Zhang Aizhen
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Female, Han ethnicity, born in May 1959 in Gaoping County, Shanxi Province. She is a National First-Class Actor and an expert receiving the special government allowance of the State Council. Influenced by her father from childhood, she developed a love for the art of Shangdang Bangzi. In 1972 she entered the Gaoping County youth arts training class to study opera, and on graduating was assigned to the Gaoping County Youth Shangdang Bangzi Troupe. In 1979 she became a disciple of Wu Wanzhi, a celebrated dan performer of Shangdang Bangzi. Building on the inheritance of Wu-school singing and of traditional vocal art while drawing widely on the strengths of others, she reformed a style that had been excessively high and vehement while lacking in tender lyricism, creating a distinctive art of dan singing known as the Aizhen mode. Her representative works include Sha Qi (Killing the Wife), Liang Di Jia Shu (Letters from Two Places), Madame Chai, Pi Xiuying Fights the Tiger, Qin Xianglian and She Saihua of the Northern Frontier, as well as the modern operas Lu Hun (Soul of the Road) and Zou Chu Da Shan (Leaving the Mountains).
Honors & Recognition
National representative bearer of Shangdang Bangzi, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Her performing activities have taken her throughout the country, and she has several dozen personal disciples, among them winners of the Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre and of the Xinghua Award, the Shanxi provincial government prize for culture and art.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
- Shangdangbangzi Ⅳ-21
- Shangdangbangzi Ⅳ-21
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。