Su Yanyu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1947 she entered a Qizi class of the Liyuan tradition to learn the art, and in 1952 she joined the Quanzhou Gaojia Opera Troupe, studying under Cai Xiuying, a renowned teacher of dan roles. Within the regional tradition and school record of Gaojia Opera in Quanzhou, Fujian: Gaojia opera is one of the local drama genres of southern Fujian. It is also called yijia opera, jiujiao opera, daban or tuban, and it is current in the southern-Fujian dialect areas of Fujian Province, in Taiwan, and in the overseas-Chinese and Chinese settlements of the countries of Southeast Asia. In the mid-Qing period, Songjiang opera absorbed performance forms from other art categories and developed into the hexing play that combined civil and martial roles; in the late Qing it further absorbed artistic elements of Hui opera, Kunqu, Yiyang tune and Beijing opera, and so took shape as Gaojia opera, a local drama genre of southern Fujian with a style entirely its own.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

She specialized in huadan (lively young woman) and xiaodan (young woman) roles and was especially accomplished in inner drama; her acting was finely detailed, her body movement nimble and her voice sonorous, and her characters were emotionally full and vividly alive, attaining the realm described as the play need not be real, but the feeling cannot be false. Within the documented technical tradition of Gaojia Opera in Quanzhou, Fujian: Gaojia opera took shape in the late Ming and early Qing. At the beginning it consisted only of improvised costumed performance to the accompaniment of folk tunes; it later developed into professional troupes, whose repertoire was mainly stories of Song Jiang, and it was for that reason known as Songjiang opera. The repertoire of Gaojia opera falls into three main groups — daqi plays (grand-scale plays), xiufang plays (boudoir plays) and chou-dan plays (clown and dan-role plays) — and martial plays, chou-dan plays and gong'an plays (cases of officialdom) are the most numerous. It has more than six hundred traditional plays, among them Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion), Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River), Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe), Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne), Guan Fu Song (Guan Fu's Escort), Xingyuan Si Chai (Xingyuan Longing for the Hairpin), Meng Jiangnu (The Lady Meng Jiang), Fanpo Nong (The Old Woman's Plottings), Tang Er Bie (Tang Er's Parting), as well as the serial stage plays Sanguo (Three Kingdoms) and Yue Zhuan (The Biography of Yue Fei) and others. The tune patterns of Gaojia opera music belong to the nanyin (southern music) system and come for the most part from nanyin and from puppet theatre, though their rhythm and melody are altered. Singers use their own natural voice; the melodic lines are sonorous and high, yet there is no lack of clear, gentle and delicate colour in the tones. The instruments used in Gaojia opera fall into two kinds, wen music and wu music. Wen music is led by the suona and supported by the pinxiao, dongxiao, erxian, sanxian, pipa and similar instruments; wu music includes the baigu, large and small drums, large and small gongs, large and small cymbals, the xiangzhan and the xiao jiao, displaying a strong local character. The role types of Gaojia opera originally comprised only three, sheng, dan and chou; later jing, tie, wai, mo, beijing (jing) and zha were added one after another. Of these role types, the chou is the most prominent. The chou role divides into male chou and female chou, and the male chou is further divided into wen chou (civil clown) and wu chou (martial clown). Wen chou comprises the longshan chou (long-gown clown) and the duanshan chou (short-jacket clown), while wu chou comprises the shayi chou (secretary clown) and the kunshen chou (bound-body clown). Female chou includes dozens of types, such as the furen chou (madam clown), the meiren chou (matchmaker clown), the laopo chou (old-woman clown) and the bi chou (maid clown). The performing art of the chou role is rich and varied. Artists draw material out of everyday life and have created types such as the gongzi chou (young-master clown), the poshan chou (tattered-clown) and the kuilei chou (puppet clown), taking as their means of expressing a character's temperament either the simulated rendering of the typical behaviour of different figures or the imitation of puppet-theatre and animal movements. It is light-hearted and humorous, full of lively wit, exaggerated yet never untrue to life, and it carries a strong flavour of everyday existence. The martial fighting in Gaojia opera has taken in the skills of string-puppetry and of the folk lion dance, producing movements of its own such as leng jian pan (cold sizzling plate), da peng chang (great collision) and feng bai wei (the phoenix swaying its tail). Standing quite apart within the tradition of Chinese theatre, Gaojia opera is a typical representative of southern Fujian local culture and exercises great influence at home and abroad. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion)": Gaojia opera has more than six hundred traditional plays, among them Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion), Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River), Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe), Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne), Guan Fu Song (Guan Fu's Escort), Xingyuan Si Chai (Xingyuan Longing for the Hairpin), Meng Jiangnu (The Lady Meng Jiang), Fanpo Nong (The Old Woman's Plottings), Tang Er Bie (Tang Er's Parting), as well as the serial stage plays Sanguo (Three Kingdoms) and Yue Zhuan (The Biography of Yue Fei) and others. "Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River)": Gaojia opera has more than six hundred traditional plays, among them Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion), Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River), Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe), Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne), Guan Fu Song (Guan Fu's Escort), Xingyuan Si Chai (Xingyuan Longing for the Hairpin), Meng Jiangnu (The Lady Meng Jiang), Fanpo Nong (The Old Woman's Plottings), Tang Er Bie (Tang Er's Parting), as well as the serial stage plays Sanguo (Three Kingdoms) and Yue Zhuan (The Biography of Yue Fei) and others. "Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe)": Gaojia opera has more than six hundred traditional plays, among them Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion), Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River), Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe), Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne), Guan Fu Song (Guan Fu's Escort), Xingyuan Si Chai (Xingyuan Longing for the Hairpin), Meng Jiangnu (The Lady Meng Jiang), Fanpo Nong (The Old Woman's Plottings), Tang Er Bie (Tang Er's Parting), as well as the serial stage plays Sanguo (Three Kingdoms) and Yue Zhuan (The Biography of Yue Fei) and others. "Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne)": Gaojia opera has more than six hundred traditional plays, among them Da Nao Hua Fu (The Great Uproar in the Flower Mansion), Kun Hedong (Besieged East of the River), Zhan Huangpao (Beheading at the Yellow Robe), Lin Wensheng Gao Yu Zhuang (Lin Wensheng Petitions the Throne), Guan Fu Song (Guan Fu's Escort), Xingyuan Si Chai (Xingyuan Longing for the Hairpin), Meng Jiangnu (The Lady Meng Jiang), Fanpo Nong (The Old Woman's Plottings), Tang Er Bie (Tang Er's Parting), as well as the serial stage plays Sanguo (Three Kingdoms) and Yue Zhuan (The Biography of Yue Fei) and others.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Female, Han ethnicity, born in September 1938 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and died in November 2014. She was a national representative bearer of Gaojia Opera, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1954 she took part in the East China regional opera demonstration performance and won second prize for performance for her role as Taohua in Tao Hua Da Du (Taohua Crosses the Ferry). From 1978 she taught at Gaojia Opera troupes and Gaojia classes of art schools throughout southern Fujian, compiling and writing textbooks on dan role technique, shoulder technique and sleeve technique; she trained several generations of Gaojia dan actors by word of mouth and example, and among her disciples are outstanding performers who have won national and provincial awards.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Su Yanyu · National Representative Bearer Archive