Front Page of the Day

Beijing Film Academy to train crosstalk performers

JDM100222xjbs.jpg
The Beijing News
February 22, 2010

The Beijing Film Academy is currently recruiting students for the country's first academic concentration in crosstalk (相声).

The Beijing News reported today that Feng Gong, a well-known performer of the traditional form of stand-up comedy, will serve as an "examiner," but no other information relating to the actual course of study has been released.

According to a report in Saturday's Mirror, the crosstalk major was put in place for the good of the country:

With comic actors and crosstalk performers like Xiao Shen Yang and Guo Degang red-hot at the moment, is BFA jumping on a bandwagon with its new major? Lu Hua, director of the school's party committee publicity office, said that it was only responding to the needs of the country.

Luo then sent over recruitment materials that included this description of the major (in full): "As a traditional Chinese art form, crosstalk has been registered as an intangible heritage. In order to protect and develop traditional Chinese arts, according to the spirit of SARFT's instructions, the Beijing Film Academy and the China Broadcasting Performing Arts Troupe have jointly launched majors in crosstalk and comedy performance. Their mission is train creative, accomplished, and talented crosstalk and comic performance artists to meet the needs of society. Based on the film performance curriculum, and will provide training in creative comedy as well as the traditional crosstalk art form.

According to a report in the Mirror on Saturday, crosstalk is just one of five new majors at the Academy this year: it is also adding a Film and TV Production major in the Department of Photography, a Cinema Management major in the Department of Management, a Media Video Production major in the Photographic Institute, and a Film Creativity and Design major in the Department of Literature.

The five new concentrations will charge between 6,000 and 10,000 yuan in annual tuition, with crosstalk topping the list.

The crosstalk major is seeking to recruit twenty students, but just ten signed up yesterday morning when registration opened, and a number of those applied hoping that it would boost their chances of acceptance into BFA. However, crosstalk enthusiasts were not entirely absent: according to The Beijing News, one student from Handan applied to study crosstalk without letting her mother know.

Reports in the English-language Global Times put an international spin on the story. Sunday's article led off not with Guo Degang, Feng Gong, or Jiang Kun, but with non-Chinese crosstalk performers:

The Beijing Film Academy intends to cultivate average students to become crosstalk stars like Mark Rowswell, who is better known as Dashan, and Jullien Gaudfroy who are professional performers.

BFA is not recruiting foreign students for the crosstalk major at this time.

Links and Sources
There are currently 5 Comments for Beijing Film Academy to train crosstalk performers.

Comments on Beijing Film Academy to train crosstalk performers

Good luck to them, I doubt it'll be very funny though, with all the stuff SARFT won't allow people to make public fun of.

Joel,
I have heard that cross-talk is a form of stand-up comedy by partners who engage in a lot of punning (exploiting the absurdly homonymic property of Mandarin) and contrived misunderstanding. It sounds like Abbott and Costello "Who's on first ? or ." routine. In your opinion, would cross-talk routines please and amuse audiences in the West? (In English of course)
Any of your thoughts and insights much appreciated.

@Nicholas
actually cross-talk have many different forms. In many cases it is similar to stand ups such as Russell Peters. expect the it have two people. (for example there will one person will play dad and the other play son in somebody will get hurt real bad routine)

Here are some classic types:
">冯巩&牛群 at 1998 spring gala, this type uses lots of puns, which is the type you're referred to. But it still make up relative small part of the routine.

郭德刚, this style is more similar to western stand up. With the second person only serve with someone the comedian interacts with. (In this act, the joke almost resemble some of the classic soviet jokes, you could only understand by living in this harmonious society)

相聲瓦舍, more acting involve starts to resemble skits. (this act is about the innovative curse words that isn't original curse words. It indirectly poke fun at government officials, by saying government officials is a curse words. (not too dissimilar to the "party member" memes last year.

陈佩斯 朱时茂. This type uses far more acting and physical comedy and is often classified as skits, but lacks real props. This act poke fun at police officer by portraying interaction of a thief impersonating a officer and a real officer. Personally I this type resembles Abbott and Costello the most, but it has a different feel to it.

Doc,
Superb: thanks for the insights and illustrations via link. I can see what you mean. You've corrected my misconception. A million thanks.

a few 相声legends:
马三立,侯宝林,郭全宝,郭起如, 刘宝瑞, 马志明(马三立之子)

相声是民间艺术,口传心授的玩意儿。保护发扬是好事,就怕给弄成不伦不类,况且学院里的学术氛围并不一定适合民间艺术的传播。

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30