Monday, October 6, 2014

11:00 AM - , No comments

Beijing To-Do: Hit the Stage

This is the last post about my trip to Beijing!

You know the Great Wall and the Forbidden City already, but what else is there to do in Beijing? Well…

Through London musicals and theater-student friends, I’ve recently discovered how much fun it is to go see a real on-stage performance. It feels more genuine than a movie, since the performance is happening live, right in front of you. In Beijing, we went to see two stage performances that were both well worth the money.

First, the incredible acrobatics show at Chaoyang Theatre is absolutely necessary for anybody visiting Beijing. Think people flying through the air, 12 girls 1 bike, and some crazy shit with motorcycles, and you’re getting there. If you book tickets in advance by emailing the theatre, you get a lovely discount of 150 yuan, making good seats quite affordable.

i wasn't kidding. from meiguoxing.com

Then, we went to Chang’an Grand Theatre to watch an opera. The show for the evening wasn’t a traditional Beijing opera, but a modern piece from Henan province. This might have been lucky for us, since Beijing opera is notorious for being hard on foreign ears. Anyway, even though we couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, the costumes, singing, and incredible live orchestra music made this worth our while.



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