History of the Bamboo Theatre

The bamboo theatre is a temporary venue either for staging shengongxi (thanksgiving opera performance) or for holding rituals. It is easy to construct and to dismantle at any time, and is therefore a flexible option for venue building.

The scaffolding technique in China has a history of over two millennia. As early as the Han dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE), street entertainers in the baixi (acrobatic and variety shows) would perform in bamboo pavilions called “pengge”. That was the earliest model of the bamboo theatre we see today. Records of building a matshed can be found in archives of the Song dynasty (960 - 1279). By the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911), with the growing popularity of shengongxi and regional operas, the need for such theatres boomed. Many scaffolding masters travelled to the rural areas to work for a living, and carried on this bamboo theatre building technique unique to China.

The historical record of bamboo theatres first appeared in Hong Kong in the late 19th century. At the time, they were built with bamboo and fir members, with the roof and elevated periphery covered with fan-palm leaves. The overall structure was rather similar to the models today. Later, when the Mainland was fraught with the ravages of war, many scaffolding masters moved from Zhaoqing, Dongguan and Bao’an of Guangdong to Hong Kong. They brought with them their technical know-how and applied that to the local bamboo theatre building system. After several generations of practice and improvements, the architectural form of bamboo theatres evolved into the present architectural styles. The earlier versions aimed at creating a covered space with bamboo scaffoldings. The covering materials ranged from palm leaves, fan-palm leaves, canvas, to rattan mats. But these were highly inflammable and fire hazards, so they were replaced by galvanized sheets from the 1970s onwards.

In Hong Kong, during the birthdays of deities, the Jiao Festival and the Yu Lan Festival, people from different communities such as residents in villages in the New Territories, fisherfolk, and ethnic groups speaking different dialects – the Cantonese, the Chiu Chow and the Hoi Luk Fung – in the urban areas would hold their respective religious ceremonies and rituals. On such occasions, they would hire scaffolding masters to build bamboo theatres and invite operatic troupes to perform shengongxi, for the dual purpose of “entertaining both deities and mortals”. The bamboo theatre building technique is thus sustained through such shengongxi and rituals.