Keeping the show on the road

Evolving traditions

Traditional Chinese art forms also faced challenges brought by the virus.

Due to the pandemic, a popular venue in the capital's downtown for xiangsheng, or cross-talk, performances, closed down, much to the dismay of its owner and founder Gao Xiaopan. Gao, himself a xiangsheng performer, has been practicing the art since he was 8. He founded the Beijing-based Hip-hop Cross-talk Club, a performing troupe popular among young people due to its creative way of giving the art form a modern twist.

Launched in 2013, the small theater is situated in Jiaodaokou, a populous hutong, or alleyway, area near the Drum Tower and Nanluoguxiang, both popular tourist attractions. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, it attracted audiences of about 200 people every weeknight, and even more on weekends.

"I was depressed when all the shows were canceled due to the outbreak. However, I didn't expect the situation to worsen," says Gao, 35.

On March 28, 2020, Gao and xiangsheng performers from the club held their first online show on Douyin, one of the country's most popular short-video platforms. The debut performance was watched by more than 1.2 million people, far beyond Gao's expectations.

"It was all new to me, as I had rarely watched shows streamed online before I started to do it myself," he says. "But, when I realized that this was a way to connect with audiences, I decided to do it every day."

Shen Lihui, founder of Modern Sky, echoes Gao's idea.

"Online streaming seems to be our only choice currently to keep the music playing," says Shen. The company also launched online concerts using a pay-per-view model to support indie rock musicians with all the revenue going to the bands.

Artists of Peking Opera, known as jingju in Chinese, a 200-year-old ancient art form, also made use of social media platforms to get through the crisis brought by the pandemic. For example, 16 Peking Opera companies from around the country, such as the National Peking Opera Company, the Hubei Provincial China Peking Opera and Tianjin Jingju Theatre Company, launched an online program, which offered audiences online streaming of 26 classic and contemporary Peking Opera pieces from Aug 8 to Sept 4,2020.