Wanwanqiang
01 · Historical Records
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women. Chunqiu Pei (The Spring and Autumn Marriage) was transplanted into Peking opera by the master Mei Lanfang in 1911, and Wanfulian (The Lotus of Ten Thousand Blessings) was adapted by the dramatist Tian Han into the Peking opera Xie Yaohuan; both have remained in the repertory down to the present. According to the Shaanxi Province Annals of Culture and Art, wanwan qiang took shape during the Qianlong reign of the Qing (1736—1795) and was used at first mainly for shadow puppetry. In the late Qing and early Republic period the eastern road had no fewer than one hundred wanwan qiang performers. In the 1950s, living performers replaced the shadow figures while continuing to sing in the wanwan qiang style, and the genre became an operatic form that the people of Shaanxi were glad to hear and see.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Wanwan qiang is one of the important local genres of Shaanxi Province; it is called “Shaanxi wanwan qiang” because its principal accompanying instrument is a small bronze bowl. It circulates mainly in Weinan and in Xi'an, Huxian, Suide, Mizhi, Yangxian and Xixiang in Shaanxi, and is also found in the neighbouring Xiaoyi in Shanxi, in Lingbao, Shanxian and Lushi in Henan, and in Lanzhou in Gansu. Wanwan qiang is divided in Shaanxi into four roads, east, west, south and north; that of the eastern fu of Shaanxi, that is, of Linwei district and Dali county in today’s Weinan city, is called “eastern-road wanwan qiang” and is the more representative. Weinan wanwan qiang belongs to the banqiang variable type. Its principal ban forms include manban, eastern-road ban, manjin ban, jinban, feiban and erba ban, and its characteristic vocal styles number more than ten, such as cai qiang and die qiang. It is led mainly by the yueqin and the bronze bowl, accompanied by the banhu and the yingxian (the two-string fiddle), and stresses the soft and the sliding stroke; the three chief instruments—the yueqin, the banhu and the yingxian—must be matched with precision and harmony. Its musical style is delicate, supple and lingering, and among the people it is said that “first comes the clear style (quzi), second the erhuang (Han-tune erhuang), third the Qin qiang; in delicacy none surpasses wanwan qiang”. Weinan wanwan qiang makes skilful use of the sheng, dan, jing and chou role types to express the complex joy, anger, sorrow and happiness of different characters. The xiaosheng, xiaodan and qingyi use the true voice and the falsetto together, singing most of their words in the true voice and drawing out the long cadential phrases mostly in falsetto; the laosheng, xusheng, laodan and clown roles use the true voice throughout; and the painted-face roles use the jing voice. Its scales fall into two kinds, the seven-tone bitter-tone scale and the seven-tone joyful-tone scale. Its singing is mainly in the zhi mode. The Shaanxi Repertoire Studio has excavated and copied 909 traditional wanwan qiang scripts, of which 461 belong to the eastern road alone.
The Flaming Colts
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
The Second Bloom of the Plum
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
The Golden Hairpin
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
Bond of War
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
Du Shiniang
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
The Woman Circuit Inspector
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
Yang Guifei
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
Chaoyang Gully
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
Liu Hulan
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
The Red Detachment of Women
Its traditional representative repertory includes The Flaming Colts, The Second Bloom of the Plum, The Golden Hairpin, Bond of War and Du Shiniang; newly composed historical plays include The Woman Circuit Inspector and Yang Guifei; and large-scale modern plays include Chaoyang Gully, Liu Hulan and The Red Detachment of Women.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Weinan wanwan qiang has a long and unbroken history, is rooted in the folk and grew up among the people. It is deeply loved by local people and marked by a strong local character, forming an important part of local weddings and funerals, temple fairs and festival celebrations. It is the crystallisation of the collective wisdom of playwrights, opera musicians and performing artists, and it expresses the spirit-and-feeling aesthetic of traditional Chinese culture, which gives it considerable social and cultural value.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Wanwanqiang · Wanwanqiang.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Weinan wanwan qiang is handed down mainly through the performance practice of professional and amateur troupes, passed on in the master-disciple line; village-level cultural service centres have amateur teams, and communities in the urban districts rehearse and perform all year round, so its condition of survival is fairly good.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Jianqin 02-0552
- Tian Xuesi 02-0553
- Liu Baoping
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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