Traditional Chinese performances — from opera to acrobatics — are luring youth with street dance, jazz and an adapted TV hit about palace sex and intrigue. Xu Wei reports.

It’s an ongoing lament: Young people don’t go to the theater any more to see traditional Chinese operas, acrobatics, pingtan (storytelling to music 评弹) and other old-time forms of entertainment.

They instead choose popular entertainment that’s contemporary in theme, easy to sit through and understand, fast-tempo, and flashy in special effects.

In a bid to capture a young audience, and their revenue, theaters and troupes of all kinds are innovating in content and presentation, as well as business models.

Some companies are giving employees shares in the company, motivating them to come up with intriguing, topical ideas, put on compelling productions and get the most out of their money. Some productions have turned out to be commercial and critical successes, and they have attracted younger theater-goers.

One of the most successful is the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, which traditionally doesn’t see the house packed with young people. Chinese acrobats are awe-inspiring, but overall, the productions are not big draws.

However, the troupe’s new production in Paris, “12 Signs of the Zodiac,” is its first show tailor-made for the foreign market and it’s a success for all ages. It’s now going on a 100-show European tour and is expected to be performed next March in China, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-French diplomatic relations.

The original show is based on easy-to-understand legends about the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac.

Yu Yigang, director of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, says the success of the show may inspire other creative shows and improve its profits. It has already adopted profit-sharing. “For the first time we created at the invitation of a noted foreign performance company, Phoenix Circus, so the story and choreography have a global vision and positioning.”

It targets foreigners who want to learn about Chinese culture; the music, costumes and choreography cater to Western tastes.

It’s visually stunning and very nontraditional. A big springboard is used to express the strength of the tiger and the mischievous rat is presented through clowning.

“Though Chinese acrobatics has been around for more than 2,000 years, new and innovative creations and marketing must be explored for sustained development,” says Yu.

In Shanghai, “Happy Circus” acrobatic program is a successful, long-running brand of the SMEG Performing Arts Group, to which the Shanghai Acrobatics Troupe also belongs. Annual box-office revenue exceeded 10 million yuan (US$1.64 million) for the first time this year.

Wu Xiaoming, president of SMEG Performing Arts Group, says the company promotes a “share-holding system,” in which employees own shares in the profits, resulting in greater enthusiasm and motivation to produce profitable shows.

“Sometimes they even spend a lot of time discussing which broom is more economical and durable for sweeping animals’ cages,” Wu says.

SMEG’s Shanghai Pingtan Troupe is also letting performer-owners share in the performance profits to inspire them to be more creative.

Slow-paced performance

“It is very common for our pingtan artists to perform for a few consecutive weeks around the Yangtze River Delta,” Wu says. “They need to chat with young people in the audience to create some news stories based on events in the news and microblog gossip.”

Traditionally slow-paced pingtan performance, which can take an hour to describe a simple scene, no longer drones on in that leisurely way and has become more up-tempo. Young people with short attention spans won’t sit still through a long scene. Many fast-paced short stories have been created.

Ten years ago, 13 pingtan graduates of the Shanghai Theater Academy were admitted to the Shanghai Pingtan Troupe. Now only half remain; the others went on to better-paying and more stable jobs. The new system provides monetary incentives, and the troupe is all in favor.

Traditional Chinese operas, which also can drag on for hours, have been rewritten, cut down and spiced up to appeal to younger people.

An example is a tale of intrigue among the empress and imperial concubines in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). A fresh and innocent young concubine is drawn into the cruel world and must learn how to compete and survive in a world of jealousy, ambition and back-stabbing.

The Shanghai Yueju Opera House has condensed the 76-episode TV drama “The Legend of Zhen Huan,” based on a popular online novel, into a four-hour play.

Many young people were attracted to the first half staged in October, during the Shanghai International Arts Festival.

The tale of palace intrigue, love and sex was popular.

The three performances in October earned more than 500,000 yuan (US$82,000) at the box office. The theater was packed.

The second half will be presented next year.

Michelle Yao, a theater-goer in her 20s, likes the tale of scheming concubines and nobles and says it’s smart for traditional theaters to adapt recent novels and TV hits.

“Though many young people can’t understand Yueju lyrics and dialogue, they can still enjoy the performance because the story is familiar,” she says. “My friends and I had fun discussing the elaborate costumes and makeup of the young performers.”

Yueju Opera, in which women typically play all the roles, is considered elegant and feminine, and a good way to tell love stories.

Some operas have combined traditional singing with jazz, rap and modern dance, including hip-hop.

“Melt” is a collaboration between young Peking Opera performer Qiu Jirong and Pan Qin, who blends hip-hop with Chinese kung fu. The result is a production traditional and contemporary vibe.

Signature Peking Opera vocals, postures, gestures and face masks are combined with energetic street dance moves to depict a world that is melting and chaotic. Many young people were attracted.

Qiu says Peking Opera is very rich in artistic presentation and many of its elements can be incorporated with other genres such as pop songs, musicals and dance dramas.

However, not all of the innovations are well-received by everyone. The spectacular Peking Opera “Red Cliff” based on a famous story from the Three Kingdom Period (AD 220-280) stumbled last year in Shanghai and last month in Nanjing and Hangzhou.

Though it did well at the box office — it has the flavor of John Woo’s 2008 blockbuster of the same name — some critics found it too cinematic, departing from the operatic aesthetic of simplicity, subtlety and abstract beauty.

The play staged by the Chinese National Grand Theater was compared to an epic film for its powerful visual effects, complicated sets and elaborate props.

Still, it was a sight to behold and many young people enjoyed it.

Traditional theater puts many young people off because it can be very drawn out, out-dated and difficult to grasp, but this production was like fast-moving cinema.

Chen Daming, critic and theater expert from the Shanghai Dramatists Association, says innovation is in traditional theaters, but the essence of the original must be retained.

“Theater takes its root in life, so it’s good to get new inspiration from popular novels and TV series,” Chen says. “But excessive attention to the staging and effects may distract the audience and limit the artists’ freedom to perform.”