Chinese Traditional Folk Art of Face Changing

Face-changing is a kind of stunt used to portray characters in the art of Sichuan opera. It is a romantic technique to reveal the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters in the play.

Lore has it that "face-changing" is an ancient art in which human beings, faced with ferocious beasts, sketched their faces in different ways in order to survive and to scare the invading beasts. Sichuan Opera has brought "face-changing" to the stage and made it a unique art with its marvelous skills.

Emotional makeup in Chinese opera. Face-changing was first used for the roles of gods and monsters in the Ming Dynasty. There is a record of "changing the green face" in the Ming Opera "Gunkou Erlang Chopping Jianjiao". At that time, face-changing was done by the actors backstage. In later times, it evolved into a face-changing on the spot, which became a performance stunt, and many local operas have it, with Sichuan Opera being the most famous. There are two types of face-changing: big face-changing and small face-changing. The big face-changing is to change the whole face, with 3, 5 or even 9 changes; the small face-changing is a partial face-changing. There are three main techniques of face-changing: wiping stormy eyes, blowing powder, and pulling face. The first two are coated with make-up, such as wiping stormy eyes is the actor's fingers smeared on the preexisting brow or sideburns of the ink green, a wipe that is changed; blowing powder is even rougher, i.e., the actor blew up the color powder, in order to change the face; the latter is to add the use of masks, layer by layer set on the face, tightening the dead or alive degree, when changing one by one to pull down. In addition, there are tearing face and sticking face, is not used more. Changing face requires quick movements, without revealing traces. Mainly used in the drama characters panic, despair, anger and other sudden changes in mood