Explainer | ‘Teeth playing’: China’s most terrifying folk art in which artists sing with wild boar tusks in mouths
- Traditional performance exposes exponent’s mouths to painful damage, despite listing as intangible heritage, act is facing extinction
A performer with a fierce makeup conceals the tusks of several wild boars in their mouth, flipping them up and down with their tongue and teeth.
Throughout this process, they need to sing, read and dance.
It could well be the most terrifying, and most difficult, folk art in China. It is called shua ya, which literally means “teeth playing”.
What is it?
Shua ya is a stunt used in traditional Chinese opera designed to portray the dark, dangerous and complex psychology of villainous characters.
The tusks of male wild boars that it uses are polished and disinfected and usually reach the length of an adult index finger.
Performers need to manipulate four to 10 tusks in their mouths, using their lips, teeth, and breath to make them move, conveying the emotions of characters.
