Location info and some photos withheld. As of my last visit, this mural site is vulnerable to theft or destruction. I have withheld the location beneath the county level and any photographs (of steles, signs, scenery, etc.) that might identify the place. If you are an accredited scholar and you have a good reason to want to see this information, email me and we’ll talk about it.
Structure Type: Opera Stage 戲台, and a collection of ruined village temples 村廟 of unknown identity.
Location: The temples are scattered around within grounds of the old fort, which is entered via a gate that says it was “fixed” 建修 (built? re-built?) in 1814. This may or may not provide a date for the murals inside. The complex includes shrines to the Buddha 佛殿, to Lord Guan 關公廟, and to the Dragon Kings 龍王; the stage is across from this last structure. All of these are ruinous, although some fragments of the murals are still intact.
Period: 19th or early 20th centuries. I’m a little bit agnostic about the date of these; I could go as early as the start of the 19th century, or as late as the early 20th.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: The opera-stage murals show actors and tumblers, striking dramatic poses. According to elderly Chinese-Muslim (Huizu 回族) man I spoke to at the site, the murals portray characters from the opera The Lord of Ba Parts with His Concubine 霸王別姬 (= “Farewell, My Concubine”). I have no idea if this is true.
Other Notes: This belongs to a regional genre of stage mural found in the areas around Xuanhua 宣化, which consists of life-size or near-life-size images of opera performers going about their trade. Unfortunately all of the examples I’ve seen of this are heavily damaged, hence I’ve put this up here just to give a sense of what once existed. This village is today mostly Muslim, as are a number of villages in this area.
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