Pan Guoliang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

At the age of thirteen he entered the Linyi County Meihu Troupe and studied under the celebrated Puzhou opera master Xie Hongping. At fifteen he was admitted to the Linfen Art School, specializing in theatrical performance with a focus on the xiaosheng (young male) role. His representative works include Two Women and One Man, Sister Xianglin, The Village Official and Father. Within the regional tradition and school record of Meihu in Linfen, Shanxi: Southern Shanxi meihu centres on Linfen city, Shanxi, and is popular in the counties of southern Shanxi and the Shanxi-Shaanxi border on both banks of the Yellow River; in the Daoguang reign Jiezhou already had an amateur troupe organised by Duan Yaogong and a folk artist of Lingbao, Henan, and between the last years of Guangxu and the early Republic professional troupes formed such as the Xinjiang Sun Fusheng troupe and the Xiaxian Gao Shiwei troupe, with the Jiezhou meihu training class run by Zhao Liancheng, an important sign of meihu's flourishing in southern Shanxi. In the Ming and Qing the popular tunes and ditties that formed meihu circulated widely among the people on both banks of the Yellow River between Shanxi and Shaanxi; professional troupes formed between the last years of Guangxu and the early Republic, successively producing the Xinjiang Sun Fusheng troupe and the Xiaxian Gao Shiwei troupe, while Jiezhou had the meihu training class run by Zhao Liancheng.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1963 in Linyi County, Shanxi Province. After graduating he was assigned to the Linfen Meihu Troupe, and he further took the veteran artists Yang Haisheng, Wei Benshan and Cheng Genhu as his masters, systematically studying the history, singing style and techniques of traditional Linfen Meihu. While inheriting tradition, he has absorbed scientific methods of vocal production and, combining them with his own vocal endowment and contemporary aesthetic sensibilities, has gradually formed a distinctive singing style and characteristics. Within the documented technical tradition of Meihu in Linfen, Shanxi: Meihu, also called “mihu”, “quzi” and “qingqu”, is widely found in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu and Ningxia. Meihu moved gradually from folk-song medley and ground-mat storytelling to stage performance, with two main forms of performance: one retaining the storytelling form of the ground-mat, its librettos mostly zhezi excerpts sung throughout with little spoken dialogue; the other the stage form, with speech, song and acting and freer choice of qupai. Meihu is a local operatic genre of distinctive character with rich tunes and a wide area of circulation, holding an important place in Chinese operatic culture. Meihu was originally called “mihu”. Southern Shanxi is one of its main areas of circulation. Early popular tunes such as Embroidering the Perfume Sachet, Silver Button Silk and Crying at the Fifth Watch, once given string accompaniment, became unaccompanied sitting singing by one or several performers; artists made a living from it, developing it into ground-mat storytelling of linked single qu with a certain plot, and after joining shehuo performance it opened the path to dramatisation. In the Daoguang reign there appeared in Jiezhou, southern Shanxi, an amateur troupe organised by Duan Yaogong with a folk artist of Lingbao, Henan, its plays including The Bachelor Cries for His Wife and Visiting the Lover; the artists' creative elaboration finally formed the meihu singing system of “seventy-two great tunes and thirty-six small tunes”, and at the same time absorbed the drum-and-gong patterns of Puzhou bangzi and drew on its liushui ban, jianban and gunbai, making up for the defect of being unable to express impassioned feeling while keeping its own gentle and lingering singing. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Bachelor Cries for His Wife": A play of the amateur troupe organised in Jiezhou in the Daoguang reign. "Visiting the Lover": A play of the amateur troupe organised in Jiezhou in the Daoguang reign. "Seventy-Two Great Tunes and Thirty-Six Small Tunes": The singing system of southern Shanxi meihu, finally formed through the artists' creative elaboration and absorbing the drum-and-gong patterns and ban styles of Puzhou bangzi.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Meihu (Southern Shanxi Meihu), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He has taken part in the filming of films and television programmes and has won more than ten national awards. He has passed on all the conventions, techniques and performance insights of Meihu to his disciples, training a group of young actors.

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. Pan Guoliang · National Representative Bearer Archive