Communications from Members

Communications from Members We have received a number of communications concerning personal collections of materials and courses designed or given by our members. Some of these were in direct response to the questionnaire printed in CHINOPERL NEWSNo. I in which we were looking for information on private holdings of material related to Chinese oral and performing literature. The pertinent details are included below with the conviction that we all have much to gain by advertising the existence of collections and other work done in our field. Dana Kalvadova-Diamant of the Department of Drama, Charles University, Prague, Czechoslovakia, reports a collection of about 30 recordings of Chinese regional theater, items of the kao-ch'iang style of the Szechuan theater, a collection of the texts of regional dramas, and several hundred still photographs, some in color, some black-and-white, documenting regional drama performances chiefly in Szechuan. Dr. Piet van der Loon of Cambridge University in England reports on work of his own which closely parallels CHINOPERLinterests in many details. It seems probable that he has many things of interest to CHINOPERL and that some of our members might have suggestions of value to him. We quote in part from his letter: '~y own interests include: 1. A comprehensive survey, including bibliography, of all surviving genres of local theatre. This file is not meant for publication but for my own convenience; I should, however, be happy to help others in the field for specific items of information. 2. The history of the theatre in s. Fukien and E. Kwangtung, with a view to publication, either in parts or in book form. My material also comprises microfilms and xerox copies of rare editions of the Ming and Ch'ing period as well as discs. 3. A bibliography of the Cantonese theatre, including some five hundred printed plays from the former half of the present century. 4. Lists of such shou-ch 'ang genres as 3~~~ and i" jfi~ in text form 5. (printed or MS.) surviving in European A comprehensive union catalogue of the including collections in Canton itself a large collection of my own). 11 libraries~ Cantonese;f_~,i and~ , (1965), Japan, Taipei, England (with 6. Shou-ch.' ang forms in Fukien (Foochow, Amoy) Taiwan ~11'and Chaochow, Material comprises my own fairly small collection of printed material and holdings elsewhere, 7, The ritual theatre in Kwangtung, Fukien and Taiwan, including MS, texts, and photographs and tape recordings made by myself, I may add that my present work is concentrated on items 2 and For items 3, 4, 5 and 6 there is some difficulty in mixed Chinese/English form, This also publishing the material since it is in a applies to e,g, an (by stroke order) to the Northern tunes as comprised in the Jt;l~~_if. index ~ which I completed for my own reference several years ago, Any suggestions as to what to do with this kind of reference material are welcome." V. Hrdlickova of Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, writes that she is preparing to teach a course in Chinese folklore, focusing on the art of storytelling. We hope to receive a reference list from her. She also has a personal collection of ta-ku and other songs on disc recordings and wire. These were, for the most part, collected in China when she and her husband were there in 1951-1954, Her collection contains about sixty volumes of·printed texts of materials on oral and performing literature, Professor Colin Mackerras of the Australian National University writes that he is interested in the history of the Chinese theater primarily from a social rather than a literary viewpoint. However, his interest and the collection he has built up in the course of his work are both obviously well within the scope of CHIN0PERLactivities. Professor Mackerras has just finished a thesis on the rise of Peking opera (1760-1860) and is now writing a book on the history of Chinese theater from 1840-1970. In his personal collection he has about 20 hours of tapes and about 100 disc recordings of regional opera (mostly traditional), some ch 'U-i ~ i: and some hsiang~sheng. He notes that most...