Errentai
01 · Historical Records
Errentai originated in Tumd Right Banner, Baotou city, Inner Mongolia; it is a local opera combining folk song, dance, quyi, paizi qu and drama, spread across the banner's five towns and three townships. In the Daoguang and Xianfeng reigns of the Qing, population was dense and arable land scarce while the Salachi sub-prefecture had large areas lying waste, so peasants and craftsmen from the areas neighbouring the Tumd grasslands in Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei migrated northwards and settled spontaneously; central-plains farming culture and steppe nomadic culture thus blended widely in Tumd Right Banner, creating the conditions for errentai. In the Guangxu reign of the Qing errentai took shape in the Salachi sub-prefecture (today's Tumd Right Banner), its founder being the Mongol Yun Shuangyang, born and teaching there.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tumd Right Banner has long been called the “errentai opera den”; it lies against the Yin mountains to the north and the Yellow River to the south, with Shanxi to the east, Shaanxi to the south and Hebei to the north-east, a multi-ethnic area with Mongols as the principal group. On the basis of Mongol–Han folk songs and the quyi xiansuo sitting-singing, errentai absorbed Han dance from folk shehuo and created a dramatic form centred on one chou and one dan with singing, acting, recitation and dance, named “Mongol tune”. It was at first popularly called “playing the playthings” and later generally “errentai”. Tumd Right Banner has a distinctive singing form, “wind stirring snow”, in which Mongol and Chinese are interwoven. Over more than 150 years it gradually spread to central and western Inner Mongolia and to Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei, being a product of the mutual blending and long collision of central-plains farming culture and steppe nomadic culture. Errentai divides into hard-code plays, whip plays and antiphonal singing. Traditional forms of performance include stage performance and earth-stage performance. Its instruments include the “mei” flute, sihu, yangqin, bangzi and sikuaiwa. Its singing includes bright tune, slow ban, flowing ban and pinzi ban. The chou has a three-flower face and the dan paints her brows and wears flowers. Its props include handkerchiefs, fans, the overlord whip and the balancing porcelain plate. Its traditional repertory mainly depicts production, life and love. Its works are plain and much loved. Tumd Right Banner's errentai singing is melodious and high, its music archaic with Mongolian elements, its dialect recitation vivid and pungent with rhymes, proverbs and slang, and its plots short and lively with a strong flavour of life. In technique it has both the vast, rough style of the steppe and the blunt, uninhibited style of the north, forming a plural, coexisting character. The history of errentai's formation is closely bound up with the “journey beyond the western pass” migration.
Zou Xikou (Journey Beyond the Western Pass)
A representative errentai play drawn directly from the history and life of the “journey beyond the western pass” migration.
Gua Hong Deng (Hanging the Red Lantern)
A traditional errentai sketch often staged at festivals, full of song and dance and of lively atmosphere.
Da Yingtao (Beating the Cherries)
A traditional errentai life sketch depicting the love and working life of young men and women.
Wu Ge Fang Yang (Fifth Brother Tends Sheep)
A traditional errentai piece widely circulated in central and western Inner Mongolia and in Shanxi and Shaanxi.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tumd Right Banner lies against the Yin mountains to the north and the Yellow River to the south and adjoins Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei, a multi-ethnic area with Mongols as the principal group, known as the “errentai opera den”; the banner's errentai is characterised by “wind stirring snow”, in which Mongol and Chinese are interwoven in performance.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Errentai · Errentai · Errentai · Errentai · Errentai.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present the project is transmitted mainly through master-disciple and educational means and through relevant training and performances by folk and professional troupes. The banner now has one professional troupe, more than two hundred folk troupes and 146 cultural courtyards giving regular performances. In continuing tradition and developing further, errentai has absorbed and integrated the essence of Mongol and Han culture, its lyrics mostly folk poetry using comparison and allusion with rhythmically varied folk rhyme; it is a folk cultural form much loved by the local multi-ethnic people and has relatively high historical and cultural value, with the social function of promoting the true, the good and the beautiful, enhancing ethnic unity and transmitting ethnic and folk culture. Errentai's formation in Tumd Right Banner is closely bound up with the “journey beyond the western pass” migration, and the long cooperation of Mongol and Han artists has made it a cultural form shared by many ethnic groups with the social function of enhancing ethnic unity.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Feng Laisuo 02-0611
- Shi Wanfu 02-0612
- Feng Juncai 02-0613
- Wu Liping 03-1065
- Du Huanrong 03-1066
- Jia Deyi 03-1067
- Danwenzhen 03-1068
- Xu Yueying 04-1654
- Huo Banzhu 04-1655
- Gaolemei 05-2387
- Zhang Meilan
- Hao Yunjing
- Duan Bawang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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