Current location:style >>
Popular Chinese crosstalk comedians bring laughter, cultural charisma to London
style3People have gathered around
IntroductionGuo Degang is a popular Chinese traditional crosstalk comedian who has over 15 million followers on ...
Guo Degang is a popular Chinese traditional crosstalk comedian who has over 15 million followers on China's video-sharing platform Douyin.[Photo/Xinhua]
Thunderous laughter and applause almost blew off the roof of an auditorium in London's ExCeL Exhibition Centre on Saturday night, when a punchline by Guo Degang, a popular Chinese traditional crosstalk comedian, landed with an audience of thousands.
Along with Guo and his partner Yu Qian, a handful of comedians from the De Yun She Performance Group performed Xiangsheng, or crosstalk comedy, with both jokes about life anecdotes and traditional crosstalk episodes.
"Laughter is contagious and that is what makes the art form of crosstalk comedy powerful," said Guo, a leading character in both the performance group and the industry.
Guo and his group started their first overseas tour in Australia in 2011. Since then, they have performed in places including the United States, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore. This was the group's second time performing in London.
"The outcome of our years of international tours has made me realize the enduring vitality of traditional art," he said, adding that such performances can help overseas Chinese overcome homesickness through "voices in their mother tongue" and introduce traditional Chinese culture to a broader audience.
"Ever since I started learning Chinese, I've been interested in Xiangsheng," Christian Elliott, an audience member who has been learning Chinese for more than five years, told Xinhua. He wanted to see how much of the show he could understand given that there is a difference "between knowing conversational Chinese and knowing 'full' Chinese."
Elliott added that such an experience can help him learn more about the Chinese culture, history and the way people from a different background think.
Saturday's show was also the first public appearance in London for a few younger-generation performers, among whom was Meng Hetang, who joined the group in 2008.
Meng said that young inheritors of time-honored art forms, like himself, need to not only adhere to and promote tradition, but also innovate to keep pace with modern times. He performed his recently-created episode during the show.
In recent years, crosstalk comedy is becoming increasingly popular in China, especially with young people. Guo alone currently has over 15 million followers on China's video-sharing platform Douyin, while other fellow performers have several million followers each.
With London being the first stop of its Europe tour this year, the group was expected to perform in cities including Glasgow, Paris, Milan and Madrid in the upcoming month.
Tags:
Reprint:Friends are welcome to share on the Internet, but please indicate the source of the article when reprinting it.“World Warp news portal”。http://norway.cassettedesign.com/html-39f799215.html
Related articles
Nadal returns to Roland Garros to practice amid doubts over fitness and form
stylePARIS (AP) — Rafael Nadal returned to Roland Garros on Monday to practice and try and figure out whe ...
【style】
Read moreIndian gangster
styleMukhtar Ansari during a court case over money laundering in 2022. Photo: AFP/Ritesh Shukla ...
【style】
Read more'Significant concerns' for man missing for a month
styleClive, 22. Photo: Supplied / Police ...
【style】
Read more
Popular articles
- Pentagon vows to keep weapons moving to Ukraine as Kyiv faces a renewed assault by Russia
- Weather updates: More warnings issued as front creeps north
- O.J. Simpson, football star turned celebrity murder defendant, dies at 76
- 7 students injured after crash near La Habra high school
- Saudi Arabia is going to sponsor the WTA women's tennis rankings under a new partnership
- Phoenix make history as Surman delivers at the death
Latest articles
Shohei Ohtani's first walk
Israeli strikes kill at least 29 Gazans awaiting aid, say Palestinian officials
VOX POPULI: School destroyed in 2011 tsunami teaches children a valuable lesson
Hong Kong urges testing, Shanghai struggles under lockdown
Independent UN experts urge Yemen’s Houthis to free detained Baha'i followers
Video captures scary moments as speedway car crashes over safety fence
LINKS
- HBCU Xavier of New Orleans moves closer to establishing a medical school
- In unusual push, funders band together to get out grants around election work 'early'
- Free child care from higher taxes? These cities subsidize daycare
- Audit finds Wisconsin Capitol Police emergency response times up, calls for better tracking
- Women can stand the cold BETTER than men, surprising study finds
- Box office: ‘Challengers’ scores with $15 million in ticket sales
- Bizarre moment yacht gets wedged underneath railway arches while being carried on a low
- Refugee agency chief warns that the number of Syrians leaving Lebanon is likely to rise
- South African boxer Dingaan Thobela, 'The Rose of Soweto,' dies aged 57
- Growing wildfire risk leaves states grappling with how to keep property insurers from fleeing