Song Xiaoqing

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1961 she was admitted to the Shaoxing Quyi Training Class and studied under Fan Wushi. She distinguished herself with outstanding results during her training, and after completing her apprenticeship she became a leading performer in the tanhuang performance group. Within the regional tradition and school record of Tanhuang in Shaoxing, Zhejiang: By contrast, “back Tanhuang” is more grounded in everyday market life; all of its repertoire items are single-episode stories of everyday life, such as “Selling Hay Ricks”, “Rowing the Lake Boat”, “The Mill Troupe”, “Meeting at the Thatched Hermitage” and “The Blind Man Catches an Adulterer”. The lyrics are sung in local dialect, and the paired seven-character lines of the basic tune still follow the “erwu” and “sisi” patterns. Unlike “front Tanhuang”, “back Tanhuang” delivers its spoken passages in the everyday vernacular of local dialects such as Hangzhou and Shaoxing. Tanhuang originated during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty and has a history of more than two hundred years.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in March 1945 in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. Born with a bright voice, she articulated nimbly, sang in tune with rich flavour, and performed with humour and wit, controlling the rhythm with ease; able to take both female and clown roles, she was particularly admired for cross-gender performances and won great affection from audiences. After retirement she recalled and compiled nineteen traditional pieces, including A Bi Da Hui Niangjia (A Bi Da Returns to Her Parents' Home), Huzi Ge (Brother Beard) and Mai Qing Tan (Selling Charcoal), and recorded seventeen discs. Within the documented technical tradition of Tanhuang in Shaoxing, Zhejiang: It is mainly transmitted in Hangzhou and in nearby Shaoxing, Jiaxing, Huzhou and other places. The form transmitted in Hangzhou is called “Hangzhou Tanhuang”, abbreviated as “Hangtan” and also known as “Ankang”; the form transmitted in Shaoxing is called “Shaoxing Tanhuang”, also known as “Shaoxing Parrot Play”. In performance the performers speak and sing by role type, usually with five people to a troupe, accompanying themselves as they sing: the sheng plays the huqin fiddle, the dan plays the pipa, the jing plays the sanxian, the mo beats the drum, and the chou strikes the clappers. There are also troupes of seven to eleven people; as the number of singers grows, instruments such as the zheng, sheng, xiao, flute and yangqin may be added to the troupe. Before the singing begins, Tanhuang plays ensemble pieces such as “Sihe Ruyi”, “Erliu” and “Xingjie” to settle the audience; this is called “heyin”, the harmonizing of sounds. In the formal performance the opening passage is sung first, followed by the main text. The lyrics of Tanhuang have a balanced sentence structure, refined and elegant diction, and strict attention to the tonal and metrical rules of the vocal music. Its vocal styles fall into three categories: the basic tune, tune patterns and folk ditties. The basic tune is the main melody sung in “Hangtan” and is divided into male and female registers; the metrical patterns used include pingban (plain metre), kuaiban (fast metre) and liushui ban (flowing metre); the main tune patterns include “Dianjiangchun”, “Duanzhenghao”, “Fengrusong” and “Jisangqiang”; the folk ditties include “Sixi diao”, “Caicha diao”, “Yangliuqing” and “Youhun diao”. Tanhuang uses no percussion section; the accompanying instruments are mainly the drum, clappers and string instruments. Tanhuang has one hundred and twenty traditional repertoire items (sections) in all, divided into two categories, “front Tanhuang” and “back Tanhuang”. In “front Tanhuang” the spoken parts of all characters except the chou use the Zhongzhou rhyming, the lyrics are mainly in paired seven-character lines, and the “luodiao” refrain does not use the one-up-one-down “fengdiantou” pattern. Most of its repertoire works were transplanted from Kunqu, such as the “Chan Zi”, “Song Zi”, “Chu Lie” and “Hui Lie” scenes of “The White Rabbit Chronicle”. The lyrics are more colloquial than the lines of the original Kunqu, but they are still comparatively refined literary language. The lines observe the level-oblique tonal patterns called “erwu” and “sisi”: besides requiring the last character of the paired lines to be oblique in the upper line and level in the lower line, they also require that “the first, third and fifth positions need not be regulated, while the second, fourth and sixth must be clearly distinguished”. “Front Tanhuang” is exacting about vocal delivery: “strengthen the mouth, master the four tones, enunciate truly, carry the drawn-out phrases lightly, keep the intonation accurate, put feeling into it”; in the use of the breath it stresses such techniques as “thorough, borrowed, checked, blown, closed and gathered”. When the chou role sings “Kuaiban” and “Liushui ban”, the lyrics commonly follow the “qi, die, luo” rise-and-fall pattern. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The White Rabbit Chronicle": Most of its repertoire works were transplanted from Kunqu, such as the “Chan Zi”, “Song Zi”, “Chu Lie” and “Hui Lie” scenes of “The White Rabbit Chronicle”. The lyrics are more colloquial than the lines of the original Kunqu, but they are still comparatively refined literary language. "Giving Birth": Most of its repertoire works were transplanted from Kunqu, such as the “Chan Zi”, “Song Zi”, “Chu Lie” and “Hui Lie” scenes of “The White Rabbit Chronicle”. The lyrics are more colloquial than the lines of the original Kunqu, but they are still comparatively refined literary language. "Seeing Off the Son": Most of its repertoire works were transplanted from Kunqu, such as the “Chan Zi”, “Song Zi”, “Chu Lie” and “Hui Lie” scenes of “The White Rabbit Chronicle”. The lyrics are more colloquial than the lines of the original Kunqu, but they are still comparatively refined literary language. "Going Hunting": Most of its repertoire works were transplanted from Kunqu, such as the “Chan Zi”, “Song Zi”, “Chu Lie” and “Hui Lie” scenes of “The White Rabbit Chronicle”. The lyrics are more colloquial than the lines of the original Kunqu, but they are still comparatively refined literary language.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Tanhuang (Shaoxing Tanhuang), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. She took an active part in training and teaching, cultivating successors, and led her troupe in performances on urban and rural stages.

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. Song Xiaoqing · National Representative Bearer Archive