Yang Mingkun

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yang Mingkun, Male, Han, from Yangzhou, Jiangsu, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Yangzhou Storytelling (Ⅴ-2). The tradition is documented in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. Within the regional tradition and school record of Yangzhou Storytelling in Yangzhou, Jiangsu: Three Kingdoms and Water Margin are two long programmes that are both deeply popular and have become schools in their own right. Those who performed Three Kingdoms during the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing dynasty, most famous and most influential being Li Guohui and Lan Yuchun, were taken as models by later generations and were styled the "Li school" and the "Lan school". The eight disciples Li Guohui transmitted were known at the time as the "Eight Steeds"; among them Kang Guohua was renowned for his performance of the Kongming role and was called the "Living Kongming", and the style of performing Three Kingdoms that he founded is known as the "Kang school". The traditional programmes of Yangzhou pinghua fall into three classes: the historical and romance narratives Eastern Han, Western Han, Three Kingdoms, Sui and Tang, Water Margin and Yue Zhuan; the case-and-chivalry tales Green Peony, Baqiao Zhu, Jiu Lian Deng and Qingfeng Zha; and the myth-and-marvel tales Investiture of the Gods, Journey to the West and The Biography of Ji Gong. The early book history of Yangzhou pinghua, which has no formal lineage of master-disciple transmission, is mostly recorded in the notes of Qing-dynasty writers and in oral transmission on the storytelling platform: during the Qianlong reign Pu Lin composed and performed Qingfeng Zha out of his own experience, Zou Bixian independently created the new book Feituo Zhuan, and Ye Shuanglin poured the frustration of his repeated failure in the imperial examinations into Yue Zhuan.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1950 in Hanjiang County, Jiangsu Province. A national first-class actor. In 1974 his original short pinghua tale The Pig-Farming Girl (Yangzhu Guniang) brought him to prominence at the Yangzhou regional story-tellers' performance. In 1980 he became a disciple of the renowned pinghua artist Yu Youchun and studied The Qingfeng Sluice (Qingfeng Zha). Over more than forty years of practice his repertoire has included the traditional pinghua The Qingfeng Sluice, The Story of Ji Gong (Ji Gong Zhuan) and Green Peony (Lü Mudan), the newly compiled full-length pinghua Record of the Suppression of Opium in Guangling (Guangling Jin Yan Ji), and nearly a hundred newly written short pieces. In 2015 he published books and audio-visual recordings of his own hundred-episode Yangzhou pinghua Pi Wu Lazi (The Hot-Tempered Pi Wu). His style is sweet and adhesive in delivery and meticulous in narration and description; he excels at portraying every kind of character, makes use of regional dialects and the vocal mimicry techniques of Yangzhou pinghua, and his language is fluent and steeped in everyday life, his performance humorous and warmly received by audiences everywhere. Within the documented technical tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling in Yangzhou, Jiangsu: Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Li and Lan schools of the Three Kingdoms": Li Guohui and Lan Yuchun founded the two classic schools of the Three Kingdoms; Li's eight disciples were called the eight steeds, and Kang Guohua's manner became the Kang school. "Wang school Water Margin": Wang Shaotang developed four ten-chapter cycles on Song Jiang, Wu Song, Shi Xiu and Lu Junyi, known as the Wang school Water Margin. "Qingfeng Gate and Pi Wu Lazi": Pu Lin's tale of low-life Yangzhou, centred on the rogue Pi Wu Lazi; Yang Mingkun learned it from Yu Youchun and published a hundred-episode version in 2015. "Deng Guangdong and the leaping Water Margin": Deng Guangdong earned the name leaping Water Margin for his vivid gesture and expression; the genre freely borrows from other arts and prizes vocal mimicry.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Yangzhou Storytelling, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He has taken part in national performances on many occasions and won awards.

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. Yang Mingkun · National Representative Bearer Archive