Guixunjin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Guixunjin, Male, Han, from Dean, Jiangxi, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Nuo Opera (Ⅳ-89). The tradition is documented in Dean, Jiangxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Nuo Opera in Dean, Jiangxi: This song-and-dance zaju is also called by local people “gong-and-drum Lord Pan opera”, or “Lord Pan's spring outing”; the De'an county cultural centre is responsible for the project's protection. In the Qiande years of the Northern Song (968), the three Pan brothers who came from Bianliang, Kaifeng, the capital, to take office in Jiangzhou brought with them the song-and-dance zaju flower-shed assembly of the capital's pleasure quarters—the De'an Pan-gong opera. De'an Pan-gong opera preserves Tang music, Song zaju and street puppet song-and-dance, being a survival of the Song “flesh puppet”. Drawing on local materials, it was brought to De'an in 968 by the three Pan brothers from Kaifeng, preserving Tang music and Song zaju and street puppet song-and-dance, a survival of the Song flesh puppet.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in March 1939 in De'an County, Jiangxi Province. Thanks to the oral instruction and personal example of his elders from childhood, he became familiar with the entire performance routine of Pangong opera and was able to take such important roles as canjun (the adjutant), pengshang figures (characters on the upper stage), and pengxia figures (characters on the lower stage). In 1984 he organized personnel to revive performances of Pangong opera. In 1987 he took part in the National Symposium on Nuo Opera. In 1990 the texts, photographs, and materials on Pangong opera that he supplied were included in the De'an County Gazetteer. In 1994 he led the revival of the Pang Taigong Youchun (Pang Taigong's Spring Outing) folk custom, and thereafter organized, directed, and taught the spring outing performances every year. In 2007 he presided over the collation and publication of the book Pangong Chuanqi (The Legend of Pangong). In 2009 he initiated the founding of the De'an Pang Taigong folk performance team and trained five performance classes, enabling the ancient art of De'an Pangong opera to be better transmitted and developed. Within the documented technical tradition of Nuo Opera in Dean, Jiangxi: From the first to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month each year, the twelve villages of the four great clans Gui, Hu, Li and Tao of Wushan township, De'an county, hold the flower-shed assembly, going out in the day for spring outings and sacrifice and performing and making merry at night. A whole evening's performance takes about two hours with nine items, mainly including rod-top puppets on the shed and masked make-up before the shed. At the start a blue cloth curtain (locally “flower shed”) is hung in the ancestral hall as the performance area. The performers first recite a passage in unison, then perform to the accompaniment of gong, drum and flute. In the puppet performance on the shed, one or two actors respectively prop the rod-top puppet with the left hand and hold its two shoulders in the right, swaying and dancing about within the cloth curtain. In the masked performance below, the actors wear masks and move in and out of the curtain with the plot, wielding swords or turning somersaults on the bar, never speaking, their singing and recitation all supplied from offstage by one called the “canjun”. It has a complete literary script, a primitive performing form, precious puppet models and archaic theatrical masks, and is of important cultural value for understanding the theatrical style of the Song–Jin period and the historical evolution of the origin and development of Chinese xiqu. A song-and-dance zaju brought in the Northern Song, it is called the “flower-shed assembly” for its “flower shed” performance area and locally the “gong-and-drum Lord Pan opera” or “Lord Pan's spring outing”; the De'an county cultural centre is responsible for its protection. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Nine Items of the Flower-Shed Assembly": A whole evening's performance lasts about two hours with nine items, mainly rod-top puppets on the shed and masked make-up before the shed.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Nuo Opera (De'an Pangong Opera), a fourth-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. Guixunjin · National Representative Bearer Archive