MASTER QI AND THE MONKEY KING Premieres at the Peking Opera Festival, 6/16

First Run Features announces today the world premiere of Alan Govenar's new feature documentary, Master Qi and The Monkey King, as part of the 12th annual Peking Opera Festival in New York on June 16, 2012, to be followed by its release in the home video and VOD markets on August 14.

The Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company presents its annual Peking Opera Festival on June 16 at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The festival will feature: 

• The world premiere of Master Qi and The Monkey King
• Arias sung by Master Qi herself, accompanied by the Eastern Chamber Music Group of New York, in both the traditional and contemporary styles, selected from (among others) The King Bids Farewell to his Concubine, an enduring classic of the repertoire, and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, the modern Cultural Revolution-era masterpiece
• The classic comedy Picking up the Jade Bracelet, performed by Master Qi's American students
• An impressive display of martial artistry - sword fighting, somersaults, and flips - in performances of Stealing the Official Seal

"Magic on stage" (The New York Times), The Peking Opera Festival will be held on June 16, 2012, at 7:30 pm at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, located at the corner of LaGuardia Place and Washington Square South at the base of NYU's Kimmel Center for University Life. The main entrance is at 566 LaGuardia Place. Tickets are available at www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu. 

Master Qi and The Monkey King chronicles the life and work of Ms. Qi Shu Fang, one of the preeminent masters of Chinese Opera living in the United States. It is a compelling story of ambition, love, the creative impulse and the struggle to survive against all odds. The film highlights the intricacies of Peking Opera, an art form that is hardly known in the West and is declining in popularity in China. At the same time it explores why Ms. Qi, her husband, Ding Meikui, and their company of Chinese Opera performers have made the difficult move to the United States, where they, like so many immigrants, must balance pressures to assimilate with the needs of cultural expression and preservation.

"Enchanting and compelling! Govenar's film portrays Peking Opera star Qi Shu Fang as no prima donna; she is down-to-earth, hard-working and thoroughly adept at negotiating the complexities of the modern world while maintaining her love of this ancient tradition. Excerpts from various operas with their brilliant and exotic costumes, comedic interludes and martial arts bravado are interspersed with backstage scenes of elaborate make-up application and interviews. The film should go a long way in demystifying Peking Opera and building new interest for the uninitiated, as well as allowing aficionados to gain further insight." 
-Robert H. Browning, Founder & Senior Artistic Advisor, World Music Institute 

Master Qi Shu Fang began studying Beijing Opera at age four. Picked by Chairman Mao's wife to play the female lead in Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, one of the eight national model opera films produced during the Cultural Revolution, she quickly became famous throughout China. In 1988 she left her homeland at the height of her career and settled in New York City, where she and her husband, Ding Meikui, established the Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company. In 2001 Mrs. Qi was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Members of the Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company have all received professional training in China and have been hand selected by Master Qi as artists of outstanding ability.