W210xD85xH300mm, China
Ground Opera is performed in at the end of the Chinese New Year, on the day of Yuan Xiao. The story performed in the Ground Opera are solely about warfare and battles, romance and other dramas script are nonexistent. This is due to the fact that the origin of the performance is basing on the welfare, though the performers are ordinary farmers, their ancestors were military settlement dated back to the Ming dynasty. They still have the warrior’s spirit running in them. It is believed that the spirits of these fighters will returned during the performance, helping to cast away any evils and to bless the village for the coming year. Rituals are performed before and after the shows.
Also unlike other Chinese operas, the character of the Ground Theatre is not defined by the category of Sheng, Dan, Jing, Chou. The main characters in the show are all warriors, broadly divided into male and female (by the eyebrow), old and young (by the beard), temperament (by facial colour), hero and villain (by the facial marking). From this we can determined that this mask would belong to the role of a loyal villian warrior fighter.
Mountain Folkcraft 