Yangge Opera
01 · Historical Records
In the Zhengtong reign of the Ming, yangge transmitted orally by folk artists began to spread across the Jinzhong plain. By the Daoguang reign of the Qing, Qi county already had such yangge troupes as Tongle She, Qitai Xile Ban and Qitai Dewei She. Afterwards the artists gradually blended dance, martial arts and various skills into yangge, developing “ground yangge” and “street yangge”, and further drew on the content and forms of folk art from elsewhere, so that yangge evolved from street singing into a local short opera with more than three hundred plays. Drawing on the Shanxi volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu, yangge was already current on the Jinzhong plain in the Zhengtong reign of the Ming and by the Daoguang reign Qi county had such troupes; its distribution centred on Qi county and Taigu and reached more than ten surrounding counties and districts including Wenshui and Jiaocheng.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Qitai yangge is a local short opera circulating among the people of Shanxi; it began as a folk ditty sung by farmers during their work, traceable to the Tang and Song. In this process a Qitai yangge distribution area formed, centred on Qi county and Taigu and reaching more than ten surrounding counties and districts including Wenshui and Jiaocheng. It combines music, dance, singing, recitation, acting and martial yangge, taking the life stories of the farmers of Qi county, Taigu and Jinzhong as its subject, with fine and pleasing tunes, lively language, plain and rough performance and a strong flavour of life and local character, much loved by audiences in its areas and of some research value for Jinzhong folklore and the emergence of opera. Its traditional subjects are mostly drawn from rural daily life and family ethics, its lyrics strongly improvisatory, and artists often compose and sing at any time according to what they see and hear—one reason its repertory keeps growing.
Chu Tian (Hoeing the Field)
A traditional Qitai yangge short play fully inherited and developed by the inheritor Miao Gensheng, once famous across the three prefectures and seven counties of central Shanxi.
Mai Ronghua (Selling Velvet Flowers)
A traditional Qitai yangge play drawn from village market life.
Da Tiaocai (Picking Greens)
A traditional domestic sketch of Qitai yangge, a piece the inheritor Sun Guiming is skilled in.
Tou Nangua (Stealing Pumpkins)
A traditional chou-role sketch of Qitai yangge with a strong flavour of rural life.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Qitai yangge centres on Qi county and Taigu and reaches Wenshui, Jiaocheng, Pingyao, Jiexiu and more than ten surrounding counties and districts; local differences of dialect and custom give slight variations in tune and performance, together forming the Jinzhong yangge distribution area.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera · Yangge Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Miao Gensheng (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): through his deep experience of rural life and his simple pursuit of “how to sing it better”, he fully inherited and further developed the folk short play Chu Tian, which the Guluancun villagers never passed outside, reaching an artistic height others could hardly match. In barely more than ten years of diligent study he made Chu Tian famous across the three prefectures and seven counties of central Shanxi, so that while “Songshushu” lived none dared to sing it again, and an old saying in the Qitai area ran “better to fall and die at the fair than miss Songshushu's weeping song”. Male, Han, born in September 1922, died in February 2012, a native of Qi county, Shanxi; a representative inheritor of yangge opera (Qitai yangge) in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. Qitai yangge preserves more than three hundred plays and a wealth of folk tunes and is an important sample for studying Jinzhong custom and the formation of local short opera; relying on the cultural centre, the locality sustains the genre through troupe performance, opera-in-schools and training young actors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Liu Qiaoju 02-0601
- Wu Niancheng 02-0602
- Zhang Zhanyuan 02-0603
- Zhang Yuanye 02-0604
- Zhang Fu 03-1060
- Zhang Runlai 03-1061
- Miao Gensheng 03-1062
- Bai Meiyun 03-1063
- Ren Senkui 03-1064
- Wu Yumei 04-1650
- Yang Shengxiang 04-1651
- Wang Zhilan 05-2381
- Sun Guiming 05-2382
- Li Yingying 05-2383
- Qu Dengmei
- Zhang Fenran
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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