||||||||||||||
| Exercise Year : | 2014 / 15 | ||||||||||||||||
| Fund Approved : | 511,500 | ||||||||||||||||
| Project Status : | Completed | ||||||||||||||||
| Completion Date : | 30-6-2017 | ||||||||||||||||
| Project Objectives : |
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| Abstract as per original application (English/Chinese): |
Traditionally, Cantonese opera artists strived to develop individual unique artistic style. Since the mid-20th Century, various artists have successfully established their own personal style recognized by the audience. Nowadays there is anecdotal evidence that some practicing artists are hesitant in developing their own style but are imitating the performance styles of established virtuosi. In what ways the artists’ conceptions of creativity have changed over time and why today’s audience seem to have accepted or even come to appreciate this shift have not been investigated. While creativity is regarded as one of the most important generic competences in the West, the notion of creativity in relation to oriental traditional arts, such as Cantonese opera has been a neglected research area.
This proposed research project will be significant in addressing three critical issues that impact on the future development of Cantonese opera: (1) the nature of creativity demonstrated by eminent artists in the 20th century; (2) the extent to which the conceptions of creativity in Cantonese opera have changed from the perspectives of practicing artists and learners; (3) how artistic creativity can be re-valued by the profession and audience.
The study will be undertaken in three phases. Phase 1 involves a musical analysis of selected audio-video recordings by different artists with a focus of similarity and differences in personal interpretation. Through an ethnographic study at two local Cantonese opera institutions, Phase 2 aims to investigate how the socio-cultural contexts in Hong Kong affect the development of Cantonese opera. Through observation of classes and interviews with stakeholders, an updated understanding can be obtained. Phase 3 aims to solicit the perspectives of current practicing artists, connoisseurs and beginners on their views of creativity in Cantonese opera. A mixed method with both qualitative and quantitative tools will be employed, including a questionnaire survey of the groups, and in-depth interviews with voluntary respondents.
This study will document and provide evidence to account for the development of artistic creativity in Cantonese opera. It will reveal the particular characteristics of creativity in the genre and the extent to which conceptions of creativity held by both artists and patrons are influenced by socio-cultural contexts. The findings will enrich the current understanding of Chinese creativity as applied to Cantonese opera, and serve as a useful reference for developing and implementing programmes for general education and training of future artists, as well as stimulating current artists in the pursuit of creativity. 傳統上，香港粵劇藝術家致力發展個人獨特的藝術風格。自20世紀中期，多位粵劇名伶成功建立了個人風格，受到觀眾的認同。今天，部份藝術家似乎不在意發展自己的風格，卻透過錄音和錄影模仿以往名伶的演出，期望觀眾的認同。藝術家對創意的觀念似乎隨時間而變化，今天的觀眾似乎已經接受甚或體會到這種轉變，然而並沒有學者研究這個現象。創意在西方是一個最受重視的共通能力，但是在東方傳統藝術中，包括粵劇，創意是一個被忽視的研究領域。 本研究項目將著力解決三個關鍵問題，期望對粵劇未來發展有正面的影響：（1）調查和分析由20世紀名伶所展示的藝術創意; （2）面對粵劇的創意觀念，藝術家和學生的視角如何改變？; （3）粵劇藝術的創意如何可以被專業演員和觀眾重新估值？這項研究將開展三個階段。第一階段分析由不同名伶演出的錄製音樂，分析集中在個別名伶詮釋的相似和差異。第二階段利用民族志方法觀察兩間粵劇教育機構並訪談持份者，研究社會文化背景如何影響香港的粵劇的發展。第三階段的目標是調查專業藝術家、鑑賞家和初學者對粵劇創意的觀點。研究方法混合定性和定量工具，包括問卷調查和深入與志願受訪者訪談。 本研究將記錄並提供證據來解釋粵劇創意的發展。它將揭示粵劇創意的具體特點，和在何種程度上藝術家和觀眾的創意觀念受到社會文化背景所影響。研究結果將豐富目前中國人對粵劇創意的理解，並有助制定和實施一個有效的通識教育課程供未來的藝術家參考，以及刺激當代藝術家以追求藝術創意。 |
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| Realisation of objectives: | For Objective 1, a music analysis of 6 excerpts sung by 3 artists were implemented, with a thorough literature review on theories of creativity as well as historical and socio-cultural contexts of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong during early 20th Century. Musical creativity of those selected artists was discussed in the contexts of Hong Kong with theoretical framework on creativity. For Objective 2, a total of 14 Cantonese opera artists (including singers and accompanists) were interviewed in a semi-structured format. The interview questions aim to investigate their experience about creativity and personal innovations during learning process and professional practices, their understanding about Cantonese opera artists’ imitation and learning, and their opinion towards improving the current status of Cantonese opera. The interview questions were derived from literature, with a focus on imitation, adaption, and self-recognition, and how personal style can be recognized by the peers and the audience. For Objective 3, a questionnaire survey was implemented. Three groups of respondents were categorized, namely, artists, connoisseurs, and beginners. Artists refer to those professional actors and actresses as well as music accompanists who were performing for their living. Connoisseurs refer to experienced audiences who are knowledgeable frequent attendants of Cantonese opera performances. They were recruited from fans clubs of Cantonese opera. Beginners refer to those university students who have taken a course of Cantonese opera as General Education. They are the future audiences if they find Cantonese opera creative and interesting. Based on literature, a questionnaire was designed with 20 semantic-differential-scale questions in six categories: 1. Value: The value system of the respondents towards creativity in Cantonese opera performances 2. Possibility: Respondents’ belief on the possibility of developing personal styles by current artists 3. Audience expectation: Whether the audience expect the artists to develop their personal style 4. Perception towards current artists: How the respondents perceive the current artists in develop their personal style 5. Artist-audience interaction: Perception of how audience perceive artists’ development of personal style 6. Environment: Whether the environment facilitate the development of personal style Before formal implementation, the questionnaire was piloted by 5 university students, 2 connoisseurs, and 1 artist to see if they could understand the questions. Minor revision of wording of the questionnaire was done. As a result, a total of 33 artists, 166 Connoisseurs, and 331 beginners responded to the questionnaire. An internal reliability test was implemented to check the reliability of the designed questionnaire. One-way ANOVA was used to measure if there are significant differences among the perceptions of the three groups of respondents. | ||||||||||||||||
| Summary of objectives addressed: |
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| Research Outcome | |||||||||||||||||
| Major findings and research outcome: | The first part of this study suggests that creation of personal styles in Cantonese operatic singing depends on different factors including the social environment, motivation of artists, and their knowledge and skills in Cantonese operatic singing, as well as the extent to which artists can develop their artistry by demonstrating originality and appropriateness in order to deviate from both tradition and current trends. The second study aims to investigate the reason of hindering artists’ establishment of personal style through 14 semi-structured interviews. A 3-stage model of developing personal style as musical creativity is proposed: Stage 1: Imitation as prerequisite Stage 2: Adaption and self-recognition Stage 3: Popularity and sustainability of a new personal style There are several socio-cultural factors which have been changing since the 1930s, which have hindered the development of personal style. These include: 1. Cantonese opera is not a main-stream art form and entertainment; 2. Long term co-operation between artists and musicians is missing; 3. Modern artists are more utilitarian with a short-sighted perspective; 4. Musical creativity is not the focus of the artists; rather, they would focus on the staging, special effects and costumes etc. 5. Audiences have lowered their expectations while most of them are in lack of knowledge about Cantonese opera; and 6. The conservatory has become the main venue of nurturing professional artists; graduates are benchmarked rather than nurtured according to their individuality. The third part of the study was a questionnaire survey. Major findings include: 1. All respondents support the notion of developing creativity of Cantonese opera in general; 2. All respondents believe that artists are possible and capable to develop their own personal style 3. All respondents tend to agree that the audience would support artists to develop their personal style 4. All respondents tend to agree that the current artists are not developing their personal style. 5. Among the 3 groups, the artist group possess a significantly lower perception than the other groups Respondents tend to agree that artists should not follow audience’s expectation 6. All respondents agreed that the current environment of Cantonese opera could hardly facilitate the development of personal style | ||||||||||||||||
| Potential for further development of the research and the proposed course of action: |
This study has reflected that education of audience should be valued and developed. First, professional artists tend to follow the expectation of audiences when they make artistic decisions in their performances. For instance, some artists focus on imitating previous eminent artists without considering developing their own style. The current audiences tend to satisfy with those artists who can successfully imitate their previous idols. This can be a vicious cycle which spoils the audiences. On the other hand, novice audiences tend to appreciate creative performances with new elements. How to balance between those experienced and novice audiences is another crucial research question. The findings of this study will be disseminated to the field of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong. Stakeholders including professional artists, teachers, students, promoters, administrators, experienced and novice audiences will be invited to attend a seminar for a discussion on the findings and how their different roles could contribute to the development of personal styles. Apart from publishing journal articles, findings of this study will also be presented in other channels such as newspapers and media on internet. | ||||||||||||||||
| Layman's Summary of Completion Report: | The nature of this study is firstly to investigate how eminent artists of Cantonese opera in Hong Kong have developed their personal creativity, and how musical creativity in Cantonese operatic singing can be analysed and demonstrated. Further, the study proposed a 3-stage model in developing a personal style, and examined how the changing socio-cultural contexts have impacted on the development of personal styles. Finally, a comparison of perceptions of developing personal styles of professional artists, experience audiences and novice audiences was done in order to examine if there are different view of these groups. This study has shown that some eminent artists have successfully founded their own personal style due to their effort and determination to do so, with a lifelong pursuance plus their domain knowledge and skills in Cantonese opera. The competitive environment was also a critical factor leading to their success. They did not follow the audiences’ expectation, but raise the enjoyment of the performance, which had won their support. Experienced artists reflected that it is rare to see such artists at present; most of them tend not to determine for developing their own style. Young audiences should be taught in expecting a creative personal style. | ||||||||||||||||
| Research Output | |||||||||||||||||
| Peer-reviewed journal publication(s) arising directly from this research project : (* denotes the corresponding author) |
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| Recognized international conference(s) in which paper(s) related to this research project was/were delivered : |
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| Other impact (e.g. award of patents or prizes, collaboration with other research institutions, technology transfer, etc.): |
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| SCREEN ID: SCRRM00542 |