Yao Qier

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He came from a family of huaji (comic) performers and was nurtured from childhood in the art of his father Yao Mushuang and his uncle Zhou Baichun. Within the regional tradition and school record of Dujiao Opera in Huangpu, Shanghai: Dujiao opera, also called “huaji”, was founded in the late Qing dynasty, flourished in the early years of the Republic of China, and has been handed down and developed right up to the present. It originated in Hangzhou and became popular in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places; in the old city quarter of Huangpu District in Shanghai alone there once gathered a host of dujiao opera enthusiasts numbering in the thousands. In the Republican period Xu Zhuodai, known as a “pioneer”, wrote and performed works such as “Who Dies First” and “A Fu Goes into Business”, leaving dujiao opera a body of important works.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1949 in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. He is a National First-Class Actor and deputy head of the Shanghai Qingyi Huaji Troupe. He inherited Yao Mushuang’s distinctive “deadpan comedy” style, performing with humour and wit and laying stress on character creation. He created several dozen dujiaoxi (one-man comic) routines, including Every Trade Has Its Master, Quiz Show, Breaking News, Learning English, Random Talk on Language and House Hunting. Within the documented technical tradition of Dujiao Opera in Huangpu, Shanghai: Dujiao opera is performed in the Shanghai dialect and in Hangzhou speech; it grew out of folk narrative-singing and the wenming xinxi (“new civilised drama”), and at first was performed by a single person alone, later gradually developing into performances by two or more people on the same stage. Dujiao opera generally has two types, one centred on speech and one centred on song. The former relies mainly on telling comic stories and jokes to produce its comic effect, and can also imitate and speak the local dialects of various places; the latter mainly imitates and sings the vocal styles of various local operas or folk tunes, thereby winning laughter from the audience. The performing techniques of dujiao opera are similar to those of xiangsheng and mainly comprise speaking, imitating, acting and singing; exaggeration, misunderstanding, coincidence, contrast, sophistry, error, sleight of substitution and homophony are all comic devices frequently used. There are three common performance forms of dujiao opera. The first is single-mouth dujiao opera, called in trade parlance “dan mai kou”, which is divided into the narrative and the free-recitation types and is performed by one person, who strings a series of “baofu” (comic set-pieces) together by means of “tickling the audience into laughter” and at the close deliberately arranges an unexpected joke, popularly called the “baofu di”, leaving the audience rolling with laughter. The second is two-person dujiao opera, called “shuang mai kou”, performed in dialogue by two people and close to the two-person form of xiangsheng. The third is shuo shi chuanyu, also called “cai zhuang”, in which the performer appears in character after simple stage make-up, often plays multiple roles, steps on and off the stage, and changes identity at any moment through quick alteration of costume, in a manner that is easy and free and strongly comic, and which developed a step further into the small comic play, or huaji xiaxi. Dujiao opera has a rich repertoire and content that embraces everything. Thereafter the “three masters of huaji”, Wang Yuanneng, Wang Xiaoxiao and Liu Chunshan, each formed their own representative works in performance: those written and staged by Wang Yuanneng, “Hall Attendants of Many Places”, “The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo” and “Crying for Master Miaogendu”; those performed by Wang Xiaoxiao and Bao Lele, “The Fruit Joke”, “Burning the Tofu Shop” and “Making a Scene at Minglun Hall”; and those performed by Liu Chunshan, “Touring the Wharf” and “The Wang Family’s Great Harvest”. All of these won the audience with a high artistic standard and enriched the dujiao opera stage. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Hall Attendants of Many Places": Thereafter the “three masters of huaji”, Wang Yuanneng, Wang Xiaoxiao and Liu Chunshan, each formed their own representative works in performance: those written and staged by Wang Yuanneng, “Hall Attendants of Many Places”, “The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo” and “Crying for Master Miaogendu”; those performed by Wang Xiaoxiao and Bao Lele, “The Fruit Joke”, “Burning the Tofu Shop” and “Making a Scene at Minglun Hall”; and those performed by Liu Chunshan, “Touring the Wharf” and “The Wang Family’s Great Harvest”. All of these won the audience with a high artistic standard and enriched the dujiao opera stage. "The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo": Thereafter the “three masters of huaji”, Wang Yuanneng, Wang Xiaoxiao and Liu Chunshan, each formed their own representative works in performance: those written and staged by Wang Yuanneng, “Hall Attendants of Many Places”, “The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo” and “Crying for Master Miaogendu”; those performed by Wang Xiaoxiao and Bao Lele, “The Fruit Joke”, “Burning the Tofu Shop” and “Making a Scene at Minglun Hall”; and those performed by Liu Chunshan, “Touring the Wharf” and “The Wang Family’s Great Harvest”. All of these won the audience with a high artistic standard and enriched the dujiao opera stage. "Crying for Master Miaogendu": Thereafter the “three masters of huaji”, Wang Yuanneng, Wang Xiaoxiao and Liu Chunshan, each formed their own representative works in performance: those written and staged by Wang Yuanneng, “Hall Attendants of Many Places”, “The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo” and “Crying for Master Miaogendu”; those performed by Wang Xiaoxiao and Bao Lele, “The Fruit Joke”, “Burning the Tofu Shop” and “Making a Scene at Minglun Hall”; and those performed by Liu Chunshan, “Touring the Wharf” and “The Wang Family’s Great Harvest”. All of these won the audience with a high artistic standard and enriched the dujiao opera stage. "The Fruit Joke": Thereafter the “three masters of huaji”, Wang Yuanneng, Wang Xiaoxiao and Liu Chunshan, each formed their own representative works in performance: those written and staged by Wang Yuanneng, “Hall Attendants of Many Places”, “The Empty City Ruse of Ningbo” and “Crying for Master Miaogendu”; those performed by Wang Xiaoxiao and Bao Lele, “The Fruit Joke”, “Burning the Tofu Shop” and “Making a Scene at Minglun Hall”; and those performed by Liu Chunshan, “Touring the Wharf” and “The Wang Family’s Great Harvest”. All of these won the audience with a high artistic standard and enriched the dujiao opera stage.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Dujiao Opera, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1987 he received the Middle-Aged Actor Award from the Shanghai Dramatists Association. In 1990 he won first prize in the dujiaoxi competition held by the Shanghai Municipal Culture Bureau and the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau. In 2009 he won the Supporting Actor Award at the 19th Shanghai Magnolia Theatre Awards, organized by the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

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. Yao Qier · National Representative Bearer Archive