“Without state support, it will suffer the fate of classical music and opera in the West—left to the elite to keep it afloat. Back in the early 1900s, these operas were really part of the air people breathed. Now the stories are no longer a part of the lives of the audience,” says Joshua Goldstein, an associate professor of Chinese history at the University of Southern California whose specialty is Peking opera.

Some say the changes don’t necessarily have to be contemporary in nature. Kenneth Pai, a retired University of California, Santa Barbara, professor and Peking opera expert, has created an adaptation of a kunqu opera, a forerunner to the Peking opera, a sumptuous nine-hour production that he has toured throughout China and played to sold-out audiences at four state universities in California. “Even at nine hours long, over three nights, it attracted a lot of people,” he says.

Peking opera dates to the late 1790s, during China’s Qing dynasty, when audiences became transfixed by its blend of stylised action, singing, dialogue, mime, acrobatic fighting and dancing.

Although Qiu Jirong makes his living from it, the slender man with delicate features prefers modern dance, hip-hop and Michael Jackson to the stodgy rhythms of his art form.