Wang Chuanling

01 · Lineage & Regional School

She began studying the art in childhood and started performing Liuqin Opera in 1971. Within the regional tradition and school record of Liuqin Opera in Zaozhuang, Shandong: There are two accounts of the origin of Liuqin opera: one holds that it grew out of the folk ditties of southern Shandong under the influence of the local Liuzi opera, the other that it was spread from Haizhou in Jiangsu. In the course of its long development Liuqin opera absorbed the strengths of various sister arts and kept close ties with the life of the people in its area of circulation, becoming a vehicle of regional culture. Liuqin opera is popularly known as lahun qiang, and also goes by the names lahu qiang and lahou qiang; in 1953 it was formally named Liuqin opera. It took shape after the mid-Qing period and is distributed mainly in the border area where the four provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and Henan meet.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in September 1955 in Teng County, Shandong Province. A National Class One performer. Her singing absorbs the strengths of many schools while forming a style of its own; her voice is broad and generous, her diction clear and her tones full, and her acting is expressive in both voice and emotion. Within the documented technical tradition of Liuqin Opera in Zaozhuang, Shandong: Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study. The singing of Liuqin opera is centred on the zhi and gong modes; the zhi mode is gentle and lingering, the gong mode bright and vigorous. In Liuqin opera singing this device of changing mode on the same tonic is found everywhere, which is exceptionally distinctive in Chinese opera singing. The melodic forms of Liuqin opera’s singing include qiban, daoban, laqiang, sheqiang, ye li cang hua, huilong diao, sili changqiang, men’s and women’s lala qiang, die duanqiao, da yapai and “the young lady enters the garden” tune; its ban forms divide roughly into manban, erhangban, shuban, jinban and wuzi jinban. The liuyeqin, flute, zhuiqin, erhu, banhu, suona and sheng, together with the ban drum and the large gong, are the principal accompanying instruments of Liuqin opera. The role types of Liuqin opera have their own special names: among xiaotou, ertou, erjiaoliangzi, laotou, laoguai, dasheng, goujiao, maotuizi and jianbailian, xiaotou corresponds to guimen dan, ertou to qingyi, erjiaoliangzi to qingyi combined with huadan, laotou to laodan, laoguai to caidan, dasheng to laosheng, goujiao to chou, maotuizi to the painted-face role, and jianbailian to the white-faced clown. The performance of Liuqin opera is bold and unadorned, its rhythm lively and its rustic flavour strong; the actors’ gestures and footwork clearly bear the marks of folk song-and-dance. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Siping Mountain": Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study. "Bapan Mountain": Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study. "Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers": Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study. "Chronicle of the Fish Basket": Liuqin opera has a very rich traditional repertory, with 180 full-length plays and excerpt plays together with 41 serial plays; its representative works include Siping Mountain, Bapan Mountain, Chronicle of the Fresh Flowers, Chronicle of the Fish Basket, Breaking the Two Nails, Little Ao Mountain, Yanmen Pass, The White Silk Robe, Eating Mianye Noodles and The Small Study.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a representative bearer of Liuqin Opera, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In a stage career of more than thirty years she has repeatedly won major provincial and national awards. In 1995 the large-scale modern play Fengyu Qinghuai (Sentiments in Wind and Rain), in which she took the leading role, won the Five One Project Award for fine works of Shandong Province. In 2000 the short Liuqin play Jingxuan (The Election Campaign), in which she starred, was presented at the National Exhibition of Fine Local Operas and won the Qunxing Award of the Ministry of Culture. To transmit Liuqin Opera and cultivate reserve talent, she actively planned and organized the opening of a Liuqin Opera school, which has enrolled more than a hundred students, and she has taken the lead in teaching her art.

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. Wang Chuanling · National Representative Bearer Archive