Profession: Beijing Opera Warrior

During a lull in the frosty 1999 WTO bilateral talks, the Iranian-British MC Ghaffar Pourazar slunk off the stage after introducing a performance of Beijing Opera. When Pourazar returned to the stage - clad as the Monkey King from Journey to the West - nobody realized it was the same person. "They all thought I was a Chinese performer," recalls Pourazar. "When I opened my mouth and delivered my lines in English there was a moment of complete silence, and then the audience started laughing and clapping." The ice was broken.

For a trained 3-D animator and amateur mime artist, Pourazar says Beijing Opera uses everything he dreamed of creating with - color, composition, and use of space.

Pourazar's interest in the musical theater of Beijing Opera started when he says he watched a performance in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1993 - and was so fascinated he ended up following the troupe on their British tour. Eventually, he followed them to Beijing, where he was invited to study alongside the more traditionally malleable seven- and eight-year-olds.

Purists, of course, raised a stylized eyebrow at Pourazar's undying dedication to the training. "It's one thing to find it strange for me to train next to kids and endure the sickness and pain," he says, "but there was also some resistance to my training. One time a teacher asked me why I was doing this. I told him I'd love to learn these movements and record them through computer technology. He looked at me and very frankly said, 'I don't want you to be doing this in this country.' I think he thought I was here to steal something."

After getting so far into Beijing Opera, however, Pourazar was awarded a grant from The Asian Culture Counsel to research and record Beijing Opera traditions and plots from the old masters. "These guys are almost all still alive, and the essence of Beijing Opera is with them," he says. "The Journey to the West has about 100 stories, and 50-60 years ago dozens were regularly performed."

Much of this material was lost during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, and during current changes in taste that are seeing traditional arts sidelined.

While Pourazar's work with Beijing Opera is rooted in preservation, he also looks ways to make the art form accessible to Western audiences. In 1997, Pourazar directed the National Beijing Opera Troupe in a production of A Midsummer Nights Dream.

The big crowd pleaser, however, is Pourazar's Monkey King. For an upcoming charity fundraiser event in Shanghai, the Monkey will perform for children who receive financial assistance from Shanghai Sunrise educational charity and the local schools who help fund their project. For Pourazar, it's a chance to show off his life's passion: "The pleasure of learning Beijing Opera outweighs everything else - a good house, a car, a wife. If I had those things I would be a different person. But I wouldn't want to live that life."

The Monkey King: Journey to the West charity performance, 2pm, April 19, Yifu Theater. For more information, call (021) 6433-0984, or visit _www.shanghaisunrise.com_

_Contact the author on: jesse@cityweekend.com.cn _