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  • 4 - Cantonese Opera and the Layering of Space on the Australian Goldfields

  • Joanne Tompkins, University of Queensland, Julie Holledge, Flinders University of South Australia, Jonathan Bollen, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Liyang Xia
  • Book:
    Visualising Lost Theatres
    Published online:
    18 August 2022
    Print publication:
    25 August 2022, pp 96-126

  • Summary

    Chapter 4 explores the travelling form of Cantonese opera in the Guangdong region of south China in the nineteenth century. We address the genre’s wide geopolitical context by combining it with the popular form as toured on the Australian goldfields in Victoria in circus-style tents in the 1850s to 1870s to entertain miners who hoped to make a fortune and return to China. The virtual reconstruction of a tent theatre set up for the opening of a joss house (or temple) in Victoria suggests a consistency from the Pearl River Delta to the goldfields. We examine the sophisticated techniques used by this sojourner company to minimise the disruptions that a touring schedule with multiple and dissimilar sites of performance creates. Carrying a portable stage/backstage platform, and orientating the audience–performer relationship, the company created a spatial layering of two geographies to support its sacred and secular repertoire.