Chen Xiuyu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Chen Xiuyu began studying Siping opera in 1952 and studied successively under Chen Yuanxue, Chen Guanwa and Chen Guanqi, specializing in the sheng (male) role. Within the regional tradition and school record of Siping Opera in Pingnan, Fujian: Spoken lines are delivered in a form of “tuguanhua” — a speech variety standing between Putonghua and the local dialect — colloquially called “jiang zhengzi” (speaking the standard words). Siping Opera is also written sìpíngxì or sìpéngxì, the same name appearing in several variant characters. It evolved from Yiyang qiang, one of the four major vocal systems that were in vogue in the middle of the Ming dynasty. It flourished in the Huizhou area (She County, Anhui Province) during the Jiajing era of the Ming, and at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing it was carried into Zhenghe, deep in the mountains of northeastern Fujian; in Yangyuan Township of Zhenghe County and Longtan Township of Pingnan County it has continued down to the present with its historical appearance intact. Siping Opera preserves the vocal art forms of the Ming dynasty rather well, and historians of the theatre have called it a “living fossil of Chinese theatre”.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of Han ethnicity, born in 1945 in Pingnan, Fujian. In years of artistic practice she successfully created a great many xiaosheng (young male) and wusheng (martial male) stage figures and directed a number of widely acclaimed outstanding plays. Her representative works include The Emperor's Chart (Tian Zi Tu) and Meeting by the Well (Jing Bian Hui). Within the documented technical tradition of Siping Opera in Pingnan, Fujian: The traditional repertoire of Siping Opera includes several dozen plays, among them The Hairpin of Jing (Jingchai ji), The White Rabbit (Baitu ji), The Moon Pavilion (Baiyue ting ji), The Killing of the Dog (Shagou ji), The Lute (Pipa ji), Su Qin, The Meeting of Heroes (Yingxiong hui), The Nine-Dragon Pavilion (Jiulong ge), Chen Shimei, The Meeting in the Reed Grove (Lulin hui) and The Eight Trigrams Diagram (Bagua tu). Its vocal styles belong to the gaoqiang (high-tune) system; they are plain and unadorned, fresh and pleasing to the ear, elegant and moving, and the chorus that joins in at the end of a line is sung with drawn-out notes. The Siping Opera scripts that survive mark only strong and weak notes and never the notes of the vocal lines: they are without notation for the melodies but with notation for the modes, and the vocal styles are handed down entirely by word of mouth from one generation to the next. Its role types were already fairly complete by the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty. In performance the sheng (male) roles stress literary refinement, the dan (female) roles call for delicacy, the jing (painted-face) roles emphasise breadth and boldness, and the chou (clown) roles work for the comic, together forming the distinctive performance style of Siping Opera. The physical actions of the roles include leaps (teng), shifts (nuo), rolls (gun) and strikes (da); the actors advance and retreat in step with the slower or quicker beat of the drum, and the hand and foot movements of each role type have their own prescribed verbal formulas. In performance the accompaniment keeps the form in which percussion instruments such as the drum, the cymbals and the ban-gu (the small high-pitched drum used in opera) support the singing while the drum stays in the lead, inheriting the ancient Yiyang qiang tradition that “one voice sounds alone and the multitude answers in harmony”. Because it lies deep in the mountains where conditions are backward, its survival has been exceedingly hard. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The Hairpin of Jing": The traditional repertoire of Siping Opera runs to several dozen plays, including The Hairpin of Jing (Jingchai ji), The White Rabbit (Baitu ji), The Moon Pavilion (Baiyue ting ji), The Killing of the Dog (Shagou ji), The Lute (Pipa ji), Su Qin, The Meeting of Heroes (Yingxiong hui), The Nine-Dragon Pavilion (Jiulong ge), Chen Shimei, The Meeting in the Reed Grove (Lulin hui) and The Eight Trigrams Diagram (Bagua tu). "The White Rabbit": The traditional repertoire of Siping Opera runs to several dozen plays, including The Hairpin of Jing (Jingchai ji), The White Rabbit (Baitu ji), The Moon Pavilion (Baiyue ting ji), The Killing of the Dog (Shagou ji), The Lute (Pipa ji), Su Qin, The Meeting of Heroes (Yingxiong hui), The Nine-Dragon Pavilion (Jiulong ge), Chen Shimei, The Meeting in the Reed Grove (Lulin hui) and The Eight Trigrams Diagram (Bagua tu). "The Moon Pavilion": The traditional repertoire of Siping Opera runs to several dozen plays, including The Hairpin of Jing (Jingchai ji), The White Rabbit (Baitu ji), The Moon Pavilion (Baiyue ting ji), The Killing of the Dog (Shagou ji), The Lute (Pipa ji), Su Qin, The Meeting of Heroes (Yingxiong hui), The Nine-Dragon Pavilion (Jiulong ge), Chen Shimei, The Meeting in the Reed Grove (Lulin hui) and The Eight Trigrams Diagram (Bagua tu). "The Killing of the Dog": The traditional repertoire of Siping Opera runs to several dozen plays, including The Hairpin of Jing (Jingchai ji), The White Rabbit (Baitu ji), The Moon Pavilion (Baiyue ting ji), The Killing of the Dog (Shagou ji), The Lute (Pipa ji), Su Qin, The Meeting of Heroes (Yingxiong hui), The Nine-Dragon Pavilion (Jiulong ge), Chen Shimei, The Meeting in the Reed Grove (Lulin hui) and The Eight Trigrams Diagram (Bagua tu).

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Siping Opera, a second-batch national intangible cultural heritage project; deputy head of the amateur Siping opera troupe of Longtan Village, Pingnan County, Fujian Province.

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. Chen Xiuyu · National Representative Bearer Archive