Song Danju

01 · Lineage & Regional School

She is a daughter of Song Dezhu, one of the “Four Young Famous Dan” of Peking opera. She learned the art from her father from childhood and also studied under Xun Huisheng, Xiao Cuihua, Cheng Yujing and others. Within the regional tradition and school record of Peking Opera in Beijing: Peking opera, also called pingju or jingxi, is the operatic genre with the greatest influence in China; it is distributed with Beijing as its centre and extends throughout the country. The role types of Peking opera are divided into sheng, dan, jing, chou, za, wu and liu, the last three of which no longer have dedicated lines of performers established for them. Peking opera is divided into the "Beijing school" (jingpai) and the "Shanghai school" (haipai). Many outstanding performers appeared in different periods, such as Cheng Changgeng, Yu Sansheng, Zhang Erkui, Mei Qiaoling, Tan Xinpei, Sun Juxian, Wang Guifen, Liu Hongsheng, Tian Guifeng, Yu Ziyun, Chen Delin and Wang Yaoqing in the late Qing dynasty, and Yu Shuyan, Yan Jupeng, Gao Qingkui, Ma Lianliang, Yang Baosen, Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Xun Huisheng, Shang Xiaoyun, Zhou Xinfang and Jin Shaoshan during the Republic of China period.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of Han ethnicity, born in September 1942 in Beijing. She is a National First-Class Actor. Her performance is strongest in acting (zuogong) and is marked by the qualities of beauty, charm, crispness and sharpness; she is the leading figure of the second generation of the Song school. She has restored such old plays as Changing Her Appearance to Fight Her Father (Gai Rong Zhan Fu), The Mermaid (Mei Ren Yu) and A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix (Bai Niao Chao Feng), and served as chief editor of Pearl Light and Chrysanthemum Shadow (Zhu Guang Ju Ying), The Stage Art of Song Dezhu and Essays on the Art of the Song (Dezhu) School of Peking Opera. In December 1990, while attending the conference held to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the Hui troupes’ entry into Beijing and to promote the revival of Peking opera, she made friends through Peking opera and strengthened exchanges between the Peking opera circles of the mainland and Taiwan. She has successively directed large-scale performances commemorating the ninetieth and the hundredth anniversary of Song Dezhu’s birth. She has taken many disciples, and in the training class for Peking opera Song school performers funded by the National Arts Fund she trained forty core performers in wudan and daomadan roles. Within the documented technical tradition of Peking Opera in Beijing: Beginning in the fifty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty (1790), the four great Anhui troupes that had originally performed in the south — Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai and Hechun — entered Beijing one after another. They collaborated with Han tune performers from Hubei, while at the same time taking over part of the repertoire, the tunes and the performance methods of Kunqu and Qinqiang, and they also absorbed a number of local folk tunes. Through continual exchange and fusion, Peking opera was finally formed. In literature, performance, music, stage art and every other respect, Peking opera has its own set of standardised artistic expression conventions. The vocal style of Peking opera belongs to the ban-shi (metrical mode) system, with erhuang and xipi as its principal melodic registers. Siping diao, fansiping diao and Han diao are all subordinate to erhuang, while nanbangzi and wadia diao are subordinate to xipi. The melody of erhuang is smooth and even, its rhythm relaxed and broad, and its singing rich, full and weighty; xipi has a melody of larger rise and fall, a tighter rhythm, and a vocal style that is bright and flowing. Peking opera accompaniment is divided into two great categories, the wen chang (the "string" section) and the wu chang (the "percussion" section). The wen chang uses huqin (jinghu), jing erhu, yueqin, xianzi, dizi and suona, with the huqin as the principal lead instrument; the wu chang is led by drum and clapper, with small gong and large gong following. Within each role type there are finer subdivisions; the dan roles, for instance, are divided into qingyi (the virtuous woman), huadan (the young coquette), daomadan (the female warrior), wudan (the martial woman) and laodan (the elderly woman). The basis of these subdivisions lies not only in the natural attributes of a character but, more importantly, in the character's personality traits and in the attitude of praise or censure the creator holds toward the character. Each role type has its own set of performance conventions, and the four skills of singing, speaking, acting and combat each have their own distinctive character. Peking opera takes historical stories as its principal performance content. It has roughly more than thirteen hundred traditional plays, of which three to four hundred or more are performed regularly; among them Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge), Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall), Changbanpo (The Changban Slope), Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes), Dayusha (The Fisherman's Revenge), Kongchengji (The Empty Fort Strategy), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Sanchakou (At the Forked Crossroads), Yezhulin (The Wild Boar Forest), Erjingong (Second Entry into the Palace), Shiyuzhuo (Picking Up the Jade Bracelet), Tiaohuache (Lifting the Decorated Cart), Sijinshi (The Four Scholars), Sousu Jiugu (Searching for and Saving the Orphan), Bawang Bieji (Farewell My Concubine) and Silang Tanmu (The Fourth Son Visits His Mother) are household names, familiar to audiences throughout the country. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Peking opera adapted, transferred and newly created a number of historical plays and modern-themed works, among the more important of which are Jiang Xianghe (The General and the Minister Make Peace), Mu Guiying Takes Command, The Yang Family Women Warriors, The Dismissal of Hai Rui, Cao Cao and Yang Xiu, Shajiabang, The Red Lantern, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, Dainuo and Rickshaw Boy. Peking opera is disseminated across the country, exerts a far-reaching influence, and is known as the "national opera" (guju). It travels to all parts of the world and has become an important means of introducing and disseminating traditional Chinese culture. The Peking opera performance system named after Mei Lanfang is regarded as a representative of the Eastern system of dramatic performance; together with the Stanislavski and Brecht systems it is hailed as one of the world's three great performance systems. Peking opera is an important form of expression of China's national traditional culture, and many of its artistic elements serve as symbolic signs of traditional Chinese culture. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge)": Peking opera takes historical stories as its principal performance content. It has roughly more than thirteen hundred traditional plays, of which three to four hundred or more are performed regularly; among them Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge), Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall), Changbanpo (The Changban Slope), Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes), Dayusha (The Fisherman's Revenge), Kongchengji (The Empty Fort Strategy), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Sanchakou (At the Forked Crossroads), Yezhulin (The Wild Boar Forest), Erjingong (Second Entry into the Palace), Shiyuzhuo (Picking Up the Jade Bracelet), Tiaohuache (Lifting the Decorated Cart), Sijinshi (The Four Scholars), Sousu Jiugu (Searching for and Saving the Orphan), Bawang Bieji (Farewell My Concubine) and Silang Tanmu (The Fourth Son Visits His Mother) are household names, familiar to audiences throughout the country. "Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall)": Peking opera takes historical stories as its principal performance content. It has roughly more than thirteen hundred traditional plays, of which three to four hundred or more are performed regularly; among them Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge), Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall), Changbanpo (The Changban Slope), Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes), Dayusha (The Fisherman's Revenge), Kongchengji (The Empty Fort Strategy), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Sanchakou (At the Forked Crossroads), Yezhulin (The Wild Boar Forest), Erjingong (Second Entry into the Palace), Shiyuzhuo (Picking Up the Jade Bracelet), Tiaohuache (Lifting the Decorated Cart), Sijinshi (The Four Scholars), Sousu Jiugu (Searching for and Saving the Orphan), Bawang Bieji (Farewell My Concubine) and Silang Tanmu (The Fourth Son Visits His Mother) are household names, familiar to audiences throughout the country. "Changbanpo (The Changban Slope)": Peking opera takes historical stories as its principal performance content. It has roughly more than thirteen hundred traditional plays, of which three to four hundred or more are performed regularly; among them Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge), Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall), Changbanpo (The Changban Slope), Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes), Dayusha (The Fisherman's Revenge), Kongchengji (The Empty Fort Strategy), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Sanchakou (At the Forked Crossroads), Yezhulin (The Wild Boar Forest), Erjingong (Second Entry into the Palace), Shiyuzhuo (Picking Up the Jade Bracelet), Tiaohuache (Lifting the Decorated Cart), Sijinshi (The Four Scholars), Sousu Jiugu (Searching for and Saving the Orphan), Bawang Bieji (Farewell My Concubine) and Silang Tanmu (The Fourth Son Visits His Mother) are household names, familiar to audiences throughout the country. "Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes)": Peking opera takes historical stories as its principal performance content. It has roughly more than thirteen hundred traditional plays, of which three to four hundred or more are performed regularly; among them Yuzhou Feng (Cosmic Edge), Yutangchun (Spring in the Jade Hall), Changbanpo (The Changban Slope), Qunyinghui (Meeting of Heroes), Dayusha (The Fisherman's Revenge), Kongchengji (The Empty Fort Strategy), Guifei Zuijiu (The Drunken Concubine), Sanchakou (At the Forked Crossroads), Yezhulin (The Wild Boar Forest), Erjingong (Second Entry into the Palace), Shiyuzhuo (Picking Up the Jade Bracelet), Tiaohuache (Lifting the Decorated Cart), Sijinshi (The Four Scholars), Sousu Jiugu (Searching for and Saving the Orphan), Bawang Bieji (Farewell My Concubine) and Silang Tanmu (The Fourth Son Visits His Mother) are household names, familiar to audiences throughout the country.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Representative bearer of Peking opera, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. She has received the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award, a certificate of honour for cultural exchange from Lincoln University in the United States, and the director award at the national new production showcase of the Ministry of Culture.

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 Danju · National Representative Bearer Archive