From Traditional Chinese Opera to the World Stage: The East-West Cultural Collision of Contemporary Legend Theatre
Thursday, April 3rd, 2025
3:30 – 5:30 PM ET
Room 113
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052
The GW Taiwan Education and Research Program (TERP) cordially invites you to its upcoming Taiwan Humanities Lecture on the topic of Peking opera culture and historical anecdotes in Taiwan!
Join us for a unique event and performance demonstration with theatre actor and artistic director Chu Po-Cheng, recipient of a 2024 Asian Cultural Council grant to research and study the diverse and free-form expressions of Broadway theater (both on and off-Broadway). He will speak about the importance of Wu Hsing-kuo, a Taiwanese born actor, playwright, director, and Fulbright Scholar known around the world for his adaptations of Western theatre into traditional Peking Opera. After introducing the works of Wu Hsing-kuo, Chu will highlight several performances and pieces of the Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT), a Taiwanese performing arts company that was created in 1986 by Wu Hsing-kuo, and became renowned worldwide for integrating traditional Peking Opera techniques with Western classical plays. Po-Cheng will then introduce Peking opera, its origins and global spread. He will then conclude by performing Lin Chong’s Night Flight, a classic traditional Peking Opera piece, and answering questions from the audience.
Chu Po-Cheng is a Contemporary Legend Theatre actor, and artistic director of Hsing Legend Youth Theatre. Specializing in martial artist and elderly male roles, he is a disciple of the international master Wu Hsing-kuo. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Performing Arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts.
Venturing across Peking Opera, modern dance, and contemporary theater, he is a new-generation multi-disciplinary performing artist in Taiwan. Chu won the Best Young Actor Award at the 34th Taiwan Traditional Arts Golden Melody Awards in 2023 and received the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2024. In 2016, he won second place in the Elderly Male category at the Meng Xiaodong Peking Opera Art Scholarship Foundation competition.
Works as a writer, director, and actor: ” Wu Song” (2018) was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the UK, receiving a four-star review, and was selected by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture to perform at the Festival d’Avignon in France in 2019.
In 2020, “The Youth Party” was selected by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture to perform at the Festival d’Avignon in France. In 2021, he was commissioned by the Taoyuan Iron Rose Arts Festival to produce “2221-Eternal Flower.”
The Taiwan Education and Research Program was established in 2004 to promote and support both academic and policy-related study and research on the history, international relations, and the contemporary political, economic and social development of Taiwan. The Taiwan Education and Research Program operates under the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. The program is co-directed by Alexa Alice Joubin, Professor of English, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures, and Richard Haddock, Assistant Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies.
