From China's preeminent experimental theater artist come three ruminations on the experiences of Chinese artists visiting the West. Mixing conversation, live demonstration, and video, Danny Yung reflects on the significant Chinese opera artists who have traveled to the West, how these visits influence the development of the performing arts, and how they have inspired Danny’s recent theater works. It is an exploration of where the ultra-traditional and avant-garde meet, national art forms journey to new lands, and the boundaries of culture become blurred.

Each evening features a separate program and includes segments from Danny's work, and performances in the styles of Cheng Yanqiu and Mei Lanfang, two Chinese opera icons who traveled throughout the West in the 1930s. Each artist was famous for his “impersonator” role—a male who played the lead female role. Both Yanqiu and Lanfang were hugely celebrated on their Western tours, and were influenced artistically by their travels abroad. Current performer Xianping Xiao, who has been exploring this role in the traditional Chinese Kun and Beijing Opera art forms, will join Danny on stage for all three presentations.

Program one: Cheng Yanqiu The Chinese opera singer Cheng Yanqiu (1904–1958) went to Europe looking to incorporate Western musical ideas into Chinese opera and to arrange Western music in the style of the Peking Opera. Danny Yung's award-winning multi-disciplinary opera Tears of Barren Hill is a reinterpretation of Yanqiu's original staging.

Program two: Mei Lanfang Part 1 One of the most famous Chinese opera artists who made significant visits to the West, Mei Lanfang's performance as a drunken concubine in The Drunken Beauty on a U.S. tour in the 1930s led to his being courted by America's film stars, musicians, and artists.

Program three: Mei Lanfang Part 2 As his career continued, Lanfang became something an ambassador of the Chinese opera to the world. This program includes an excerpt of The Peony Pavilion: Interrupted Dream, one of his most famous works.

All three programs feature performances by Xianping Xiao, and post-show discussions with Danny Yung and Mr. Xiao.

In short: Chinese opera revisited, changing roles, past-present-future, avant-garde meets ultra-traditional, man plays woman.

Danny Yung's career has defined him as a true multi-disciplinary artist. His work has ranged from experimental theater to film, dance, opera, art installations, cultural events, video, comics, and conceptual art, and he has produced more than 100 performances as a director, scriptwriter, and stage designer. Named as the most influential artist in Asia, through his art association Zuni Icosahedron, Yung has become a leading cultural voice in advancing performing arts in China and beyond. Yung received the Merit Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 for his contributions in arts and culture between Germany and Hong Kong/China. Yung is the Board Member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority which oversees the 100-acre cultural hub in Hong Kong consists of over 10 new performing arts venues of different sizes to be built in the coming 10 years.

Xiao Xiangping
Born in the hometown of Tang Xianzu aka Shakespeare of China, Mr Xiao presently is the Resident performer of The Kunqu Opera Museum of China, Su Zhou. Xiao studies both Kun Opera and Peking Opera under the famed performers, Bi Gaoxiu, Yue Meiti, Cai Zhengren, Shi Xiaomei and the professor Tan Bingruo from Shanghai Conservatory of Music. His repertoire includes "Peony Pavilion", "The Jade Hairpin", "The White Snake" etc. and is noted for his role as Lu Bu, Zhou Yu, Luo Cheng; Liu Mengmei, Pan Bizheng,Tang Minghuang in Kun Opera and Peking Opera. He is a member of Jiangsu Dramatists' Association.