Running Down a Dream

Delicately featured, upright in his bearing, Pan is leaning into the prime of his life. A painter, calligrapher and ­serious fan of the theater, he is known in Peking Opera ­circles as an exceptionally talented nandan (a male performer of dan roles). He also teaches at a number of schools on ­topics ranging from traditional art to carriage and etiquette, and even serves as a counsel­or for juvenile offenders.

After earning a university degree in the fine arts, Dano Pan started again from scratch to pursue his dream of performing Peking Opera.

The roots of a dream

Pan traveled a difficult path to get where he is today. Tracked into the arts as a schoolboy, he was particularly fond of ink painting and calligraphy. He went on to study in the fine arts department at Huafan University, where he was hardworking and highly skilled but eventually hit a creative wall. A professor of ink painting remarked that while he excelled at depicting people in a lifelike manner, his work lacked soul and character. The professor recommended that he check out Peking Opera, “which displays all the elements of the East Asian arts onstage.” Pan was unconvinced, but nonetheless bought a ticket to a per­form­ance of The Fourth Son Visits His Mother at the National Theater. He was surprised to find that the opera almost immediately brought him to tears.

A change of direction

Following that first experience, Pan’s love for the opera grew by leaps and bounds. Entering the working world, he spent his working hours listening to Peking Opera through earbuds, and his free time in Liberty Square hanging around with veteran opera fans who liked to take turns singing lines accompanied by a ­jinghu (a two-stringed fiddle much used in Peking Opera).

But Pan wanted more, and approached Li Qiugui (stage name Li Guangyu), a well-known performer of dan roles and teacher at Wenshan Community College, about becoming his first formal teacher of the art. ­After a year of study with Li, he quit his job to go back to school, entering the Department of Jing Ju (Peking ­Opera) at the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts (NTCPA) to fulfill his opera dreams.

Peking Opera has a long tradition of actors playing roles of the opposite gender. The dramatic tension that results from a man playing the role of a beautiful and elegant woman is something to see.

Acting school

Thinking back to the poverty of his early days at NTCPA, Pan jokes, “I was so poor I was ready to jump off a building.” He attended classes during the day, practiced hard at night, and spent his remaining scraps of free time working odd jobs. Even so, he often had to rely on family and friends to scrape by.

His age was even more of an obstacle. Pan was seven years older than his classmates and entering the field late. Most of his peers had started in the performing arts track as elementary schoolers and already had a solid foundation in the necessary skills. Both older and less limber, Pan found that hard work wasn’t enough to close the gap, and dreaded his practicums.

Fortunately, he was more interested in dan roles, which usually emphasize dignified deportment rather than martial skills. Aware that Peking Opera requires apptitude in four “arts” (singing, dialogue, dancing and martial arts) and aware of his deficiencies in three of them, Pan resolved to focus intently on his singing.

Four years later, he completed this stage of his improb­able opera adventure by finishing his degree.

Dano Pan (left) is one of Taiwan’s very few nandan (male performers of female roles).

Rivers return to the sea

In the piece Reunion at Wujia Slope, Xue Pinggui sings: “Rivers always return to the sea, bringing my letters back to Wang Baochai.” Pan loves these lines because he feels that they truly reflect his own journey back to his original purpose in life.

A nostalgic man who has lived through hard times, Pan is dedicated to returning kindnesses tenfold. As an adult, he has made a point of repaying the people, events and things that have helped him along his way. His relation­ship to NTCPA, his beloved alma mater, is a case in point. “When I first enrolled, I resolved that I would come back some day.” He has fulfilled that promise by returning to the school as a teacher. He has also foregone opportunities to pursue graduate studies at national universities, in favor of doing so in the fine arts department of Huafan University.

An accomplished painter and calligrapher, Pan established a studio to teach Peking Opera and the fine arts in 2014. As a graduate of a performing arts college who has many connections to the Peking Opera community, Pan has also worked for years producing paintings and calligraphy as props for domestic opera troupes including the GuoGuang Opera Company and Contemporary Legend Theatre.

A serious fan who became a professional performer, Pan has also promoted Peking Opera around the world as a youth ambassador.

Learning tranquility from traditional art

Though Pan is a performer, he doesn’t belong to any one troupe. Never one to do things in the ordinary way, he has blazed the path through the Peking Opera world that suits him.

“I see myself as a guide and torchbearer in the field of Peking Opera education.” He describes his in­extinguish­able passion for the opera as like the glimmering light of a lantern bearer on dark streets, crying warnings to be careful of fires in a drought. Long proud of the fact that he entered the opera world via its fan community, Pan is eager to spark other people’s interest in his passion. It is with this in mind that he regularly gives promotional performances as an independent artist, and that he previously served the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a youth ambassador performing abroad. He finds it easy to connect with opera fans offstage because he understands how they feel, and he never turns down requests for auto­graphs or ­photos. “Audiences don’t have to love me. As long as I can spark their interest in Peking Opera, I’m satisfied.”

Pan combines his skills in painting, calligraphy and Peking Opera in distinctive artistic creations. As his favorite line from the opera says, “Rivers always return to the sea.”