Li Renzhen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Li Renzhen, Female, Unspecified, from Yangzhou, Jiangsu, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Yangzhou Tanci Balladry (Ⅴ-50). The tradition is documented in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Within the regional tradition and school record of Yangzhou Tanci Balladry in Yangzhou, Jiangsu: Yangzhou tanci uses the Yangzhou dialect for most of its narration, and when a character first appears it also uses the 'dock speech' of out-of-town regions, in order to show the identity of the character and delineate the character's nature. Since the late Qing dynasty Yangzhou tanci has formed several schools of singing, including the Zhou school, the Kong school and the Zhang school; today only the Zhang school is still transmitted. Yangzhou tanci is popular mainly in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, and the surrounding area. It was originally called 'xianci' and 'duibai xianci', took shape at the end of the Ming dynasty, flourished in the early Qing dynasty, and has a history of more than four hundred years.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han, born in February 1946, a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. She is a National First-Class Actor. She learned her art from the storyteller Wang Shaotang, the qingqu singer Wang Wanqing and the tanci performer Zhang Huixiang. Her basic skills in dental, vocal and throat sounds were solid; her narration was fine and delicate, clearly layered, with distinct characterisation and deep grounding. From the 1960s onwards she reformed the music and vocal style, composition and performance, and made a considerable contribution to the solo (dandang) presentation of Yangzhou tanci. She was skilled at composition and at adapting and creating repertoire, writing, arranging and performing her own pieces. In addition she was proficient in playing the pipa, the sanxian and other instruments. Her representative works include Luo Jin Shan (The Golden Fan), Shen Diao An (Trying the Tricky Case) and Zhenzhu Ta (The Pearl Pagoda). She attached importance to transmission and taught at the Yangzhou School of Culture and Arts. From 2000 onwards she took disciples, transmitting orally a traditional repertoire of 400,000 characters. She lectured on the history of Yangzhou quyi in universities, giving live demonstrations of Yangzhou tanci, Yangzhou qingqu and other forms. Within the documented technical tradition of Yangzhou Tanci Balladry in Yangzhou, Jiangsu: Yangzhou tanci is centred on narration, with singing to instrumental accompaniment as an aid. Originally one person sang while seated and playing a sanxian unaided, hence the name 'xianci'. It later developed into the 'shuangdang' format performed by two people in coordination, adding pipa accompaniment, and was therefore called 'duibai xianci'. The sung text of Yangzhou tanci is arranged within the book text and takes two forms, the voiced-speech form and the narrative form, mainly using seven-character lines, with added single lines called 'fengdiandou'. Its performance is broadly the same as that of pinghua, differing in two respects: first, it pays more attention to the flavour of the tone and stresses correct diction and rounded vocal tone; second, the accompanying gestures are smaller in amplitude, the emphasis being on the display of facial expression. In shuangdang performance the two performers simulate the speech and tones of different characters in dialogue; the senior actor concentrates on the narration, and the singing of tunes is mostly undertaken by the junior actor. The tune patterns commonly used in Yangzhou tanci include [Suonanzhi], [Shuaha'er], [Sanqi Lihua], [Chenshui] and [Nandiao], with the yu mode and the shang mode predominating; plain and elegant, with an antique flavour, they have changed little over the years. The sanxian accompaniment plays the skeleton notes, sparse and plain, while the pipa is dense and varied, full of movement and ornament, whence the saying that 'the sanxian is the bone and the pipa is the flesh'. The representative repertoires of this school include Twin Gold Ingots, The Pearl Tower, The Falling Gold Fan and The Diao-Liu Story; after more than a hundred years of development, the art of singing has become increasingly polished. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Xianci and its paired form": Once a single singer with a three-string lute, the form grew into a pair playing lute and pipa in dialogue. "The phoenix nod": A single added line, mostly of seven characters, used to cap a passage with a fresh turn. "Frequently used tunes": Stock melodies in the yu and shang modes, plain and antique and little changed over the years. "Lute as bone, pipa as flesh": The three-string lute supplies the skeletal notes while the pipa fills them out with dense ornament.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Yangzhou Tanci Balladry, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

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. Li Renzhen · National Representative Bearer Archive