Huang Fenglan

01 · Lineage & Regional School

At twelve she was admitted to the Shenchi County Daoqing Opera Troupe and studied under the celebrated artist Wang Zhanbang (stage name Zhoucang Hei), specializing in xiaodan and qingyi; she later received guidance from such renowned artists as Jia Guilin and Kang Cuilian. Within the regional tradition and school record of Daoqing Opera in Shenchi, Shanxi: Shenchi daoqing opera is one branch of suqu daoqing, taking Shenchi County of Shanxi Province as its place of origin and spreading step by step to the neighbouring counties of Wuzhai, Kelan, Ningwu, Daixian and Youyu; it is a representative form of dramatic art in Xinzhou City. During the Xianfeng reign period Shenchi had more than twenty daoqing troupes, which by 1932 had grown to more than one hundred, showing how flourishing these troupes were. The music of Shenchi daoqing falls into three main parts, vocal styles, tune patterns and gong-and-drum scores; it both inherits the ancient traditional daoqing and the folk art of daoqing narrative singing and absorbs certain musical elements from folk songs and local minor operas. Shenchi daoqing derives from the Taoist temple music of the Tang dynasty; in the middle period of the Qing dynasty, under the influence of operatic art, it developed into a folk minor opera. During the Xianfeng reign period, Shenchi had more than twenty daoqing troupes; by 1932 this had grown to more than one hundred, and it spread step by step to the neighbouring counties of Wuzhai, Kelan, Ningwu, Daixian, Youyu and others.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of Han ethnicity, born in June 1957 in Shenchi County, Shanxi Province. In 1985 she formally became a disciple of the Jinju performing artist Tian Guilan and studied the techniques of the female role in a comprehensive way. With solid basic skills and a handsome stage appearance, she follows the Daoqing convention of heavy words and light tune in her use of breath and dynamics, so that her diction is clear and her singing round and smooth. At the same time she used the biangong (leading tone) and the run tone, a semitone lowered, to create a new Daoqing tune known as Duo Shi Zi (stacked ten characters), in which a secondary (pian) tone replaces the adjacent principal tone of the pentatonic scale. Her representative works include Tears of the Jade Cicada (Yu Chan Lei), Yingtai Defies the Marriage (Ying Tai Kang Hun), The Forced Marriage (Bi Hun Ji), The Women Generals of the Yang Family (Yang Men Nu Jiang) and A Visit to West Lake (You Xi Hu). Within the documented technical tradition of Daoqing Opera in Shenchi, Shanxi: Shenchi daoqing opera is one branch of China's suqu daoqing, and a representative form of dramatic art in Xinzhou City. The music of Shenchi daoqing falls into three main parts: vocal styles, tune patterns and gong-and-drum scores. Its rich body of vocal music not only inherits the ancient traditional daoqing and the folk art of daoqing narrative singing, but also absorbs certain musical elements from folk songs and local minor operas. Shenchi daoqing opera has more than one hundred traditional plays. Early plays include The Biography of Xiangzi, The Biography of Zhang Liang and The Biography of Zhuang Zhou; middle-period plays include The Biography of Cuilian, Wang Xiang Sleeping on Ice and Guo Ju Burying His Son; plays of the middle and later period include Three Sages, Four Admonitions and Breaking the Earthen Jar; recent plays include Drunken at Chenqiao, Beheading the Yellow Robe and Judge Ming Decides. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Biography of Xiangzi": Early plays include The Biography of Xiangzi, The Biography of Zhang Liang and The Biography of Zhuang Zhou; middle-period plays include The Biography of Cuilian, Wang Xiang Sleeping on Ice and Guo Ju Burying His Son; plays of the middle and later period include Three Sages, Four Admonitions and Breaking the Earthen Jar; recent plays include Drunken at Chenqiao, Beheading the Yellow Robe and Judge Ming Decides. "The Biography of Zhang Liang": Early plays include The Biography of Xiangzi, The Biography of Zhang Liang and The Biography of Zhuang Zhou; middle-period plays include The Biography of Cuilian, Wang Xiang Sleeping on Ice and Guo Ju Burying His Son; plays of the middle and later period include Three Sages, Four Admonitions and Breaking the Earthen Jar; recent plays include Drunken at Chenqiao, Beheading the Yellow Robe and Judge Ming Decides. "The Biography of Zhuang Zhou": Early plays include The Biography of Xiangzi, The Biography of Zhang Liang and The Biography of Zhuang Zhou; middle-period plays include The Biography of Cuilian, Wang Xiang Sleeping on Ice and Guo Ju Burying His Son; plays of the middle and later period include Three Sages, Four Admonitions and Breaking the Earthen Jar; recent plays include Drunken at Chenqiao, Beheading the Yellow Robe and Judge Ming Decides. "The Biography of Cuilian": Early plays include The Biography of Xiangzi, The Biography of Zhang Liang and The Biography of Zhuang Zhou; middle-period plays include The Biography of Cuilian, Wang Xiang Sleeping on Ice and Guo Ju Burying His Son; plays of the middle and later period include Three Sages, Four Admonitions and Breaking the Earthen Jar; recent plays include Drunken at Chenqiao, Beheading the Yellow Robe and Judge Ming Decides.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She was a national representative bearer of Daoqing Opera (Shenchi Daoqing Opera), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. She is dedicated to training successors in Daoqing art, has taught more than a hundred students, and has brought Shenchi Daoqing Opera into schools.

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. Huang Fenglan · National Representative Bearer Archive