Chinese Peking Opera or "Kuo Chu" is a traditional art form, which has survived through centuries of Chinese history. It originated in Southern China in the provinces of Anwei and Hubei. Later in the Ming Dynasty, opera was brought to Beijing where it continued to be develop through the Ching Dynasty some 200 years ago. Opera brings elements from Chinese literature, fine arts, music, dance and drama. Many of these stories touch upon the virtues valued by Chinese - loyalty, filial piety, justice, righteousness and chastity thus appealing to people of all classes and backgrounds.

Each individual's role combines the elements of singing, recitative, acting and acrobatics. Each component brings together uniqueness of each role assigned to a performer. Singing follows the emotions of a character. Recitative consisted of lyrics in rhyme or in verse style. Acting required expression and movement from head to toe and is often exaggerated when communicating with the audience. The face was primary in expression and the eyes easily told the viewer was happening. Acrobatics helped to heighten expression within a role with use of action movements.

Chinese opera is highly stylized form of art and the designs and colors of the faces and costume typecast individuals. There are defined categories of dress for warriors, rulers, women, and lesser roles. Color are also used to indicate characteristics of the role: red for sincerity and longevity, white for evil, cunningness, black for strong, courageous, resolute, green for spirits and gold for gods.

Roles characterized by opera performers primarily fall in four categories: Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou.

Sheng portrays the scholar, statesman, young warrior, and older or younger man. The young warrior is usually attractive while an older man is usually defined wearing little make up and a beard. The beard color depicts the age of the character.

Dan is a female role, which historically have been played by men singing in falsetto. In traditional China, women were not allow to perform in public. However more recently women have portrayed these roles. These women play younger, attractive women roles in the opera.

Jing characters have painted faces and often portray tough, rough warriors, bandits, civil ministers, judges, Gods and other spiritual entities. They represent the strong, martial art role often seen in military and civil plays.

Chou is the clown or comic relief though in other operas may place a more sinister role. Their faces are usually painted with a patch of white across their nose and in performing, are less formal in their movements and recitatives.

This body of work represents some of the faces of opera performers In the USA. There are approximately 600-700 professional performers largely concentrated in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Many have come from China and Taiwan where they received their training at a younger age. Also shown are a number of serious amateurs who learn and train from these professional. These photographs take a look at these artists as they create characters through their painted faces and costumes.

My interest in photographing these performers began several years ago after being asked to attend a performance. Fascinated by the faces, costume and presence of these artists, I wanted to see how they were created and soon after began documenting their work before, during and after performances. Performances occur infrequently during the year and only had one to two opportunities a year to photograph them.

All these photographs were taken during a performance in Palo Alto, CA of "The Chao Family Orphan" in November of 2000 (unless otherwise noted).

The photographer would graciously like to thank all the performers shown and not shown for the opportunity (and patience) given to me to be able to document these activities before the actual performance. A very special thanks to Jacie Wang for introducing me to these artists.

Nancy Chee