Li Yingying

01 · Lineage & Regional School

At the age of 16 she was admitted to the Huguan Art School, where she studied under the renowned artist Wang Zhaodi, specializing in the laodan (old woman) role. During her training she took part many times in performances of outstanding plays at municipal and county level, appearing as the leading character in Hongdeng Ji (The Red Lantern), Dujuan Shan (Azalea Mountain), Taiyang Hua (Sunflower), Bi Hun Ji (Forced Marriage), Suanzao Lei (Tears of the Wild Jujube) and Gu Lv (Hiring a Donkey), to warm audience reception. Within the regional tradition and school record of Yangge Opera in Huguan, Shanxi: Huguan yangge is popular in the Huguan area of south-eastern Shanxi and, together with Zezhou yangge and Xiangwu yangge, forms a branch of Shangdang-region yangge; through long performance in shehuo and yangge teams it took such alternative names as “ground-circle yangge”, and the various branches have exchanged and borrowed tunes and repertory. Huguan yangge was originally a folk shehuo performance form circulating in the Huguan area of Shanxi, formed in the late Ming and early Qing. In the late Qing and early Republic Huguan already had more than a hundred amateur yangge troupes such as Xiguanbi and Shipo, whose plays were mainly Da Suanzao and Su Jiejie Mengmeng. Drawing on the Shanxi volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu, more than a hundred amateur troupes appeared in Huguan in the late Qing and early Republic, performing mostly at rural shehuo and temple fairs; in 1960 the Huguan county government formed a professional yangge troupe and carried out large-scale rescue and collation of the art.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of Han ethnicity, born in December 1961 in Huguan County, Shanxi Province. Her performance style is plain and unadorned and her singing clear and flowing; her hand, eye, body and step techniques are closely keyed to the personality of each character, and her work in Er Du Qing (Twice Crossed in Love) and Tao Li Mei is especially accomplished. Within the documented technical tradition of Yangge Opera in Huguan, Shanxi: It is often sung in the street, at the meal ground, on the threshing floor and on the kang, accompanied only by bronze percussion and without string instruments, hence also called “ground-circle yangge” and “dry-plank yangge”. Huguan yangge has several times gone to the provincial capital to report on its work and has won awards repeatedly. Its accompaniment is mainly bronze percussion with few strings, its singing plain and brisk, its plays mostly rustic life sketches and its performance close to such everyday settings as the street, the meal ground and the threshing floor, hence the names “ground-circle yangge” and “dry-plank yangge”. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Da Suanzao (Beating the Wild Jujubes)": One of the principal early plays of the Huguan yangge amateur troupes. "Su Jiejie Mengmeng (Sister Su Dreams)": One of the principal early plays of the Huguan yangge amateur troupes.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a national representative bearer of Yangge Opera (Huguan Yangge), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Dedicated to the study and transmission of Huguan yangge, she has repeatedly worked in the drama classes of vocational secondary schools and at the Huguan County Cultural Centre to coach and train students, with outstanding achievements in the cultivation of successors.

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. Li Yingying · National Representative Bearer Archive