Section 3: Performance Techniques
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Centre
The centre of the box stage is the most important reference point for the performers (strokes) to ensure that the formation (character) look balanced and centred.
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Circle
1. Circle of Equal Distance
Other than the imaginery straight lines mentioned in ‘Basic Structures’, there is also an imaginary circle within the square. Note that a character is usually kept within this circle and none of its strokes touches the box.
Worksheets
2. Imaginery Circles
Positioning of Strokes
The imaginery circle(s) help you to position the strokes more precisely.
The distance from the centre of a circle to any part of the circumference (outline) of the circle is always equal. This distance is called the radius.
Shape
Body Shape of Character
Observe how these Chinese characters fit into these shapes.
If any of the stroke juts out from the circle (as shown), the character will not look balanced and centred.
3. Centre of Character
Writing in a line
Another use of the centre of circle is to help you gauge the centre of character. Having some sense of the centre of character helps you to align characters in a line and space them out evenly when writing them by hand.
Why Body Shape?
Shapes are easily understood by learners from any language background.
Learners can visualise shapes easily.
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Body shapes of characters bring attention to the:
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a) Relative Lengths of its Width and Height
These three characters vary in shape due to differences between their widths and heights.
The first character has a longer width than height;
the second character has a longer height than width and the last character has the same width and height.
b) Relative Lengths of Strokes
Both characters have three horizontal lines. Their body shapes change due to the difference in their lengths. One has the longest bottom horizontal and the other has the longest top horizontal.
c) Position of a Part
The shape of the character changes when the rectangular part is placed nearer to the top than to the bottom.
