Wei Guifeng

01 · Lineage & Regional School

She is the fifth-generation transmitter of Guangshan Huagu Opera. Within the regional tradition and school record of Huagu Opera in Guangshan, Henan: The spoken lines use the local dialect. Guangshan huagu opera appeals to both the refined and the popular, is an art form embodying the blending of northern and southern cultures and the crystallisation of the collective wisdom of the labouring people; in the locality it has long been an important form of entertainment for the broad masses, its rich repertory carries folk memory, and it has a positive influence on social mores and on economic development as well. Guangshan huagu opera was gradually conceived out of local folk-song ditties and flower-fair dances; it is a genre combining the banqiang (set-metre) type with the qupai (tune-pattern) type, circulating mainly in Guangshan County of Xinyang city, Henan Province, and in some townships of Xin County, with its area of activity lying chiefly in the tri-border region of Hubei, Henan and Anhui. Its formation passed through five stages: the flower-fair lantern-play stage, the beating of the five percussion pieces (also called beating the dragon boat), the two-against-three, the ground-lamp troupe, and finally the huagu opera stage in which the role types and the music and vocal styles reached maturity, becoming a distinctive genre handed down through generations.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

She is a woman of Han ethnicity, born in August 1954 in Guangshan County, Henan Province. She possesses consummate skill and solid fundamental training. Over more than thirty years on the stage she has performed more than sixty Huagu Opera pieces and enjoys wide influence and renown in the border region of Hubei, Henan and Anhui, excelling in the huadan (young woman), guimendan (unmarried maiden) and sheng (male) role types. Her voice is round and mellifluous, her articulation accurate and her diction clear, and she is greatly loved by audiences. She has actively taken disciples and passed on her art, training more than ten students in succession. Within the documented technical tradition of Huagu Opera in Guangshan, Henan: Huagu opera is the general name for the flower-drum local small operas of the various regions of China, circulating mainly in Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang and elsewhere. Flower-drum singing originates in folk song, and later gradually developed into the two-small play performed by one dan and one chou. In the course of practice it borrowed the performance models of local large operas and absorbed various artistic elements, finally developing into an independent local operatic genre. The musical tunes of huagu opera basically belong to the qupai-linked system, while being supplemented by some ban-style variations. Its means of performance are varied and rich, lively and animated, and it has distinctive local characteristics and the style of folk song and dance. Traditional plays deal mainly with the content of folk life such as productive labour, love between men and women and family conflict; later there also appeared some new works reflecting modern life. Guangshan huagu opera was gradually conceived out of local folk-song ditties and flower-fair dances; it is a genre combining the banqiang (set-metre) type with the qupai (tune-pattern) type, circulating mainly in Guangshan County of Xinyang city, Henan Province, and in some townships of Xin County, with its area of activity lying chiefly in the tri-border region of Hubei, Henan and Anhui. The formation of Guangshan huagu opera passed through five stages: first, the flower-fair lantern-play stage, in which dragon dance, boat dance and cart dance were performed and various allusions were enacted; second, the stage of beating the five percussion pieces, also called beating the dragon boat, in which one person played five percussion instruments and went from village to village giving improvised performances; third, the two-against-three stage, in which two people divided the work of playing three percussion instruments, one singing and the other answering in support, and plays with simple plots could be performed; fourth, the ground-lamp troupe stage, with five to seven people to a troupe, having a division of roles, having vocal qupai, and performing excerpt plays and local small operas; and fifth, the huagu opera stage, in which the role types, music and vocal styles and the rest reached maturity, becoming a distinctive genre handed down through generations. Guangshan huagu opera performs in the form of assembled small troupes, seven or eight people to a troupe. It performs mainly small plays, but also staged multi-part plays. The accompaniment is mainly percussion, but there is also wind-and-string accompaniment. Its role types are complete, one person playing several roles, and the stage appearance is simple but not disorderly. Its vocal styles are rich, divided into four classes — manban (slow ban), xingban (walking ban), kuaiban (quick ban) and sanban (free ban) — and it has absorbed a great deal of folk music. Its singing texts insert a good deal of padding words and particles such as a, ai, lie, yo and wei, which both enrich its expressiveness and give it local colour. On some occasions one person sings solo while the rest join in with the chorus or take up the refrain, forming resonance between the stage and the audience below it. Its representative plays include Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News), Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair) and Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors), and they are transmitted mainly by oral teaching from master to disciple. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns)": Its representative plays include Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News), Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair) and Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors), and they are transmitted mainly by oral teaching from master to disciple. "Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News)": Its representative plays include Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News), Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair) and Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors), and they are transmitted mainly by oral teaching from master to disciple. "Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair)": Its representative plays include Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News), Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair) and Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors), and they are transmitted mainly by oral teaching from master to disciple. "Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors)": Its representative plays include Fuqi Guandeng (Husband and Wife Watching Lanterns), Jia Baoxi (A False Report of Good News), Ding Yi (Balancing the Chair) and Da Liushan (Beating the Six Doors), and they are transmitted mainly by oral teaching from master to disciple.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a representative bearer of Huagu Opera (Guangshan Huagu 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. Wei Guifeng · National Representative Bearer Archive