Puzhoubangzi

01 · Historical Records

Puzhou bangzi took shape at Puzhou, on the borderland where Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan meet, in the late Ming and early Qing, and it circulates mainly in southern Shanxi and in parts of Shaanxi, Henan, Gansu and Qinghai. It is one of the ancient bangzi qiang (clapper-tune) genres of China. The common people called it luantan or bangzi qiang in its early days; it was called Shanshan bangzi (Shanxi-Shaanxi bangzi) in the middle of the Qing dynasty and Puzhou bangzi in the early years of the Republic; from the 1930s onward it has been abbreviated to Puju. Puzhou bangzi has a large repertoire: more than fourteen hundred plays are known at present, and among them Dou E Yuan (The Injustice to Dou E), Xue Gang Fan Chao (Xue Gang's Revolt Against the Court), Lin Gu Chuang (The Qilin Bone Bed), Sha Yi (Killing at the Courier Station) and Gua Hua (Hanging the Scroll Painting) have exercised the greater influence.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The singing of Puzhou bangzi is based above all on the bangzi qiang, together with kunqu, the chui qiang (blowing-tune) styles and folk ditties. The bangzi qiang belongs to the banqiang (metrical) system; it has seven basic ban patterns, and in addition more than three hundred suona tune patterns and silk-string tune patterns. The vocal character of Puzhou bangzi is that its tunes are high and its beats quick, its contours rise and fall in wide surges, and it is adept at expressing emotions that are stirring and impassioned. In singing the actors use both the chest and the head register, and leaps of more than a tenth or of two whole octaves often occur; the melodic line is soaring, bold and uninhibited, and full of passion. The accompanying band is divided into a civil section and a martial section. The civil section is led by the banhu and supported by the flute, the two-string fiddle, the sanxian, the erhu and the like; the martial section uses the ban drum, the jujube clapper, the horse gong, nao and cymbals and the like, and its gong-and-drum formulas (luogu jing) are very rich. The roles of Puzhou bangzi are divided into xusheng (bearded male), laosheng (older male), xiaosheng (young male), zhengdan (principal female), xiaodan (young female), laodan (older female), dahu lian (great painted face), erhualian (second painted face), sanhualian (third painted face) and other role types. Its art of performance has a long history and a deep tradition; its most striking features are fire and abandon, vigour and generosity, ease and brightness, and reserve and delicacy; it lays weight on worked detail and is skilled in using special techniques to characterise its figures. It has many performance techniques of high difficulty and striking visual appeal — stunt specialities alone number more than thirty — and its mao chi gong (hat-wing work), ran kou gong (beard work), ling zi gong (pheasant-feather work), shao zi gong (short-weapon work), bian zi gong (whip work), yi zi gong (chair work), shan zi gong (fan work), shua zhi fan (paper-pennon display) and cai gong (coloured-silk work) are renowned throughout the country. Under the impact of the commercial tide Puzhou bangzi has fallen into crisis: audiences have drained away in large numbers and the ranks of actors are left with a gap between the old and the young. This situation needs to be reversed as quickly as possible.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Puzhou bangzi took shape at Puzhou, on the borderland where Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan meet, and it circulates mainly in southern Shanxi and in parts of Shaanxi, Henan, Gansu and Qinghai. It is centred on the two cities of Linfen and Yuncheng; the Linfen Puju Theatre and the troupes on the Yuncheng side are separately responsible for the collecting and the performance of plays of different lines, among them a large number of traditional extracted plays (zhezi xi) that win their effects through special techniques such as mao chi gong (hat-wing work), ran kou gong (beard work), ling zi gong (pheasant-feather work) and yi zi gong (chair work).

Other submitting regions for the same item: Puzhoubangzi.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Within the family of bangzi qiang genres, Puzhou bangzi is the earliest of the four great bangzi of Shanxi to come into being. It stands in a relationship of shared origins with Shaanxi bangzi, it is living material for tracing the lines of transmission and change of Chinese local opera, and it can also play an important part in the study of Shanxi local culture. Zhang Feng (as recorded in the official archival record of an associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1925, a native of Linyi, Shanxi. Zhang Feng has worked in Puju music since the early 1950s; he was the first Puju musician to set down in numbered notation the Puju vocal styles, which had been passed on only by word of mouth and from heart to heart by the old artists. His representative works in Puju music include Li Shuangshuang, Yanyan and Dou E Yuan (The Injustice to Dou E), and he has published a number of research works, among them Puju Music and A Collection of Puju Vocal Styles. Representative inheritor of Puzhou bangzi under the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects, and a national first-class composer. For many years Zhang Feng served as composer at the Linfen Puju Theatre of Shanxi Province, and he has handed on Puju music both by collaboration and by taking apprentices, training many composers and performers in Puju music. Ren Genxin (as recorded in the official archival record of an associated inheritor): Female, of Han ethnicity, born in 1963, a native of Xiangfen, Shanxi. Ren Genxin was admitted to the opera performance major of the Linfen City School of Culture and Art in 1974, specialising in the dan role; she took over the performance style and the repertoire of the “Wang school” of the late noted Puju dan actress Wang Cuncai, her performance training is deep and solid, and she has inherited and mastered a great many traditional Puju classics. In 1979 she joined the Experimental Puju Troupe of the Linfen Puju Theatre. Over years of stage practice she has continually surpassed herself and brought modern aesthetic taste into the shaping of characters; her singing is naturally plain and unaffected and her performance is delicate and deep. Representative works include Gua Hua (Hanging the Scroll Painting), Shi Yu Zhuo (Picking up the Jade Bracelet), Biao Hua (Performing the Flower Dance), Kao Huo (Warming by the Fire), Da Shen Gao Miao (Beating the God and Praying at the Shrine) and The Woman on the Kang. Representative inheritor of Puzhou bangzi under the second national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects; Party secretary and director of the Linfen Puju Theatre of Shanxi Province, a first-class actor, and a winner of the second China Drama Plum Blossom Award.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Zhang Feng 02-0467
• Ren Genxin 02-0468
• Guo Zemin 02-0469
• Wu Junying 02-0470
• Wang Xiulan 02-0471
• Kang Xisheng 04-1603
• Jing Xuebian 04-1604
• Wang Yihua 04-1605

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Puzhoubangzi (Linfen, Shanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhang Feng · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Ren Genxin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗