Lin Ying

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1960 Lin Ying was admitted to the Fujian Provincial Experimental Minju Troupe and has worked in Minju opera ever since, for nearly fifty years. She studied in turn under the Minju masters Huang Yinwu (guimen dan), Chen Ping (huadan), Zheng Yizou (qingyi) and Liu Xiaoqin (huadan), assimilating all of them to form the Lin school of performance, which unites what is called the bone of the guimen role, the flesh of the huadan, the shadow of the qingyi and the colour of the caidan. Within the regional tradition and school record of Minju Opera in Fuzhou, Fujian: Minju Opera is also called Fuzhou opera. It is the only surviving opera genre in which both singing and spoken delivery are performed in the Fuzhou dialect. It is popular in central, eastern and northern Fujian and has spread to Taiwan and to Southeast Asia. In the late Ming period the Yiyang tune entered central Fujian, where it gradually merged with local dialect tunes and took shape as the jianghu diao (jianghu tune). Troupes performing the jianghu diao — the jianghu troupes — then appeared, together with the pingjiang troupes, whose principal vocal style was the jianghu tune sung in canon. In the late Qing period the pingjiang troupes, the laolao troupes that performed imported vocal styles such as the Kun tune and Hui tune, and the Rulin troupes that performed Rulin drama in Fuzhou merged together, and Minju Opera finally took shape. Minju Opera has more than one thousand traditional plays, most of which draw on folk legends, historical romances and ancient chuanqi or zaju. Some descend from the Rulin troupes, some from the jianghu troupes, some from the pingjiang troupes, and others were inherited from the Hui troupes. Representative plays commonly performed include Lian Yin (Refining the Seal), Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches, The Purple Jade Hairpin, The Woman Carrying Remains, Kaifeng Prefecture, The Pearl Tower, Chronicle of Chu Wen, Zhao Jie Made a Bride, Meng Jiangnü, Qin Xianglian, Du Shiniang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, The Lotus Boat of Ten Thousand Flowers, Qiu Liyu and Autumn Orchid Delivers the Meal.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Born in 1950 in Fuzhou, Fujian, Lin Ying is of Han ethnicity. Her acting is sharply defined and delicate, pretty and expressive; her singing is full-bodied and bright, matching sound to feeling; her spoken dialogue is clear and emotionally charged and carries a strong flavour of the Fuzhou dialect. Her representative works include Chai Tou Feng (The Hairpin and the Phoenix), Qin Xianglian, Zhuo Wenjun, Huang Tang Fen (Resentment in the Magistrate's Hall) and Wang Lianlian Bai Xiang (Wang Lianlian's Pilgrimage). Within the documented technical tradition of Minju Opera in Fuzhou, Fujian: After the 1911 Revolution Minju Opera entered a flourishing period, with many troupes and a host of outstanding performers appearing, including the 'Four Great Dan Stars' Zheng Yizou, Zeng Yuanfan, Xue Liangfan and Ma Difan, of whom Zheng Yizou was known as the 'Mei Lanfang of Minju'. The musical vocal styles of Minju Opera are made up of the yangge, the jianghu diao, the douqiang and the xiao diao. In singing, both men and women use their natural voice; the leading characteristics are a loud, stirring and unadorned ruggedness, without any lack of the delicate and gentle. Singing in Minju Opera pursues plainness and naturalness and clean, brisk delivery, while also paying attention to the proper use of alternating resonance in the throat cavity, the nasal cavity, the abdominal cavity and the chest cavity in order to enhance the effect. Most of Minju Opera's tune patterns evolved from the Yiyang tune, the Siping tune, the Hui tune and Kunqu. A good many of its vocal styles still preserve the characteristics of the Yiyang tune and make use of bangjiang (chorus help-singing) and 'jiarun' (interpolated gun diao). The principal accompanying instruments are the horizontal flute, the suona, the leading wind instrument, the erhu, the yehu (coconut-shell fiddle), the qing drum, the war drum, and big and small gongs. In its early period Minju Opera had only the three role types of sheng (male), dan (female) and chou (clown). It later absorbed the role-type system of the Hui troupes and the Beijing opera troupes, and gradually developed the 'twelve role types' of xiaosheng (young male), laosheng (older male), wusheng (martial male), qingyi (virtuous woman), huadan (flirtatious woman), laodan (older woman), dahua (great painted face), erhua (second painted face), sanhua (comic painted face), tie (auxiliary role), mo and za (miscellaneous). In performance, actors lay stress on the basic formulaic use of hand, eye, body, method and step, striving to display graceful carriage and to embody a character's inner world through outward form. Minju Opera ranks first among the five major opera genres of Fujian and has a history of more than four hundred years to the present. In research into the history of changes in the vocal styles of Chinese opera and into the development of Fuzhou local culture, it is an important link that cannot be ignored. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Lian Yin: Refining the Seal": Minju Opera has more than one thousand traditional plays, most of which draw on folk legends, historical romances and ancient chuanqi or zaju. Some descend from the Rulin troupes, some from the jianghu troupes, some from the pingjiang troupes, and others were inherited from the Hui troupes. Representative plays commonly performed include Lian Yin (Refining the Seal), Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches, The Purple Jade Hairpin, The Woman Carrying Remains, Kaifeng Prefecture, The Pearl Tower, Chronicle of Chu Wen, Zhao Jie Made a Bride, Meng Jiangnü, Qin Xianglian, Du Shiniang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, The Lotus Boat of Ten Thousand Flowers, Qiu Liyu and Autumn Orchid Delivers the Meal. "Lizhi Huan Jiangtao: Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches": Minju Opera has more than one thousand traditional plays, most of which draw on folk legends, historical romances and ancient chuanqi or zaju. Some descend from the Rulin troupes, some from the jianghu troupes, some from the pingjiang troupes, and others were inherited from the Hui troupes. Representative plays commonly performed include Lian Yin (Refining the Seal), Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches, The Purple Jade Hairpin, The Woman Carrying Remains, Kaifeng Prefecture, The Pearl Tower, Chronicle of Chu Wen, Zhao Jie Made a Bride, Meng Jiangnü, Qin Xianglian, Du Shiniang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, The Lotus Boat of Ten Thousand Flowers, Qiu Liyu and Autumn Orchid Delivers the Meal. "Ziyu Chai: The Purple Jade Hairpin": Minju Opera has more than one thousand traditional plays, most of which draw on folk legends, historical romances and ancient chuanqi or zaju. Some descend from the Rulin troupes, some from the jianghu troupes, some from the pingjiang troupes, and others were inherited from the Hui troupes. Representative plays commonly performed include Lian Yin (Refining the Seal), Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches, The Purple Jade Hairpin, The Woman Carrying Remains, Kaifeng Prefecture, The Pearl Tower, Chronicle of Chu Wen, Zhao Jie Made a Bride, Meng Jiangnü, Qin Xianglian, Du Shiniang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, The Lotus Boat of Ten Thousand Flowers, Qiu Liyu and Autumn Orchid Delivers the Meal. "Nü Yunhai: The Woman Carrying Remains": Minju Opera has more than one thousand traditional plays, most of which draw on folk legends, historical romances and ancient chuanqi or zaju. Some descend from the Rulin troupes, some from the jianghu troupes, some from the pingjiang troupes, and others were inherited from the Hui troupes. Representative plays commonly performed include Lian Yin (Refining the Seal), Lychee Exchanged for Red Peaches, The Purple Jade Hairpin, The Woman Carrying Remains, Kaifeng Prefecture, The Pearl Tower, Chronicle of Chu Wen, Zhao Jie Made a Bride, Meng Jiangnü, Qin Xianglian, Du Shiniang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, The Lotus Boat of Ten Thousand Flowers, Qiu Liyu and Autumn Orchid Delivers the Meal.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a representative bearer of Minju Opera, a second-batch national intangible cultural heritage project, director of the Fujian Provincial Experimental Minju Theatre, a first-class actor and a winner of the 22nd China Drama Plum Blossom Award.

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. Lin Ying · National Representative Bearer Archive