Xie Zhongyi

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1957 he was admitted to the Guiyang Xiangju Troupe and studied under the renowned Xiangju actor Zeng Yancui. Within the regional tradition and school record of Xiangju Opera in Guiyang, Hunan: Guiyang Xiang opera centres on Guiyang county, Hunan, and is popular in southern Hunan in the Chenzhou and Yongzhou area; sharing an origin with Hengyang Xiang opera yet diverging from it, its high-pitched repertory and tan-vocal singing are completely preserved in southern Hunan, with the Guiyang county Xiang opera troupe as the local professional body. Xiang opera is one of the local operatic genres of Hunan with a history of nearly six hundred years, circulating mainly in Changsha, Xiangtan, Zhuzhou and Guiyang county. Its traditional repertory is rich, most of it from Song-Yuan nanxi, Yuan zaju and Ming-Qing chuanqi, a few created and adapted by artists.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1947 in Guiyang County, Hunan Province. He is a national third-grade actor. Influenced by his family from childhood, he developed a love of drama. In 1992 he served as deputy head for artistic affairs of the Guiyang County Xiangju Troupe, and in 1996 as chairman of its trade union. He mastered all three vocal systems of Xiangju and developed a distinctive style in the singing art of the sheng (male) role. Beyond performing, he coached amateur opera troupes in rehearsal, enriching the cultural life of the people of Guiyang. Within the documented technical tradition of Xiangju Opera in Guiyang, Hunan: Xiang opera embraces the four great vocal styles of high-pitched, tan, Kun and dipaizi, with rich drum-and-gong scores and interlude music, strict conventions, and performance, costume and facial designs all bearing a distinctive Huxiang local style. Its large and small plays together number more than a thousand, over ninety-eight per cent being high-pitched and luantan items, its representative plays including The Moon-Worship Record, The Golden Seal Record, The Letter-Throwing Record, The Pipa Record and The White Rabbit Record, among which the high-pitched “four great serials” and “six great records” are the earliest performed and longest preserved representative works. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Moon-Worship Record": One of the representative plays of Xiang opera. "The Golden Seal Record": One of the representative plays of Xiang opera. "The Letter-Throwing Record": One of the representative plays of Xiang opera. "The Pipa Record": One of the representative plays of Xiang opera.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Xiangju Opera, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He has won the Outstanding Actor Award at the provincial young actors' joint performance, the Contribution Award for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Seventh “Three Xiang Outstanding Figures” Awards, and the Tian Han Performance Award at the Sixth Hunan Art Festival in 2018. He has consistently persisted in learning, performing, and teaching opera, training a large number of Xiangju students and thereby bringing up successive generations of leading talents for the Xiangju Protection and Inheritance Centre.

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. Xie Zhongyi · National Representative Bearer Archive