Ye Quanmin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Ye Quanmin, Male, Han, from Ninghai, Zhejiang, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Ninghai Pingdiao (Ⅳ-9). The tradition is documented in Ninghai, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Ninghai Pingdiao in Ninghai, Zhejiang: Apart from the clown's spoken dialogue, performance basically uses the Ninghai dialect and the literary reading pronunciation ('dushu yin'). Ninghai pingdiao is one of the ancient local drama genres of Zhejiang Province. It is a branch of the Xinchang diaoqiang and originated in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties; centred on Ninghai, it circulates in Xiangshan, Huangyan, Wenling, Linhai, Xianju, Tiantai, Fenghua and elsewhere, and has a history of three to four hundred years to the present day.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He is a man of the Han ethnic group, born in October 1956 in Ninghai County, Zhejiang Province. He broke the old rule that the craft was transmitted only from men to men and passed the Ninghai Pingdiao technique of shua ya, a stunt involving the manipulation of boar tusks held in the mouth, to female disciples, pioneering its performance by women. He took part in collecting and collating material related to Ninghai Pingdiao and assisted in the publication of A Compendium of Traditional Ninghai Pingdiao Repertoire. Within the documented technical tradition of Ninghai Pingdiao in Ninghai, Zhejiang: It has more than a hundred traditional plays, including Xiao Jinqian (The Little Gold Coin), Jinniu Ling (Golden Ox Ridge), Lu'an Zhou (Lu'an Isle), Tianmen Zhen (The Heaven Gate Formation), Bai Men Lou (White Gate Tower), Yu Bi Lou (The Imperial Brush Tower), Baihua Zeng Jian (A Hundred Flowers Present a Sword), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Chen Lin Jiu Zhu (Chen Lin Saves His Lord) and Tou Shi Gan Chuan (Stolen Verses and the Boat Chase); of these, Xiao Jinqian has for more than a hundred years been closely bound up with the art of displaying the tusks and has become the most characteristic representative play of Ninghai pingdiao. The vocal style of Ninghai pingdiao is high-pitched yet graceful: one voice sings and a chorus joins in support, and there is no orchestral accompaniment of strings or winds, the singing being supported by gongs and drums alone. Its choral support takes such forms as the mixed chorus, the pure chorus, the whole-line chorus, the fragmentary chorus and the single-character chorus. 'Ninghai tusk display' is a unique skill within the performance of Ninghai pingdiao, with a history of more than a hundred years. It is a technique of 'changing the mouth' that keeps its delicacy amid roughness and shows its agility amid wildness, divided mainly into the steps of biting, licking, swallowing and spitting. The performer takes the tusks from the lower jawbone of a male meat pig weighing over 200 kilograms and holds them in the mouth, using the tongue as the main driving force, with the various movements of the teeth, lips and breath assisting the performance. This performance, with its refined 'mouth-changing' technique and wild body movements set against the 'Three Great and One Small' and the tune pattern [General's Order] of pingdiao, portrays the arrogant, overbearing air of the one-horned dragon in the play, and is astonishing to behold. The tusk display in Ninghai pingdiao is distinctive and exacting in its procedure; it looks easy but is in fact a hard-won art, and every generation of inheritors must undergo an arduous course of training before mastering it. After the founding of the People's Republic of China the tusk display was improved and refined on the basis of tradition, developing from the display of six tusks to the display of ten, and won unanimous praise from audiences. Ninghai pingdiao has added a unique skill of tusk display to the art of Chinese opera performance, enriching the forms and content of facial performance in opera and attracting broad attention. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Jinniu Ling (Golden Ox Ridge)": It has more than a hundred traditional plays, including Xiao Jinqian (The Little Gold Coin), Jinniu Ling (Golden Ox Ridge), Lu'an Zhou (Lu'an Isle), Tianmen Zhen (The Heaven Gate Formation), Bai Men Lou (White Gate Tower), Yu Bi Lou (The Imperial Brush Tower), Baihua Zeng Jian (A Hundred Flowers Present a Sword), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Chen Lin Jiu Zhu (Chen Lin Saves His Lord) and Tou Shi Gan Chuan (Stolen Verses and the Boat Chase); of these, Xiao Jinqian has for more than a hundred years been closely bound up with the art of displaying the tusks and has become the most characteristic representative play of Ninghai pingdiao. "Lu'an Zhou (Lu'an Isle)": It has more than a hundred traditional plays, including Xiao Jinqian (The Little Gold Coin), Jinniu Ling (Golden Ox Ridge), Lu'an Zhou (Lu'an Isle), Tianmen Zhen (The Heaven Gate Formation), Bai Men Lou (White Gate Tower), Yu Bi Lou (The Imperial Brush Tower), Baihua Zeng Jian (A Hundred Flowers Present a Sword), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Chen Lin Jiu Zhu (Chen Lin Saves His Lord) and Tou Shi Gan Chuan (Stolen Verses and the Boat Chase); of these, Xiao Jinqian has for more than a hundred years been closely bound up with the art of displaying the tusks and has become the most characteristic representative play of Ninghai pingdiao. "Tianmen Zhen (The Heaven Gate Formation)": It has more than a hundred traditional plays, including Xiao Jinqian (The Little Gold Coin), Jinniu Ling (Golden Ox Ridge), Lu'an Zhou (Lu'an Isle), Tianmen Zhen (The Heaven Gate Formation), Bai Men Lou (White Gate Tower), Yu Bi Lou (The Imperial Brush Tower), Baihua Zeng Jian (A Hundred Flowers Present a Sword), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Chen Lin Jiu Zhu (Chen Lin Saves His Lord) and Tou Shi Gan Chuan (Stolen Verses and the Boat Chase); of these, Xiao Jinqian has for more than a hundred years been closely bound up with the art of displaying the tusks and has become the most characteristic representative play of Ninghai pingdiao.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Ninghai Pingdiao, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1970 he was admitted to the Ninghai Pingdiao Troupe and studied Ninghai Pingdiao under the veteran artist Wang Wanli; in 1980 he took part in the provincial festival of young actors of opera troupes and won first prize for his shua ya technique. He served as a teaching instructor of the troupe and trained students including Xue Qiaoping.

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. Ye Quanmin · National Representative Bearer Archive