Chinese Opera Comes to America

On October 8, 1852, at the height of the Gold Rush, a troupe of twenty Chinese male and female jugglers performed in San Francisco’s 2,000 seat American Theatre on Sansome Street between California and Sacramento. On October 20, at the same theater, the 123-member Tung Hook Tong troupe presented the first classical Chinese Operas ever to be seen in America and the Western world. This marked the beginning of the flourishing Chinese American performing arts of modern America. Today these arts include not only classical traditional Chinese Opera in Cantonese and Peking Opera styles, Chinese folk dances, festive lion and dragon dancing, martial arts, music and dance in traditional and classical styles but also spoken drama, modern dance and ballet of a high quality and sophisticated entertainment acts.