Tan Fuxiu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Tan Fuxiu, Female, Han, from Jingzhou, Hubei, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Jinghe Opera (Ⅳ-35). The tradition is documented in Jingzhou, Hubei. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jinghe Opera in Jingzhou, Hubei: It is popular in north-western Hunan and around Jingzhou (Shashi) and has a history of more than four hundred years. To this day the locally rooted “single-bell” (danbo) line of Jinghe opera still circulates around Jingsha, welcomed by the people of Jingzhou's central districts and surrounding areas. In the Wanli reign of the Ming operatic performance flourished in Shashi. By the eighth year of Shunzhi in the Qing (1651) there was already Jinghe opera activity here. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns the two great Jinghe troupes “Taishou” and “Sanyuan” appeared in Shashi, gathering celebrated actors and enjoying over a hundred years of fame around Jingsha.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in December 1932 in Jingzhou, Hubei Province. In 1952 she became a disciple of Li Youben, a celebrated Jinghe opera master in Shashi, and trained in the sheng role type. She later studied further under the well-known Shashi Jinghe opera artists Xu Yuanfu, Li Fangyuan and Zhang Hongkun, learning the Jinghe opera repertoire. In 1953 she began performing with an amateur Jinghe opera troupe; her accomplished technique and vivid characterisation won her great affection among audiences. Her rendition of the nanlu suona aria from Guo Ziyi Feng Wang (Guo Ziyi Is Enfeoffed as Prince) was recorded and transcribed in notation and included in the Hubei volume of the Compendium of Chinese Traditional Opera Music. Her representative works include Lian Tai Shou Fei (Receiving the Consort at the Lotus Terrace), Zuo Gong (Sitting in the Palace), Tan Mu (Visiting the Mother), Zhan Xu (Beheading the Son-in-Law), Niupi Shan (Niupi Mountain) and You Long Xi Feng (The Wandering Dragon Teases the Phoenix). Within the documented technical tradition of Jinghe Opera in Jingzhou, Hubei: Jinghe opera was originally called “Jingsha opera”, popularly “Shanghe opera”, “Shanghe lu zi” and “Jinghe diao”, known in Hunan as “big-stage opera” and “Dahan troupe”, and named Jinghe opera after the founding of New China. It is a multi-vocal genre, singing gaoqiang, Kunqiang, tanqiang (southern and northern roads) and miscellany and popular tunes, and it has absorbed many musical elements of the work and life songs of Jingchu folk. Its music blends north and south with a special charm; its singing is high and vehement yet fine and melodious; its performance is grand and direct, close to life. At present Jinghe opera still has three hundred gongche-notated qupai and nearly a thousand pieces. For half a century its development has stalled and it has gradually declined. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Guo Ziyi Feng Wang (Guo Ziyi Made a Prince)": A traditional Jinghe opera play whose southern-road suona passage was recorded and notated and included in the Collected Music of Chinese Xiqu, Hubei volume. "Lian Tai Shou Fei (Taking the Consort at the Lotus Terrace)": A traditional Jinghe opera play and one of the representative works of the inheritor Tan Fuxiu. "Zuo Gong (Sitting in the Palace)": A traditional Jinghe opera play and one of Tan Fuxiu's representative works. "Tan Mu (Visiting the Mother)": A traditional Jinghe opera play and one of Tan Fuxiu's representative works.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a national representative bearer of Jinghe Opera, a fifth-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. Tan Fuxiu · National Representative Bearer Archive