2020
Dream of the Red Chamber: The Collaborative Study and Operatic Premiere of a Classic (Educational Activities)
University of Minnesota, 2021-2023
Principal Investigator(s): Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota; with Christine Marran, University of Minnesota; Mark Russsell Smith, University of Minnesota, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies; Pearl Lam Bergad, Chinese Heritage FoundationThe award will help fund educational activities related to a performance at the University of Minnesota of a new, shorter, semi-staged version of the English-language opera Dream of the Red Chamber, of which a fully-staged version premiered in 2016. These educational activities include workshops with the composer, librettist, conductor, director, and choreographer that will illuminate the textual and musical transformations of the opera, and will utilize local resources, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s holdings of Chinese art and opera costumes. Other projects include a course on the novel and its adaptations, and seminars on related topics.
2020
Performing “Ghost Village” at the Symposium “Sensorium of the Early Modern Chinese Text” (Performance)
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, 2021
Principal Investigator(s): Ariel Fox, University of Chicago; Paize Keulemans, Princeton University; Suyoung Son, Cornell UniversityThis musical performance of three arias from the opera Ghost Village will accompany a two-day symposium, The Sensorium of the Early-Modern Chinese Text, scheduled for October 23-25 at the University of Chicago. Ghost Village is based on one of the stories from Strange Tales of the Liaozhai by the early Qing dynasty author, Pu Songling (1640-1715). The opera is a collaboration between Chen Yao, of the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Judith Zeitlin, of the University of Chicago. Open to the public, the project aims to foster an appreciation of late-imperial Chinese culture.
2019
A Chinese-English Dictionary of Ming Government Official Titles (Online Dictionary)
The Geiss Hsu Foundation supported the development of the University of Irvine Libraries’ crowd-translation system for Ming government official titles. A critical reference tool for scholars of the Ming dynasty in China, this online reference uses an Application Programming Interface (API) to synchronize crowd-sourced translations. It includes 3,245 entries arranged in tiers related to the hierarchy of government offices. Each lists the official title in traditional Chinese, followed by its pinyin, English translation, and alternative title names (including abbreviations, colloquial names, and commonly-known names).
2018
The Next Generation of Ming Scholars: A Brief Research Presentation (Travel)
Society for Ming Studies, 2019
Principal Investigator(s): Brigid Vance, Society for Ming StudiesAs part of their new outreach to junior scholars, the Society for Ming Studies invited nine promising Ph.D. candidates, fellows, and visiting professors to present their research at the Society for Ming Studies Annual Meeting at the Association for Asian Studies Conference in Denver, Colorado. The Geiss Hsu Foundation helped supplement the travel costs for the March 2019 meeting. The goal of the session was to grow the community of Ming scholars by helping junior researchers cement new connections.
2014
Matteo Ricci: His Map and Music (Concert)
Institute for Advanced Study and ¡Sacabuche!, 2014
The Geiss Hsu Foundation supported a second performance of Matteo Ricci: His Map and Music, presented at Best Buy Theater at the University of Minnesota on May 5, 2014. The concert featured music, words, and images to explore the 1602 map of the world in Chinese made by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci while he was in China. The Baroque instruments and voices of the musical group ¡Sacabuche! were joined by Chinese instruments.
2010
The Map and Music of Matteo Ricci (Lecture and Interactive Performance)
University of Minnesota and the Institute for Advanced Study, 2010
Inspired by the James Ford Bell Trust’s acquisition of the 1602 world map by Matteo Ricci, Ming historian Ann Waltner, in collaboration with with iSacabuche!, an early music ensemble based at Indiana University, presented a rich program that included a lecture about the map, a demonstration of Baroque and Chinese instruments, and a multi-media performance reanimating the pivotal cultural exchange between Italian Jesuits and Chinese literati in seventeenth-century China. This program combined music composed by Huang Ruo and dramatic readings visually framed by a projected digitized version of the world map that Matteo Ricci created and presented to the Wanli Emperor.
2004
Colorful Lanterns at Shangyuan (Interactive CD)
By Ina Asim
University of Oregon, 2004
This project digitized and enhanced a Ming scroll depicting a street in Nanjing during the Lantern Festival marking the end of Lunar New Year. Users zoom in to examine details that were unrecognizable prior to digital enhancement, and click on hotspots to learn more information.