Li Weichen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Li Weichen, Female, Han, from Guilin, Guangxi, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Guilin Yugu (Ⅴ-125). The tradition is documented in Guilin, Guangxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Guilin Yugu in Guilin, Guangxi: Guilin yugu divides into a southern route and a northern route by vocal style: the northern route is high-pitched and bright, and is good at heroic legends and festive stories, while the southern route is low and mellow and is mostly used for plots of sorrow, indignation and melancholy. It is transmitted through nearly forty counties and cities of northern, central, north-eastern and north-western Guangxi where Guilin Mandarin is spoken, as well as parts of Nanning and Chongzuo; performances are mostly given in village ancestral halls, market places and the main rooms of farmhouses, and at funerals it is customary for the family of the deceased to invite performers to sing traditional yugu pieces during the “nuan sang” (warming of the funeral). It is generally held that Guilin yugu developed and evolved gradually out of the merging of Hunan yugu, which was brought to Guilin from Hunan in the early 18th century, with the local speech and musical tunes of Guilin, Guangxi; by the early 20th century it had developed into an important storytelling performance form in the Guilin area.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in October 1941 in Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. She is a staff member of the Guilin Mass Art Center. Born into an artistic family, she became a professional quyi performer in 1961 and was a disciple of the celebrated artists Wang Renhe, Liu Yuying and others. Her singing and speech are clear and crisp, her melodic lines gentle and graceful, her stage presence free and easy and her bearing refined; she possesses a distinctly individual artistic personality. In 1982 she was transferred to the Folk Art Research Office of the Guilin Mass Art Center to collect materials on folk quyi, and she has since devoted herself to the study, research, collation and dissemination of Guilin Yugu. In recent years she has taken on fourteen disciples in succession, including Peng Chenghong, Deng Weidong, Gu Qing, Zhang Liying and Liao Guangming. Within the documented technical tradition of Guilin Yugu in Guilin, Guangxi: Guilin yugu is a traditional drum-song (gushu) form of quyi performed in speech and song using the Guilin local accent. Guilin yugu is transmitted over a wide area, reaching some forty counties and cities in the four regions of northern, central, north-eastern and north-western Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where Guilin Mandarin is spoken, as well as parts of the counties and townships of Nanning City and Chongzuo City. There are two forms of Guilin yugu performance. The first is “dan tong” (single-drum playing), in which one performer holds the yugu drum in the left hand and beats it with the right, playing and singing unaided; the second is group singing and speaking by two to seven or eight persons, or even more than ten, with the performers taking up different instruments for accompaniment or for joining in the singing. The principal instrument, the yugu drum, is made of nan bamboo about 11 centimetres in diameter and about 2 chi long (a chi being about 33 centimetres); the drum head may be covered with snake skin, frog skin or pig lard skin, and it is used together with jianban clappers, erhu, zhonghu, yueqin, zhongruan, sanxian, dizi, saucers, wine cups and so on. The music of Guilin yugu belongs to the pentatonic scale in the zhi mode, and has a southern route and a northern route; it is a four-sentence single-tune form whose qi-cheng-zhuan-he (rise, carry, turn, close) structure is comparatively simple. The structure is in paired lines, rhyming on every second line and carrying a single rhyme throughout; the melody follows the words, and the final syllable of an upper line must be oblique while that of a lower line must be level. The vocal styles change according to the tone and emotional colouring of the sung words: the northern route expresses a mood that is clear, cheerful, high-pitched and stirring, while the southern route expresses melancholy, low and meditative feeling, sorrow and indignation; using the two different styles of melody, the narrative of the story and the changes in the different emotions of its characters can be expressed more vividly and accurately. The traditional repertoire of Guilin yugu is mainly of medium and long length, and more than fifty works are known, such as Yudai Ji (The Jade Belt) and Lansi Dai (The Blue Ribbon); newly composed programmes number several dozen, among them Erjie Zuomeng (Second Sister's Dream) and Shuishang Zhuafei (Catching the Bandit on the Water). Places of performance mainly include village ancestral halls, market places and the main rooms of farmhouses. Guilin yugu records and corroborates the history of the blending among the Central Plains culture, the Chu culture and the Luoyue culture, depicts the many aspects of human life from many angles and on many levels, and gives people enlightenment and education. Owing to its humorous and witty style full of the flavour of everyday life, it is deeply popular and enriches the cultural life of the people. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Solo and ensemble formats": Its two formats are the solo single-tube performance and ensembles of two to a dozen singers sharing instruments and chorus. "Traditional titles": Traditional titles among over fifty medium and long pieces. "Newly composed pieces": Examples of the several dozen newly composed modern items. "The bamboo drum": The main drum is made from a two-foot length of bamboo about eleven centimetres across, headed with snake, frog or pork skin.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Guilin Yugu, 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. Li Weichen · National Representative Bearer Archive