Painted Faces on the Prairies:
Cantonese Opera and the Edmonton Chinese Community

July 7 to September 26, 2014

Monday – Friday 12:00p.m. – 4:30p.m.

Curator: Helen Kwan Yee Cheung

This exhibition traces close to one hundred years of Cantonese opera in Edmonton within the changing dynamics of the Chinese community. It tells a story of life experiences on the Prairies by highlighting the inextricable relationship between Cantonese opera and the Edmonton Chinese community as this cultural practice moves deftly through historical periods between 1890 and 2009. This period has been selected to coincide with the arrival of the first Chinese in Edmonton in 1890 and the inscription of Cantonese opera onto the Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2009. The materials on display are drawn from a much larger Chinese collection in the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library.