Tang Maohua

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Tang Maohua, Male, Han, from Chizhou, Anhui, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Nuo Opera (Ⅳ-89). The tradition is documented in Chizhou, Anhui. Within the regional tradition and school record of Nuo Opera in Chizhou, Anhui: Nuo opera took shape in western Hunan during the Kangxi reign and then, by way of the Yuan River into the Yangtze, developed rapidly in all directions, forming different schools and artistic styles. Singing uses the local dialect; apart from the first category of repertoire works, which use the duan gong tune, all are sung in operatic vocal styles familiar to the local people. Characters are divided by status into civil officials, military generals, old men, young wives, immortals and so on. Because their historical backgrounds and the artistic influences they have received differ, nuo opera is divided into three kinds: nuo tang xi, di xi and yang xi. Nuo opera originated in remote antiquity; as early as the pre-Qin period there were shamanic songs and nuo dances that amused both the gods and the people. Chizhou nuo opera derives from a totem-worship consciousness. It is transmitted mainly in Guichi, Shitai and Qingyang counties (districts) within a radius of one hundred kilometres around the foot of Jiuhua Mountain, the sacred Buddhist mountain of China, and is concentrated especially among the large-family lineages of some dozens of surnames in the townships of Liujie, Meijie and Maotan in the Guichi district of Chizhou city; historical records say that “without nuo there is no village”.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han, born in March 1946 in Guichi County, Anhui Province. In 1988 he invited local Nuo opera performers to establish the Nuo Opera Society of Shanhu Village. He led the way in donating money and raised funds to purchase equipment for Nuo opera and Nuo dance performance, and in that same year took part in Nuo opera and Nuo dance performances. He was afterwards elected nian shou, the year head of the Nuo Opera Society of Shanhu Village, and organised the annual Nuo ritual activities. He has a good inheritance and command of the skills of his clan's Nuo opera performances, and in the performances of successive years he has been equal to a variety of roles, consistently acting as an all-rounder. He is especially skilled at drumming; his drum patterns are flexible and varied and match the performers' movements precisely and in perfect accord. He has trained several dozen disciples in succession, all of whom have become mainstays of his clan's Nuo activities. In 2010 he took part in the Nuo arts performance at the Shanghai World Expo. In 2013 he was engaged by the Chizhou Nuo Opera transmission institute as a teaching instructor. Within the documented technical tradition of Nuo Opera in Chizhou, Anhui: Nuo opera, also called nuo tang xi (nuo hall play) or duan gong xi (Master Duan play), is a form of opera formed on the basis of folk sacrificial ritual by absorbing folk theatre. It is widely popular in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Hebei and other provinces. At the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing dynasty the various local operatic genres rose vigorously; nuo dance absorbed operatic forms and developed into nuo tang xi and duan gong xi. Nuo tang xi of Hunan and Hubei absorbed the performance art of huagu opera, nuo opera of Sichuan and Guizhou absorbed artistic elements of hua deng (flower lantern plays), while nuo opera of Jiangxi and Anhui drew nourishment from Hui opera and Mulian opera. The repertoire works performed in nuo opera include Meng Jiangnu, Lady Pang, The Dragon King's Daughter, The God of Taoyuan Cave and the Earth God of Liangshan, among others; in addition there are plays drawn from stories in The Story of Mulian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. The scripts are mostly sung with little spoken dialogue, being good at setting forth events, unfolding conflicts and shaping images through long narrative sung passages. Except in a few areas such as Yuanling in Hunan, where a suona accompanies the ends of phrases, most nuo opera uses only percussion instruments such as gongs, drums and cymbals. The role types of nuo opera are divided into sheng, dan, jing and chou, and most performers wear masks. Masks are carved and painted from woods that do not easily crack, such as camphor wood, lilac wood and poplar wood; according to their form they fall into two kinds, full face and half face. The full face carves and paints the hat worn by the character and the whole face, while the half face is carved only above the nose, with neither mouth nor chin. The basic step patterns of performance are that male roles walk zheng bu (square step) and gang bu (firm step), while female roles walk sui bu (short quick step) and yun bu (gliding step). Because nuo opera is performed in masks, its movements are large in amplitude and its style archaic, plain and rugged. Di xi (ground play) is a kind of nuo opera performed by tunbao people, the descendants of the soldiers who, at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, were transferred north to campaign south and stayed behind in Yunnan and Guizhou to cultivate fields and garrison the frontier, in order to sacrifice to their ancestors. It has no plays of folk everyday life and no plays of talented scholars and beautiful women; everything performed is a martial play reflecting a historical story. Yang xi (yang play), by contrast, is exactly the opposite: it is performed by the duan gong master after he has finished the rites, for the living audience to watch, so it consists mainly of small plays reflecting folk everyday life, and the melodies sung are largely absorbed from folk small plays such as huagu and hua deng. It has no professional troupes and no professional artists; to this day the clan is the unit of performance, its purposes are to sacrifice to the ancestors, to ward off evil and attract blessings, and to amuse the gods, the ancestors and the people, and wearing masks is the characteristic feature of its performance. Chizhou nuo opera has forms of expression such as nuo yi (nuo ceremony), nuo wu (nuo dance) and nuo xi (nuo play). A whole “main play” (zheng xi) presents the benxi (“authentic play”), which has both dramatic plot and performance formulae as well as operatic features such as role types and stage properties. It is transmitted by word of mouth and imitation, handed down within the clan from generation to generation, with regular “spring sacrifice” and “autumn sacrifice” every year: the “spring sacrifice” is held on an auspicious day from the seventh (Renri, the Day of Mankind) to the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, and the “autumn sacrifice” is held on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month; at other times there are no performances. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Meng Jiangnu": The repertoire works performed in nuo opera include Meng Jiangnu, Lady Pang, The Dragon King's Daughter, The God of Taoyuan Cave and the Earth God of Liangshan, among others; in addition there are plays drawn from stories in The Story of Mulian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. "Lady Pang": The repertoire works performed in nuo opera include Meng Jiangnu, Lady Pang, The Dragon King's Daughter, The God of Taoyuan Cave and the Earth God of Liangshan, among others; in addition there are plays drawn from stories in The Story of Mulian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. "The Dragon King's Daughter": The repertoire works performed in nuo opera include Meng Jiangnu, Lady Pang, The Dragon King's Daughter, The God of Taoyuan Cave and the Earth God of Liangshan, among others; in addition there are plays drawn from stories in The Story of Mulian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. "The God of Taoyuan Cave": The repertoire works performed in nuo opera include Meng Jiangnu, Lady Pang, The Dragon King's Daughter, The God of Taoyuan Cave and the Earth God of Liangshan, among others; in addition there are plays drawn from stories in The Story of Mulian, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a representative bearer of Nuo Opera (Chizhou Nuo 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. Tang Maohua · National Representative Bearer Archive