Zhang Shigen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

At thirteen he studied huagudeng under veteran artists, and from the age of twenty he began to distinguish himself in a number of arts competitions held in Anhui. He successively studied the gujia (drum-frame, male) technique under the veteran artists Wan Fangqi, Zhu Guanxiang and Zhan Leting. He has inherited the characteristics of the Fengtai huagudeng school; his movements are agile and deft, his performance humorous and engaging, and he has created stage characters in a range of styles. Within the regional tradition and school record of Huagudeng in Fengtai, Anhui: The performing styles of huagudeng today fall mainly into three schools: the Yingshang area, whose tempo is relatively slow, with tightly structured dance and an archaic, plain style; the Fengtai area, which emphasises the portrayal of character emotion with delicate and graceful movement; and the Huaiyuan area, with light, brisk and vigorous movement and an easy, dashing bearing. Fengtai huagudeng is popular throughout the Huai River valley and is distributed mainly in Fengtai and the surrounding area. Fengtai huagudeng has a long history, and its development can be divided into four stages: first, the stage from germination to maturity. In Fengtai, huagudeng basically formed its own school characteristics, laying the foundation for further development after the liberation; third, the stage after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when huagudeng entered the halls of refined art and was hailed as a typical representative of Han dance; fourth, the stage after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Party Congress, when huagudeng art received attention and was reborn. Huagudeng art is the rootstock of a number of art varieties in the Huai River basin. Historical records show that the huagudeng originated no later than the Song dynasty. After developing through the Yuan, Ming, Qing and Republican periods, by the 1930s and 1940s it had formed a distribution area centred on Bengbu, Huainan and Fuyang in Anhui, radiating across more than twenty counties and cities in the four provinces of Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu along the middle reaches of the Huai River. Fengtai huagudeng originated in the Song and Yuan periods; by the middle of the Qing dynasty it had already taken shape and begun to mature, was deeply loved by the people and became a folk art circulated far and wide; second, the stage of the late Qing and early Republican period.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He was a man of Han ethnicity, born in October 1943 in Fengtai County, Anhui Province. In particular, in the huagudeng duet Xiao Hua Chang (The Small Flower Field) he has employed and created such techniques as the four-gate empty grasp, the great turn and the sudden about-face, bringing his movement to a pitch of consummate skill. He has long devoted himself to huagudeng performance, popular training and artistic teaching, and has trained several hundred students. Within the documented technical tradition of Huagudeng in Fengtai, Anhui: Huagudeng is a folk dance form of the Han ethnic group that perfectly integrates dance, lantern songs and gong-and-drum music, narrative duets and trios, and expressive collective dances. Huagudeng is most often performed in the villages after the autumn harvest is finished and before the spring ploughing of the following year, reaching its height at temple fairs and spring gatherings. The male role in huagudeng is called the gujiazi (drum-frame performer), and the female role the lanhua (orchid, also called lahua); performances are usually given in open squares. A performance generally comprises four parts — dance, song, back-stage small plays and gong-and-drum playing — with the dance as its main body. The dance in turn includes sections such as the dahuachang (or dachang, great flower ground), the xiaohuachang (or xiaochang, small flower ground) and the pangu (plate drum). The dachang is a collective expression dance performed by several to a dozen or more people. The xiaochang is a duet or trio dance mainly depicting young men and women courting, playing and frolicking together; it comprises both set formulaic performance and improvised performance, with simple plots and character dances such as Snatching the Handkerchief (Qiang Shoujin) and Snatching the Bench (Qiang Bandeng), and it is the core of huagudeng dance. The pangu is a performance form that combines dance, martial arts and acrobatics while also possessing the features of plastic art. Back-stage small plays are miniature song-and-dance dramas combining singing and dancing, such as The Fourth Master Riding a Single-Shafted Sedan Chair, Pushing the Cart and The Little Peddler. The formation and development of Fengtai huagudeng benefited from favourable natural conditions and a good humanistic environment. Fengtai was anciently called Zhoulai and is also known as Xia Cai; it lies in the middle reaches of the Huai River, with convenient transport, abundant products and simple, honest folk customs. The emergence of Fengtai huagudeng is an important page in the history of Chinese folk song-and-dance art, and the concentrated embodiment of Huai River culture in the sphere of dance. Fengtai huagudeng has more than four hundred movement terms and over fifty basic steps, stresses the coordination of male and female roles, is intent on the depiction of emotion, and has delicate movement and varied fan figures. Huagudeng dance movements are rich in content; the typical movement the three bends (san diao wan, or three curves, san dao wan) emphasises the twisting of the waist, and is a full expression in huagudeng of the "S" shape, an important feature of Eastern dance. Huai opera, Huaibei flower-drum opera, Sizhou opera and the Fengyang flower drum all developed out of huagudeng. Fengtai huagudeng has influenced and enriched the folk dance and folk art north of the Huai River. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The three-bend stance": The most recognisable movement of Fengtai huagudeng, stressing waist torsion and embodying the S-curve posture of eastern dance, with delicate action and varied fan flowers. "The single-thread tune": In 1939 Chen Jingzhi and two colleagues fused the string-lamp style of Yingshang and Huoqiu with Fengtai huagudeng, producing a mellifluous new tune known as the single-thread melody. "Trembling, bouncing and shaking: the signature steps of Chen Jingzhi": Chen Jingzhi's orchid-role carriage and steps, light and lovely with richly varied fan and handkerchief flowers; folk rhymes celebrated his appeal, and his works include Spring Outing and Snatching the Bench. "The province's foremost small flower field": Deng Hong created the great tremble step, the bouncing tremble and the butterfly flight in the duet Small Flower Field, which experts hailed as Anhui's foremost version.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Huagudeng (Fengtai Huagudeng), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1986, Xiao Hua Chang, which he co-choreographed and performed with Deng Hong, a national representative bearer of Fengtai huagudeng, won third prize for choreography and third prize for performance at the National Folk Music and Dance Competition.

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. Zhang Shigen · National Representative Bearer Archive