Yueju (Cantonese Opera)

01 · Historical Records

Yueju (Cantonese opera) is a local traditional drama performed in the Cantonese dialect of Guangdong Province. It began at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing, is popular throughout the two Guangs (Guangdong and Guangxi), in Hong Kong and Macao and in Southeast Asia, and is commonly called “Guangban xi”, or “Hongchuan ban” (the Red Boat troupe), or “Guangfu daxi”. Characteristic plays include Nansong Guhong (The Lone Goose of the Southern Song), Biwu Paichang (The Martial Display), Shuangxiong Naodian (Two Heroes Storming the Hall), Caomang Yingfeng (Heroic Spirit of the Wilds) and Lihua Jiehouxiang (Pear Blossoms Fragrant After the Calamity).

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The plays performed, the vocal styles, the qupai and the gong-and-drum instruments are basically the same in every locality, but the performance conventions, the staged displays and the martial techniques each have their own character: the Upper Six Prefectures excel in the civil stage of singing and acting, while the Lower Four Prefectures are skilled in martial combat. The Wuchuan County Gazetteer records: “In the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty... trade in Huangpo and Meilu grew immensely prosperous, and whenever the Lantern Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Double Ninth Festival or any of the many temple fairs came round, lanterns were hung and performances were staged to give thanks to the gods. ” The performance art of Wuchuan Yueju is plain and robust, valiant and fiery. Its vocal styles both inherit the old rule of banghuang as the mainstay with labelled tunes and small melodies as an adjunct, and newly create ban-tunes such as “zhongban diaoban” and “liushui”. Its metrical music stresses the large gong, the large cymbals and the suona, and the sound is high, resonant and impassioned. The martial arts and acting of Wuchuan Yueju fuse Shaolin Chan boxing and combat with the physical performance of opera into a single art, forming a school of its own; its technique is superb and it is highly praised by audiences. The martial skills include banbian yue (half-moon), zhuangjiao (charging kick), puhu (pouncing on the tiger), chuanmao, bomi (casting the rice), chelun (cartwheel), xiaofan (small somersault), dafan (great somersault), yingfan (eagle somersault), shefan (snake somersault), chaifan (woodpile somersault), yunlifan (somersault amid the clouds), xuankongfan (spinning somersault), chuchang (entrance leap), a 360-degree pivot, xuanzi (spinning dive), cekongfan (side somersault) and gaotai kongfan (somersault from the high platform). The weapon routines include shizi, peijian (worn sword), goude, dandao qiang (single sabre and spear), dadao qiang (great sabre and spear), shuangqiang (twin spears), tuoshou (released hands), tiqiang (kicking spear), shouqiao (hand bridge), badachuizi (the eight great hammers), shibagun (the eighteen staves), sanxinggun (the three-star staves), liuxingchui (the meteor hammer), feibiao (throwing darts), shuangchai (the paired strikes), zhiquan (straight fist), niujiaoquan (the ox-horn fist) and tiaosixing (the four-star lift). The special feats include sanshangdiao (the three hangings), sanfa (loosening the hair), shuafa (flinging the hair), penhuo (spitting fire), tuxue (spitting blood), jiangshi (the rigid corpse), chantai (scooping the platform), tiaoyi (jumping the chair), diaobian (hanging the braid), shuazhuya (playing the pig tusks), caibao (trampling the pot), dazhenjun (striking the real troops), wandu (playing the belly), liudashuo (sliding down the great rope), shuangzhaojing (the double mirror) and guosanshan (crossing the three mountains). The staging movements include lashan (pulling the mountain), yuantai (the circling platform), zhajia (the palanquin), yunshou (cloud hand), fanshen (turning the body), zoubian (walking sideways), shanzigong (fan work), lingzigong (pheasant-feather work), kuichigong (helmet-wing work), shaixiugong (water-sleeve work), xukougong (beard and mouth work), shuibolang (water waves), luobianhua (gong-edge flowers), tiaodajia (leaping the great frame), luosanjia (the umbrella frame), qixianjia (the frame of the seven immortals), shiba luohan jia (the frame of the eighteen arhats) and taxiqixing (treading the seven stars).

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

By region it is further divided into the Upper Six Prefectures and the Lower Four Prefectures. Yueju in the Wuchuan area belongs to the school of Yueju that is popular in the Lower Four Prefectures of Gao, Lei, Lian and Qiong in the south-west of Guangdong Province; it now circulates mainly in Wuchuan City, Lianjiang City, Suixi County and other places.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Yueju (Cantonese Opera) · Yueju (Cantonese Opera) · Yueju (Cantonese Opera) · Yueju (Cantonese Opera) · Yueju (Cantonese Opera) · Yueju (Cantonese Opera).

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Wuchuan Yueju is an important part of Yueju, integrating and merging such plural cultures as drama and Chan martial arts. It has both the general characteristics of Yueju and its own local features; it is a traditional artistic form of which the local people are fond, it is closely bound up with their production and living customs, and it has high artistic and cultural value together with a certain research value for history, locality and the martial art of opera. It also has an academic reference value that cannot be ignored in the study of the origins of Yueju, religious belief, performance conventions and martial skills, and schools of performance. Lin Guoguang (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in December 1939, a native of Wuchuan County, Guangdong Province. A national second-class actor. In 1962 he became a wenwusheng in the Wuchuan Yueju Theatre, starring in and directing such Yueju works as Caomang Yingfeng (Heroic Spirit of the Wilds) and Shuangxiong Naodian (Two Heroes Storming the Hall). He attached importance to the excavation and collation of the southern school of Yueju art, and organised seminars and performances of southern-school Yueju art in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Singapore, with a very wide influence; he is a banner of the southern school of Yueju art. Representative inheritor of Yueju in the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects. After retirement he has continued to work on the direction of Yueju plays and on the training of inheritors; Zheng Yongjian, the provincial-level representative inheritor whom he trained, and a number of his disciples now each stand on their own in the various art troupes.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Chen Jiansheng 02-0528
• Hongxiannv 02-0529
• Luo Jiabao 04-1635
• Ding Fan 05-2344
• Ou Xiaohu 05-2345
• Lin Guoguang 05-2346
• Feng Xingyuan 05-2347
• Li Shuqin
• Liang Sumei
• Cengxiaomin

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yueju (Cantonese Opera) (Wuchuan, Guangdong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Lin Guoguang · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗